Hear, O hear me is no more literal than Good News Translation “Now hear my prayer”; the text says literally “Yes! Yes!” While Gonzáles and Alonso-Schöckel renders it “Sí, sí” (Spanish for “Yes, yes”) and Traduction œcuménique de la Bible “Oui, oui” (French for “Yes, yes”), the English translations prefer some other route. Several, including New Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible, and New Revised Standard Version, have “Please, please,” which works pretty well.

God of my father: Although the Greek word is simply father, the reference is surely to her “ancestor Simeon,” as Good News Translation insists on. Moore feels that the reference is probably to Judith’s own father, who is not a character in the story. But translators should follow Good News Translation. The phrase God of my father, is found word for word in Exo 15.2, so this is yet another reference to the song of Moses. Another way to express this is “You are the God my ancestor Simeon worshiped [or, served].”

God of the inheritance of Israel is “God of the heritage of Israel” in New Revised Standard Version and some other versions. Good News Translation takes this to mean “the God whom Israel has inherited, the God worshiped in Israel,” so it translates “the God in whom Israel trusts.” There is precedent for this in the Old Testament, but more often the inheritance of Israel refers to the land itself. It probably does here. Notice the progression in the divine titles in this verse. From the very specific God of my father they seem to move outward in a broadening circle: My father … the land of Israel … the heaven and earth … the oceans … all creation. In the context inheritance more likely refers to the land than to God since Judith is poised to save her people. She probably means by the phrase, “God of this land that you have given us.”

Creator of the waters: Good News Translation translates well with “creator of the rivers and the seas.”

King of all thy creation may be rendered “ruler over everything you have created.”

Hear my prayer at the end of the verse is a literal translation of the Greek, unlike the Hear, O hear me at the beginning of the verse. Good News Translation effectively joins this plea to the substance of the next verse: “Hear my prayer and let….”

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Judith. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.