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 (Psalm 102:18)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Psalm 102:18:

  • Chichewa Contempary Chichewa translation, 2002/2016:
    “These should be written because of the future generations,
    that the people who are not yet born will have to praise Jehovah:” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
  • Newari:
    “Let this matter be recorded for future generations,
    then [result] those who have not yet been born
    will also praise the LORD.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon:
    “Write- this -down for generations to come,
    so-that they will-praise the LORD.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Laarim:
    “Let these matters be written down,
    so that people who are yet to be born would praise the LORD.” (Source: Laarim Back Translation)
  • Nyakyusa-Ngonde (back-translation into Swahili):
    “Kizazi hiki kitakuja kuandikiwa hayo,
    ili ambao bado kuzaliwa waje wamsifu BWANA,” (Source: Nyakyusa Back Translation)
  • English:
    “Yahweh, I want to write these words
    in order that people in future years will know what you have done,
    in order that people who are not born yet will praise you.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Psalm 102:18 - 102:20

The psalmist consciously regards his work as a written record of Yahweh’s soon-to-come intervention. There is uncertainty over what this in Let this be recorded in verse 18a refers to. Some take it to mean the author’s own words in verses 13-17 (so Biblia Dios Habla Hoy, which places verse 18 as the last verse of the preceding strophe). Traduction œcuménique de la Bible and New International Version take it to refer to verses 19-20; Revised Standard Version, Bible de Jérusalem, New Jerusalem Bible and Dahood take it to be verses 19-22; Good News Translation takes it to refer to the coming intervention of Yahweh on behalf of his people–“what the LORD has done.” The author is writing of the future event as though it had already taken place, and this is the meaning the translator should try to convey. In verse 18b people yet unborn (literally “a created people”) is parallel with a generation to come in line a; some take it to mean “a recreated people” (see Bible en français courant), that is, the Israelites freed from exile and once again a nation (see Cohen). In verse 18b the name Yah is used (see 68.4). The sudden insertion of a command in verse 18a will cause problems of understanding in many languages, as it is necessary to make clear who is making the command as well as who is addressed. Therefore it may be necessary to say “I the psalmist say ‘Write down…’ ” or “ ‘Let someone write down,’ I, the psalmist, say this.” A people yet unborn may be misunderstood by readers as “before birth people will praise the LORD.” To avoid this problem it may be necessary to say, for example, “people who will be born later” or “people who will come after us.”

What the LORD will do is to be written down as though it were in the past, because it will have happened when future people read it; it is described in verses 19-20. He will look down from his dwelling place in heaven (from his holy height, from heaven) to earth, to the place where his people are (see similar language in 14.2; 33.13-14); he will take notice of the suffering of his people and set them free. The translator should make certain that the reader understands that the two halves of verse 19 are parallel and do not refer to two different kinds of height.

In verse 20 the prisoners and those who were doomed to die (literally “the sons of death,” as in 79.11) are the Israelites in exile. Who were doomed to die will have to be recast in languages which do not use a passive; for example, “those of our tribe whom the enemy has decided to kill.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1991. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .