In Gbaya, the notion of “sink under me” is emphasized with gbéyéŋ, an ideophone used to describe something falling to the ground.
Philip Noss (in The Bible Translator 1976, p. 100ff. ) explains: “A descriptive device common to Gbaya oral literature. The ideophone may be identified with onomatopoeia and other sound words frequently seen in French and English comic strips, but in Gbaya and other African languages it comprises a class of words with a very wide range of meaning and usage. They may function verbally, substantively, or in a modifying role similar to adverbs and adjectives. They describe anything that may be experienced: action, sound, color, quality, smell, or emotion. In oral literature they are used not only with great frequency but also with great creativity.”
In Gbaya, the notion of being flat on the ground or falling to the ground is emphasized in the referenced verses with gbéyéŋ, an ideophone that expresses the fact of being flat on the ground, or falling to the ground.
Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of 2 Samuel 22:40:
Kupsabiny: “You gave me strength for fighting, and made me sit on my enemies.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “You have given me strength to fight. and [You] have put my enemies at my feet.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “You gave me, LORD, strength to fight and caused- me -to-win-over my enemies.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “You have given me strength for fighting battles and caused those who were attacking me to fall down, and I trampled on them.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
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.”
The expression gird me with strength means to make strong. In languages where strength is more likely to be taken as referring to sexual virility, it will be possible to translate “you make me able to do great things [in battle].”
My assailants is more literally “those who rise up against me.” Some other ways of saying this are “my adversaries” (Anderson) or simply “my enemies” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh and others). But in some languages a more literal rendering may be the most natural solution: “those [people] who fight against me” or “the men who attack me.”
The verb translated sink means “to cause to bow down, to bend, in defeat and death.” In some languages it is possible to keep the figure of subjection; for example, “you have put my enemies under my feet” or “you have thrown my enemies behind me.” My assailants is parallel with my enemies in verse 41a, and with those who hated me in verse 41b. These are not three different groups but three ways of talking about the same people. This should be made clear in translation.
In verse 41a the Hebrew is literally “my enemies you gave me [their] back.” This is generally taken to refer to the enemies running away during battle. Compare “My enemies you put to flight before me” (New American Bible) and “made my enemies retreat before me” (New Jerusalem Bible). But the noun may mean “the back of the neck,” and so some take it to be a picture of the victor placing his foot on the neck of his defeated enemy, as in Josh 10.24. Revised English Bible, for example, has “you set my foot on my enemies’ necks,” and Anderson says “You have given me the necks of my enemies.” Translators may follow either interpretation. That in New American Bible is more widely followed than that of Revised English Bible, but if the second half of verse 41 is parallel in meaning to the first part of the verse, then the second interpretation (Revised English Bible) may be preferred.
The verb destroyed at the end of verse 41 is a translation of “to silence,” that is, by killing.
Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on the First and Second Books of Samuel, Volume 2. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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