Acknowledge … bless: See 12.6. The imperative verbs are singular, as are all the second person pronouns in the rest of this chapter. Jerusalem is being addressed through verse 14, and then is spoken of in the third person from verses 15-17 except for one phrase in 16. See the note on verse 16; but see the note on verse 9 for languages where translators must address the inhabitants of Jerusalem rather than the city itself.

For he is good: This wording, the same in New Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation, translates a variant reading found in three manuscripts. Our text has “Acknowledge the Lord in a good way.” The adverb meaning “in a good way” is a very unusual word, and its most likely meaning would be “in a fitting/appropriate way” or “as is fitting.” One manuscript, by the omission of one letter, alters this to “Acknowledge the good,” which uses a common word in an unusual way. It is more likely that the difficult adverb would be changed by scribes to the familiar line from the Psalms, “for he is good,” than the other way around. New Jerusalem Bible provides a good model for translators: “Thank the Lord as he deserves.”

Bless the King of the ages: See verse 6.

Translators should be careful not to give the reader the impression that the Lord in the first line and the King of the ages in the second line are separate beings. One way to avoid this problem is to render the two lines as follows: “Praise the Lord as he deserves; he is the king who rules forever.”

So that his tent may be rebuilt in you in joy: The words so that indicate a logical connection with the first two lines. One way to show this is to say “If you do this he will….” His tent is a poetic term for the temple. “Your Temple” (Good News Translation) expresses the idea of the temple being rebuilt in you. Good News Translation takes the phrase in joy and structures a clause from it: “your people will be happy again.” The problem with this is that it does not quite say what the text says, which is that the rebuilding of the temple itself will be a joyful enterprise. It is not that people will be happy once the temple is rebuilt, as Good News Translation may suggest. Another possible model for this part of the verse is “People will joyfully rebuild your temple.”

Who are captives … who are distressed: These expressions translate two nouns, not verbs, which means the translators have supplied the present tense. We could just as easily understand the verbs to mean “who were captives … who were distressed.” Good News Translation avoids the tense problem here by using nouns, “your exiles … your suffering people.” It is a good solution.

An alternative translation model for this verse is:

• Praise the Lord as he deserves;
he is the king who rules forever.
If you do this you may joyfully rebuild his temple.
May the Lord make all of you captives glad,
and always show his love to those among you who are suffering.

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