כִּי־בִ֭י יִרְבּ֣וּ יָמֶ֑יךָ וְיוֹסִ֥יפוּ לְּ֝ךָ֗ שְׁנ֣וֹת חַיִּֽים׃
11For by me your days will be multiplied,
and years will be added to your life.
In the Tzeltal translation for the dialectal variant of Highland Tzeltal (Biblia Tzeltal yu’un Oxchuc soc Tenejapa, 2001) the translation team used three different words to translate the Hebrew term that is translated as “wisdom” or “wise” in English. For the verses referenced here, it uses p’ijil-o’tanil or “heart wisdom.”
For the complete story and more background, please see wisdom (Proverbs).
In Aekyom, years are counted as “turtles” (ambum).
Norm Mundhenk tells this story:
“Recently I was checking some New Testament material in the Aekyom language of western Papua New Guinea. It seemed relatively clear until suddenly we came to a passage that started, ‘When Jesus had 12 turtles, …’ Surely I had misunderstood what they said.
“‘Did you say that Jesus had 12 turtles?’
“‘Let us explain! Around here there is a certain time every year when river turtles come up on the banks and lay their eggs. Because this is so regular, it can be used as a way of counting years. Someone’s age is said to be how many turtles that person has. So when we say that Jesus had 12 turtles, we mean that Jesus was 12 years old.’
“It was of course the familiar story of Jesus’ trip with his parents to Jerusalem. And certainly, as we all know, Jesus did indeed have 12 turtles at that time!”
In Tok Pisin, krismas (derived from “christmas”) is taken as the fixed annual marker, so Jesus had 12 “christmases” (Jisas i gat 12-pela krismas pinis) or Abram (in Gen. 12:4) had 75 (Abram i gat 75 krismas) (source: Norm Mundhenk). In Noongar it is biroka kadak or “summers had” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang).
See also advanced in years.
“By me your days will be multiplied”: In 3.2 and 4.10 the teacher uses expressions like this when speaking of his own words or teachings. Some of the ancient versions have “by it” in place of “by me”, thus making a connection back to “fear of the Lord” and “knowledge of the Holy One.” However, it seems more likely that “me” refers to Wisdom. In that case it will be clearer to say, for example, “Thanks to wisdom, you will live a long time” (Biblia Dios Habla Hoy) or “I am Wisdom. If you follow me, you will live. . .” (Contemporary English Version). “Days . . . multiplied” is a biblical way of saying “You will live a long life.”
If “by me” is the original text, this line is the only place in verses 7-12 where Wisdom is referred to in the first person. Some translations prefer to keep the third person reference by saying, “Wisdom will make you stay a long time on the earth.”
“Years will be added to your life”: This line repeats the thought of the first one with “years” replacing “days”. Note that Good News Translation reduces the two lines to one.
Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Proverbs. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Proverbs 9:11:
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 first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others.
(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
See also pronoun for “God”.
9:11
Notice the parallel parts that are similar in meaning:
11a For through wisdom your days will be multiplied,
11b and years will be added to your life.
There is an ellipsis in 9:11b. In some languages, it may be necessary to supply the missing words from 9:11a. For example:
11b and ⌊through wisdom⌋ years will be added to your life
9:11a–b
your days will be multiplied, and years will be added to your life: In these parallel clauses, the meaning is intensified from 9:11a (days) to 9:11b (years), but both lines have the same meaning. See the preceding example for one way to indicate the intensification of meaning.
9:11a
For: The word For normally introduces the reason or motivation for a preceding statement. But here the logical connection with 9:10 is not clear. A number of versions leave the connection implied.
through wisdom your days will be multiplied: This statement indicates that a person who is wise will have a long life. Some other ways to translate this statement are:
If you live wisely, you will live a long time. (New Century Version)
-or-
You will live longer because of me (God’s Word)
through wisdom: The phrase through wisdom may be understood either as means (by means of wisdom) or cause (because of wisdom).
General Comment on 9:11a–b
In some languages, it may be more natural to combine and/or reorder the parallel lines. For example:
Wisdom will add years to your life. (Good News Translation)
See also 9:11a–b (combined/reordered) in the Display.
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