know (Japanese honorifics)

Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.

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 to do this is through the usage (or a lack) of an honorific prefix as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. When the referent is God or a person or persons to be greatly honored, the honorific prefix go- (御 or ご) can be used, as in go-zonji (ご存じ), a combination of “know” (zonji) and the honorific prefix go-.

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

Translation commentary on 2 Samuel 7:20

David again refers to himself indirectly as a sign of respect for God, but this is hardly common in most languages. And for a person to use his own name within a direct quotation may actually be misleading. So it will probably be better to translate using the pronoun “I,” as in Good News Translation.

Likewise thy servant is an indirect way to refer to himself, but it will be more natural to use the first person singular object pronoun “me” in many languages.

It is unwise to translate the rhetorical question as a statement like “I cannot say anything more to you…,” since David does, in fact, say quite a bit more in the next several verses. The Hebrew should probably be understood to mean that David could not ask God for anything more, since God had already so richly blessed him. The sense is, therefore, not that David cannot talk any more to God. Anchor Bible suggests that the real meaning may be “What more can David add to you (that is, that you do not already have) to honor your servant?” That is, David may be saying that there is nothing more he could ask God to do for him. Anderson, for example, translates “What more can David ask of you?”

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 .