pray / prayer

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The Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, and Greek that is translated as “pray” (or “prayer”) in English is often translated as “talking with God” (Central Pame, Tzeltal, Chol, Chimborazo Highland Quichua, Shipibo-Conibo, Kaqchikel, Tepeuxila Cuicatec, Copainalá Zoque, Central Tarahumara).

Other solutions include:

  • “beg” or “ask,” (full expression: “ask with one’s heart coming out,” which leaves out selfish praying, for asking with the heart out leaves no place for self to hide) (Tzotzil)
  • “cause God to know” (Huichol)
  • “raise up one’s words to God” (implying an element of worship, as well as communication) (Miskito, Lacandon) (source of this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
  • “speak to God” (Shilluk) (source: Nida 1964, p. 237)
  • “talk together with Great Above One (=God)” (Mairasi) (source: Enggavoter, 2004)
  • “call to one’s Father” (San Blas Kuna) (source: Claudio and Marvel Iglesias in The Bible Translator 1951, p. 85ff. )
  • “beg” (waan) (Ik). Terrill Schrock (in Wycliffe Bible Translators 2016, p. 93) explains (click or tap here to read more):

    What do begging and praying have to do with each other? Do you beg when you pray? Do I?

    “The Ik word for ‘visitor’ is waanam, which means ‘begging person.’ Do you beg when you go visiting? The Ik do. Maybe you don’t beg, but maybe when you visit someone, you are looking for something. Maybe it’s just a listening ear.

    When the Ik hear that [my wife] Amber and I are planning trip to this or that place for a certain amount of time, the letters and lists start coming. As the days dwindle before our departure, the little stack of guests grows. ‘Please, sir, remember me for the allowing: shoes, jacket (rainproof), watch, box, trousers, pens, and money for the children. Thank you, sir, for your assistance.’

    “A few people come by just to greet us or spend bit of time with us. Another precious few will occasionally confide in us about their problems without asking for anything more than a listening ear. I love that.

    “The other day I was in our spare bedroom praying my list of requests to God — a nice list covering most areas of my life, certainly all the points of anxiety. Then it hit me: Does God want my list, or does he want my relationship?

    “I decided to try something. Instead of reading off my list of requests to God, I just talk to him about my issues without any expectation of how he should respond. I make it more about our relationship than my list, because if our personhood is like God’s personhood, then maybe God prefers our confidence and time to our lists, letters, and enumerations.”

In Luang it is translated with different shades of meaning (click or tap here to read more):

  • For Acts 1:14, 20:36, 21:5: kola ttieru-yawur nehla — “hold the waist and hug the neck.” (“This is the more general term for prayer and often refers to worship in prayer as opposed to petition. The Luang people spend the majority of their prayers worshiping rather than petitioning, which explains why this term often is used generically for prayer.”)
  • For Acts 28:9: sumbiani — “pray.” (“This term is also used generically for ‘prayer’. When praying is referred to several times in close proximity, it serves as a variation for kola ttieru-yawur nehla, in keeping with Luang discourse style. It is also used when a prayer is made up of many requests.”)
  • For Acts 8:15, 12:5: polu-waka — “call-ask.” (“This is a term for petition that is used especially when the need is very intense.”)

Source: Kathy Taber in Notes on Translation 1/1999, p. 9-16.

See also Nehemiah’s prayer (image).

complete verse (Job 24:12)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 24:12:

  • Kupsabiny: “The wounded and beaten (people) cry out loudly in the city
    wanting to be saved
    but God does not punish those who have done these things.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “From the city the groan of a man who is about to die will be heard,
    and an injured man will shout for help.
    Yet God will not find fault with anyone.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “The groanings of the ones-who-are-dying and the asking for help of the ones-who-are- seriously -wounded can-be-heard in the city, but God never take-revenge the ones-who did bad-thing to them.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)

Honorary "rare" construct denoting God ("keep")

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 Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the usage of an honorific construction where the morpheme rare (られ) 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, todome-rare-ru (留められる) or “keep” is used.

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

Translation commentary on Job 24:12

Verse 12, as shown in the display at the beginning of this chapter, repeats the opening theme of God’s indifference to the suffering of the oppressed. In this way the poet has enclosed the arguments from verses 2-11 between the common theme of verses 1 and 12.

From verse 12 to verse 25 there are a number of three-line verses in Hebrew. Until now Job has been speaking of the suffering of the poor in the countryside; now he shifts his attention to the city.

From out of the city the dying groan: Revised Standard Version is not clearly translated. Good News Translation makes this thought clear with “In the cities the … dying cry out.” Dying translates the Hebrew for “men.” This is a change of one vowel and follows the Syriac. Dying provides a better parallel with wounded in line b and is accepted by Good News Translation and many others. Good News Translation has incorporated the wounded from line b and for stylistic reasons placed it before the dying, and translates only the verb of line b. Revised Standard Version keeps the two parallel lines. Groan translates the word used in Ezekiel 30.24, “and he will groan before him like a man mortally wounded.” These are the cries of wounded, dying people. In some languages it may be necessary to say “the wounded and dying cry out to God” or “people who are wounded and dying cry to God for help.”

And the soul of the wounded cries for help: it is the nefesh that cries for help. This same word can also mean “throat” or “neck,” and so New Jerusalem Bible translates “and the gasp of the wounded crying for help.” This line does not suggest that the disembodied souls of the wounded cry for help; soul of the wounded is a poetic way of speaking of the wounded. Cries for help carries forward the thought of groan in line a by intensifying it. Translators who retain the parallel lines may wish to render this line, for example, “and the wounded ones cry out to God for help” or “… cry out, ‘God, help us!’ ”

Yet God pays no attention to their prayer is literally “but God does not charge madness,” in which the final word is the same as in 1.22, which Revised Standard Version translates “Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.” New International Version and others therefore translate “But God charges no one with wrongdoing.” The Syriac translation and some Hebrew manuscripts change the vowels of the final word to get prayer, and this is followed by Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, and many others. The verb in this clause is the same as used in 23.6, where Revised Standard Version translates “give heed.” The line is correctly translated by both Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project rates the Hebrew text as “B” and understands that “madness” refers to the unjust treatment of the poor in the previous verses. In this view the line can be rendered “But God pays no attention to the wrongdoing of the rich” or “yet God pays no attention to the evil things the rich do to the poor.” In this way we can follow the Hebrew text and get a satisfactory translation.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, Wiliam. A Handbook on Job. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .