Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of 1 Kings 8:51:
Kupsabiny: “Do for them that way because they are your people whom you have chosen and you brought them from the country of Egypt when they were experiencing amazing suffering.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “For they are your people whom you brought out from the iron smelting furnace of the land of Egypt.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “For they are your people whom you possess. You have-caused- them -to-come-out of Egipto, the place like a fiery furnace.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “Do not forget that the Israelis are your people; they are your special possession; you brought our ancestors out of Egypt where they were greatly suffering as though they were in a blazing furnace.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
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Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.
One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the usage of an honorific construction where the morpheme are (され) is affixed on the verb as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. This is particularly done with verbs that have God as the agent to show a deep sense of reverence. Here, michibikidas-are-ru (導き出される) or “lead out” is used.
Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed.
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Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or modern English), Tuvan uses a formal vs. informal 2nd person pronoun (a familiar vs. a respectful “you”). Unlike other languages that have this feature, however, the translators of the Tuvan Bible have attempted to be very consistent in using the different forms of address in every case a 2nd person pronoun has to be used in the translation of the biblical text.
As Voinov shows in Pronominal Theology in Translating the Gospels (in: The Bible Translator2002, p. 210ff. ), the choice to use either of the pronouns many times involved theological judgment. While the formal pronoun can signal personal distance or a social/power distance between the speaker and addressee, the informal pronoun can indicate familiarity or social/power equality between speaker and addressee.
In these verses, in which humans address God, the informal, familiar pronoun is used that communicates closeness.
Voinov notes that “in the Tuvan Bible, God is only addressed with the informal pronoun. No exceptions. An interesting thing about this is that I’ve heard new Tuvan believers praying with the formal form to God until they are corrected by other Christians who tell them that God is close to us so we should address him with the informal pronoun. As a result, the informal pronoun is the only one that is used in praying to God among the Tuvan church.”
In Gbaya, “a superior, whether father, uncle, or older brother, mother, aunt, or older sister, president, governor, or chief, is never addressed in the singular unless the speaker intends a deliberate insult. When addressing the superior face to face, the second person plural pronoun ɛ́nɛ́ or ‘you (pl.)’ is used, similar to the French usage of vous.
Accordingly, the translators of the current version of the Gbaya Bible chose to use the plural ɛ́nɛ́ to address God. There are a few exceptions. In Psalms 86:8, 97:9, and 138:1, God is addressed alongside other “gods,” and here the third person pronoun o is used to avoid confusion about who is being addressed. In several New Testament passages (Matthew 21:23, 26:68, 27:40, Mark 11:28, Luke 20:2, 23:37, as well as in Jesus’ interaction with Pilate and Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well) the less courteous form for Jesus is used to indicate ignorance of his position or mocking.” (Source Philip Noss)
In the most recent Manchu translation of 1835 (a revision of an earlier edition from 1822), God is never addressed with a pronoun but with “father” (ama /ᠠᠮᠠ) instead. Chengcheng Liu (in this post on the Cambridge Centre for Chinese Theology blog ) explains: “In Manchu tradition, as in Chinese etiquette, second-person pronouns could be considered disrespectful when speaking to superiors or spiritual beings. Manchu Shamanist prayers avoided si [‘you’] and sini [‘your’] for this very reason. To use them for God would be, in Lipovzoff’s [one of the two translators] words, ‘the most uncouth and indecent way to speak to the Almighty — as if He were a servant or slave.’ There was also a grammatical problem. In Manchu, si and sini could refer to both singular and plural subjects. For a faith that insisted on the singularity of God, this was potentially confusing. By contrast, repeating ama removed any ambiguity.”
This verse slightly interrupts the flow of what Solomon is saying, and for this reason Revised Standard Version and New Revised Standard Version place this verse within parentheses in order to show that it is a parenthetical comment. Solomon continues to refer to his own people as they instead of “we” since the focus is not on Solomon and other Israelites but on the people in general.
Thy heritage: One’s heritage is that which belongs to the person as a birthright or by inheritance. Here the people of Israel are called God’s heritage, as they are also in Deut 9.26, 29 and 32.9. Since thy heritage is parallel in meaning to thy people, Good News Translation does not translate the words thy heritage. But see New Living Translation: “they are your people—your special possession.”
Thou didst bring out of Egypt: This is a common theme in Solomon’s prayers (verses 9, 16, 21, 51, 53).
From the midst of the iron furnace: This is metaphorical language. The suffering of the Israelites in Egypt is compared to the heat produced in an iron furnace used for refining the impurities from metal. Here there is no focus on the removing of impurities but rather on the heat as a symbol of suffering. In some languages it will be advisable to make explicit the fact that this is a kind of comparison. Translators may speak of “Egypt, which was like a blazing furnace.” International Children’s Bible uses a separate sentence to express the comparison as follows: “It was as if you pulled them out of a blazing furnace.” Some translations do not translate the form here but rather express the sense of the metaphor. For the last half of the verse, compare “you brought them out of Egypt, the place of terrible suffering” (Parole de Vie).
Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Kings, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2008. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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