The Greek noun that is translated as “love” or “charity” in English is translated in Mandarin Chinese as àixīn (爱心 / 愛心), literally “loving heart.”
pain-love and love (Khanty).
καὶ τοῦτο προσεύχομαι, ἵνα ἡ ἀγάπη ὑμῶν ἔτι μᾶλλον καὶ μᾶλλον περισσεύῃ ἐν ἐπιγνώσει καὶ πάσῃ αἰσθήσει
9And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight
The Greek noun that is translated as “love” or “charity” in English is translated in Mandarin Chinese as àixīn (爱心 / 愛心), literally “loving heart.”
pain-love and love (Khanty).
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:
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.”
Source: Kathy Taber in Notes on Translation 1/1999, p. 9-16.
Following are a number of back-translations of Philippians 1:9:
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 choice of a formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).
(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
The Greek has the word “this” before the content of Paul’s prayer (“I pray this: that…”), but normally this addition would be superfluous in translation.
Your love should not be restricted to the Philippians’ love for God, for Paul, or even to their love for one another. It is much more likely that Paul has in mind the most comprehensive Christian love. In some languages your love may seem to abstract, and this expression may be better rendered as “your loving heart.”
Furthermore, in some languages it is not possible to speak of “love growing more and more,” although one may say “I pray that you will keep on loving more and more.” Again, it may be necessary to indicate in some languages who is loved, and therefore one may need to translate “that you will love one another more and more.”
True knowledge and perfect judgment are essential elements of love. “Love” should keep on growing (present tense), that is, it should develop into and be accompanied by spiritual and moral insights. The word translated true knowledge is frequently used by Paul to convey the idea of a mental grasp of spiritual truth and especially that practical and experiential knowledge of God which is available to those who have become Christians. Perfect judgment (literally “all insight” or “all perception”) appears only here in the New Testament. It refers to a person’s ability to make moral decisions. The adjective “all” is not intensive, but extensive; that is, it signifies “every form of” perfect judgment (New English Bible “insight of every kind”).
True knowledge and perfect judgment may be viewed as the result of increased love, and so they may be indicated in some languages as result, and in other languages as purpose. On the basis of this type of interpretation, one may translate “that you may love one another more and more, and as a result have true knowledge and perfect judgment.” On the other hand, one may understand true knowledge and perfect judgment as an accompanying feature of love and accordingly translate “that you may love one another more and more, and at the same time have true knowledge and perfect judgment.”
In a number of languages it is necessary to translate knowledge and judgment as verbs, and this requires syntactic restructuring, with resulting expressions such as “that you may know what is true and judge perfectly,” or “… judge in a completely right way.”
Quoted with permission from Luo, I-Jin. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1977. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
Paragraph 1:9–11
Paul prayed that the Philippians would love one another more and more, and would be pure and blameless so that other people would honor and praise God.
1:9a
And this is my prayer: In 1:4 Paul said he prayed for the Philippians. Here in 1:9–11 he told them specifically what he was praying. If in your language it is necessary to translate prayer with a verb, use a verb tense that gives the idea of habitual action in the present: “I pray (regularly, habitually, repeatedly)….”
that your love may abound more and more: Some languages have a special way to mark the content of a wish or a prayer. For example, in English we use the auxiliary verb may. If you have such a marker, you should use it here.
love: The Greek text, like most English translations, does not make it clear whom the Philippians were to love. The text could refer to loving one another or it could refer to loving God. Paul was probably including both ideas. Therefore, if possible you should not say in your translation whom the Philippians were to love. Then your readers will understand that it includes both these ideas. However, if you must provide an object, it is recommended that you say that the Philippians were to love one another.
abound more and more: The verb abound here means “grow” or “increase.” In some languages love cannot “grow,” but there may be another idiom for love becoming stronger or more intense. Or, if you cannot use an idiom, you could try expressing this meaning as
You already love each other a little, now love each other a lot.
Paul used the phrase abound more and more to emphasize that he desired the Philippians’ love to grow.
1:9b
knowledge and depth of insight: Commentators understand this phrase in two main ways:
(1) The phrase knowledge and depth of insight refers to two things that Paul wanted to see increase along with the Philippians’ love.
(2) The phrase knowledge and depth of insight shows the way in which their love needed to grow, that is, the Philippians were to grow in love that had knowledge and depth of insight.
Either interpretation is possible. The Display follows the first interpretation (1). However, if you prefer to follow the second (2), you could say:
that you will continue loving more and more in a way that is wise and discerning
knowledge: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as knowledge is related to a verb that means “to know something truly or completely.” Paul did not specify what sort of knowledge he was talking about. It could refer to:
(1) understanding God and how he wants us to behave. For example:
that you will fully know and understand how to make the right choices (1:9b-10a, Contemporary English Version)
(2) knowledge of the truth in general. For example:
true knowledge (Good News Translation)
If you must be explicit, then choose the first option (1), that is, Paul was referring to knowing God and what God wants us to do.
depth of insight: This is literally “all judgment/discernment.” This phrase means to understand all kinds of things in a spiritual sense, to know what is true and right in every situation. This idea continues in 1:10.
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