Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Isaiah 25:2:
Kupsabiny: “You made cities become a dunghill and guarded cities became deserted. The cities of our enemies are no more, and those cities shall never be rebuilt.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “You have destroyed cities and [you] have also destroyed their fortresses. [You] have even destroyed the palaces the enemies built for [their] kings, and they will never be built again.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “You (sing.) have-destroyed the stone-walled towns of those who-came-from other nations. You (sing.) broke-down the strong/firm/sturdy parts/portions of their towns, and these will- no-longer -be-built-up again.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
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.”
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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, s-are-ru (される) or “do/make” is used.
The connector For introduces the second reason for praising Yahweh in this song (see the previous verse). The prophet also praises him for destroying the fortified cities of Judah’s enemies. In this context the singular words city and palace have a plural meaning since no particular city is in view. Translators may render them as plurals, as in Good News Translation.
Thou hast made the city a heap is literally “you put/made from the city for a heap.” Most commentators and translations agree that “from the city” may be read as “the city.” This line means Yahweh destroyed the enemy cities and piled up the stones of their houses and walls. If the noun heap needs some qualification, it may be rendered “heap of stones/rocks.”
The fortified city a ruin is parallel to the previous line. Thou hast made is implied here from the previous line. In some translations it may be necessary to repeat the verb, saying “you have made the fortified city into a ruin.” This line adds the idea that the enemy cities were fortified; that is, they were enclosed by thick walls and strong gates to protect them against an attack (see the comments at 2.15). Fortified city may be translated “fortress” (see 17.3, where a different Hebrew word has this rendering). For ruin see 23.13.
The palace of aliens is a city no more is literally “palace of aliens/foreigners from a city.” The Hebrew word for palace refers to an important building (see the comments at 23.13). Here it is parallel to fortified city. There is a slight textual problem with the Hebrew word translated aliens. Some commentators emend the text of this line to read “the palace is swept away from the city.” Revised English Bible accepts this change by saying “every mansion in the cities is swept away.” New American Bible has “The castle of the insolent is a city no more” (similarly Bible en français courant), which follows the Septuagint. The Hebrew words for aliens (zerim) and “insolent” (zedim) are close in spelling, so copyists could have confused them. We agree with Hebrew Old Testament Text Project that translators should use “aliens” here, as in Masoretic Text and most ancient versions. For the literal expression “from a city,” Revised Standard Version has is a city no more. Revised Standard Version supplies a verb since it is left implicit. The whole line is saying the fortified buildings in the foreign cities cease to exist.
It will never be rebuilt expresses the conclusion to the previous three lines: the destroyed foreign cities will never be rebuilt. Good News Translation combines this line with the previous one, saying “The palaces which our enemies built are gone forever.” The last two lines present a picture of complete destruction. An alternative model for them is “The strongholds of foreign cities are so ruined/destroyed, they can never be rebuilt.” If some languages prefer active verbs here, translators may follow Good News Translation or say “The fortifications of foreign cities are gone, and nobody can ever rebuild them” or “… and people will never build them again.”
Translation examples for this verse are:
• Because you have reduced the city to a heap of stones,
the fortified city to a ruin;
the stronghold of foreigners is a city no longer,
nobody can ever rebuild it.
• For you have made the cities into piles of rubble,
the fortified cities are in ruins;
foreign strongholds are cities no longer,
and can never be built again.
Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Sterk, Jan. A Handbook on Isaiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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