pray / prayer

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:

  • “to beg” or “to ask,” (full expression: “to 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)
  • “to cause God to know” (Huichol)
  • “to 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)
  • Shilluk: “speak to God” (source: Nida 1964, p. 237)
  • Mairasi: “talk together with Great Above One (=God)” (source: Enggavoter, 2004)
  • San Blas Kuna: “call to one’s Father” (source: Claudio and Marvel Iglesias in The Bible Translator 1951, p. 85ff. )
  • Ik: waan: “beg.” 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.

complete verse (Psalm 106:30)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Psalm 106:30:

  • Chichewa Contempary Chichewa translation, 2002/2016:
    “But Phinehas stood up and intervened,
    and the plague stopped.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
  • Newari:
    “But Phinehas punished the guilty person
    so the plague was stopped.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon:
    “But Finehas came-between,
    so the destruction stopped.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Laarim:
    “A person called Phinehas stood,
    and he helped people so that the plague stopped.” (Source: Laarim Back Translation)
  • Nyakyusa-Ngonde (back-translation into Swahili):
    “Lakini Finehasi akaondoka,
    akawaua ambao wamefanya mabaya,
    ugonjwa wa tauni ukaenda na kwisha.” (Source: Nyakyusa Back Translation)
  • English:
    “But Phinehas stood up and punished/killed the ones who had sinned greatly,
    and as a result the plague/serious disease ended.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Psalm 106:28 - 106:31

These verses report the events narrated in Numbers 25.1-13. Peor was a mountain in Moab, on the east side of the Jordan. The name Baal means “lord, master,” and is the name often given in the Old Testament to the gods of other nations. The Hebrew verb translated attached themselves to (Good News Translation “joined in the worship of”) is the one used in Numbers 25.3. Something like “committed themselves to” or “pledged their allegiance (or, loyalty) to” may be better. In verse 28b the dead are the idols, the pagan gods themselves, which the psalmist considers to have no real existence (see the description in 115.4-8). New Jerusalem Bible and New International Version translate “lifeless gods.” Dahood, however, takes the meaning here to be funeral sacrifices, offerings for the dead (so Oesterley, Weiser). A translator may choose to follow this interpretation. Baal may require some identification; for example, “the god called Baal” or “the god the other nations worshiped, called Baal.”

In verse 29b the plague (same word used in Num 25.8-9) is unspecified; it is a disease or epidemic of some sort. It should be clear that this happened as a result of Yahweh’s anger.

In verse 30a Good News Translation “punished the guilty” translates a verb which means “sit in judgment” or “arbitrate, intervene.” So Revised Standard Version interposed; New Jerusalem Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, and New International Version have “intervened.” Phinehas killed an Israelite man and the Midianite woman he had taken into his tent; this “intervention” caused God to stop the plague (which had killed 24,000 people). Instead of “intervened” the Septuagint has here “made atonement,” the same word used in Numbers 25.13. The use of the passive in the plague was stayed will have to become active in many languages, in which case the subject supplied will be God; that is, “God stopped the plague” or “God stopped the sickness that was killing them.”

In verse 31 the Hebrew is “this is accounted to him as righteousness” (tsedaqah); Traduction œcuménique de la Bible translates “This was reckoned as a righteous deed.” The text can be understood to refer to divine approval (so Bible en français courant); the same phrase is used of Abraham in Genesis 15.6. Or it can mean the high regard in which Phinehas was held by the people of Israel ever since the original event, and which will continue for all time to come. In translation this may be stated “people have always remembered this good act and will go on remembering it always.”

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 .