Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 37:11:
Kupsabiny: “He fills those heavy clouds with water and those clouds are the ones that make the lightning spread.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “He loads the cloud with moisture, and causes the clouds to scatter with flashes of His lightning.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “He fills with water the clouds, and he causes- them -to-lightning.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “I pointed to the shore and said to the water, ‘I permit you to come up to here, but I do not permit you to come any farther. Your powerful waves must stop there!’” (Source: Translation for Translators)
God transcends gender, but most languages are limited to grammatical gender expressed in pronouns. In the case of English, this is traditionally confined to “he” (or in the forms “his,” “him,” and “himself”), “she” (and “her,” “hers,” and “herself”), and “it” (and “its” and “itself”).
Modern Mandarin Chinese, however, offers another possibility. Here, the third-person singular pronoun is always pronounced the same (tā), but it is written differently according to its gender (他 is “he,” 她 is “she,” and 它/牠 is “it” and their respective derivative forms). In each of these characters, the first (or upper) part defines the gender (man, woman, or thing/animal), while the second element gives the clue to its pronunciation.
In 1930, after a full century with dozens of Chinese translations, Bible translator Wang Yuande (王元德) coined a new “godly” pronoun: 祂. Chinese readers immediately knew how to pronounce it: tā. But they also recognized that the first part of that character, signifying something spiritual, clarified that each person of the Trinity has no gender aside from being God.
While the most important Protestant and Catholic Chinese versions respectively have opted not to use 祂, some Bible translations do and it is widely used in hymnals and other Christian materials. Among the translations that use 祂 to refer to “God” were early versions of Lü Zhenzhong’s (呂振中) version (New Testament: 1946, complete Bible: 1970). R.P. Kramers (in The Bible Translator 1956, p. 152ff. ) explains why later versions of Lü’s translation did not continue with this practice: “This new way of writing ‘He,’ however, has created a minor problem of its own: must this polite form be used whenever Jesus is referred to? Lü follows the rule that, wherever Jesus is referred to as a human being, the normal tā (他) is written; where he is referred to as divine, especially after the ascension, the reverential tā (祂) is used.”
In that system, one kind of pronoun is used for humans (male and female alike) and others for natural elements, non-liquid masses, and some spiritual entities (one other is used for large animals and another one for miscellaneous items). While in these languages the pronoun for spiritual entities used to be employed when referring to God, this has changed into the use of the human pronoun.
Lynell Zogbo (in The Bible Translator 1989, p. 401ff. ) explains: “From informal discussions with young Christians especially, it would appear that, at least for some people, the experience and/or concepts of Christianity are affecting the choice of pronoun for God. Some people explain that God is no longer ‘far away,’ but is somehow tangible and personal. For these speakers God has shifted over into the human category.”
In Kouya, God (the Father) and Jesus are referred to with the human pronoun ɔ, whereas the Holy Spirit is referred to with a non-human pronoun. (Northern Grebo and Western Krahn make a similar distinction.)
Eddie Arthur, a former Kouya Bible translation consultant, says the following: “We tried to insist that this shouldn’t happen, but the Kouya team members were insistent that the human pronoun for the Spirit would not work.”
In Burmese, the pronoun ko taw (ကိုယ်တော်) is used either as 2nd person (you) or 3rd person (he, him, his) reference. “This term clearly has its root in the religious language in Burmese. No ordinary persons are addressed or known by this pronoun because it is reserved for Buddhist monks, famous religious teachers, and in the case of Christianity, the Trinity.” (Source: Gam Seng Shae in The Bible Translator 2002, p. 202ff. )
In Thai, the pronoun phra`ong (พระองค์) is used, a gender-neutral pronoun which must refer to a previously introduced royal or divine being. Similarly, in Northern Khmer, which is spoken in Thailand, “an honorific divine pronoun” is used for the pronoun referring to the persons of the Trinity (source: David Thomas in The Bible Translator 1993, p. 445 ). In Urak Lawoi’, another language spoken in Thailand, the translation often uses tuhat (ตูฮัด) — “God” — ”as a divine pronoun where Thai has phra’ong even though it’s actually a noun.” (Source for Thai and Urak Lawoi’: Stephen Pattemore)
The English “Contemporary Torah” addresses the question of God and gendered pronouns by mostly avoiding pronouns in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (unless God is referred to as “lord,” “father,” “king,” or “warrior”). It does that by either using passive constructs (“He gave us” vs. “we were given”), by using the adjective “divine” or by using “God” rather than a pronoun.
Some Protestant and Orthodox English Bibles use a referential capitalized spelling when referring to the persons of the Trinity with “He,” “His,” “Him,” or “Himself.” This includes for instance the New American Standard Bible or The Orthodox New Testament, but most translations do not. Two other languages where this is also done (in most Bible translations) are Twents as well as the closely related Indonesian and Malay. In the latter two languages this follows the language usage according to the Qur’an, which in turn predicts that usage (see Soesilo in The Bible Translator 1991, p. 442ff. and The Bible Translator 1997, p. 433ff. ).
Verses 11 and 12 refer to the action of the clouds and so may be treated together. Good News Translation notes that in Hebrew verse 11 is unclear. Good News Translation assumes the sense of the two lines is the same and so combines them.
He loads the thick cloud with moisture: He loads occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible, and its meaning is uncertain, but in Isaiah 1.14 there is a corresponding noun form meaning “burden,” and so He loads is likely the sense. Moisture translates a Hebrew word which occurs only here and whose meaning is uncertain. The word seems to be clearly parallel to “his light” in line b, but other suggestions for its meaning are “hail” and “lightning.”
The clouds scatter his lightning: as in 36.32; 37.3, the Hebrew for “light” is generally understood here to mean lightning. Good News Translation‘s single-line translation is adequate to represent line a, but for line b something like Revised Standard Version should be followed. It is apparent from the uncertainties in the Hebrew text that the translation of these two verses will remain doubtful. However, here are two models which may be suggested for verse 11: “God fills the clouds with rain and sends them out full of lightning” or “God fills the clouds with lightning and sends them flashing everywhere.”
They turn round and round by his guidance describes how these natural forces obey God’s commands. Good News Translation links verse 12 to verse 11, making the clouds in verse 11 the subject of the verb “move” in verse 12a. According to Rowley the sense of verse 12a is “The cloud goes round in circles, wheeling about according to his plans.” The word translated turn round is the same as that used to describe the turning round of the flaming sword in Genesis 3.24. By his guidance means “according to his plans or purposes.”
To accomplish all that he commands them: that is, “they do all that God commands them to do.” On the face of the habitable world is literally “on the face of the world the earth.” The phrase translated the habitable world occurs elsewhere only in Proverbs 8.31. However, the sense of the full expression is as in Good News Translation, “throughout the world,” or as Bible en français courant says more broadly, “in the universe.” Verse 12 may also be rendered, for example, “The clouds whirl about as God directs them; they obey God’s commands throughout the whole world” or “God sends the clouds whirling around; they obey him everywhere they go.”
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 .
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