Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Psalm 139:18:
Chichewa Contempary Chichewa translation, 2002/2016:
“If I counted them,
they would have been more than the sand;
when I awake, I am still with you.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
Newari:
“The number, if just counted,
would be more than the grains of sand.
When I wake up,
right then You are with me.
Even so, you will continue to be with me.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon:
“If I count these, they (are) greater-in-number (than) the (grains of) sand.
When I wake-up my mind/thinking (is) still on you (sing.).” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Laarim:
“If I try to count your thoughts,
they would be many more than the sand of the shore of the sea.
When I got up,
I found that I was still with you.” (Source: Laarim Back Translation)
Nyakyusa-Ngonde (back-translation into Swahili):
“Iwapo ningeyahesabu ingekuwa mengi kuzidi mchanga.
Wakati nimeamka, bado niko pamoja na wewe.” (Source: Nyakyusa Back Translation)
English:
“If I could count them, I would see that they are more than the grains of sand at the seashore.
And when I wake up, I am still with you
and I know that there are still more of your thoughts about me to count.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed.
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Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or modern English), Tuvan uses a formal vs. informal 2nd person pronoun (a familiar vs. a respectful “you”). Unlike other languages that have this feature, however, the translators of the Tuvan Bible have attempted to be very consistent in using the different forms of address in every case a 2nd person pronoun has to be used in the translation of the biblical text.
As Voinov shows in Pronominal Theology in Translating the Gospels (in: The Bible Translator2002, p. 210ff. ), the choice to use either of the pronouns many times involved theological judgment. While the formal pronoun can signal personal distance or a social/power distance between the speaker and addressee, the informal pronoun can indicate familiarity or social/power equality between speaker and addressee.
In these verses, in which humans address God, the informal, familiar pronoun is used that communicates closeness.
Voinov notes that “in the Tuvan Bible, God is only addressed with the informal pronoun. No exceptions. An interesting thing about this is that I’ve heard new Tuvan believers praying with the formal form to God until they are corrected by other Christians who tell them that God is close to us so we should address him with the informal pronoun. As a result, the informal pronoun is the only one that is used in praying to God among the Tuvan church.”
In Gbaya, “a superior, whether father, uncle, or older brother, mother, aunt, or older sister, president, governor, or chief, is never addressed in the singular unless the speaker intends a deliberate insult. When addressing the superior face to face, the second person plural pronoun ɛ́nɛ́ or ‘you (pl.)’ is used, similar to the French usage of vous.
Accordingly, the translators of the current version of the Gbaya Bible chose to use the plural ɛ́nɛ́ to address God. There are a few exceptions. In Psalms 86:8, 97:9, and 138:1, God is addressed alongside other “gods,” and here the third person pronoun o is used to avoid confusion about who is being addressed. In several New Testament passages (Matthew 21:23, 26:68, 27:40, Mark 11:28, Luke 20:2, 23:37, as well as in Jesus’ interaction with Pilate and Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well) the less courteous form for Jesus is used to indicate ignorance of his position or mocking.” (Source Philip Noss)
In the most recent Manchu translation of 1835 (a revision of an earlier edition from 1822), God is never addressed with a pronoun but with “father” (ama /ᠠᠮᠠ) instead. Chengcheng Liu (in this post on the Cambridge Centre for Chinese Theology blog ) explains: “In Manchu tradition, as in Chinese etiquette, second-person pronouns could be considered disrespectful when speaking to superiors or spiritual beings. Manchu Shamanist prayers avoided si [‘you’] and sini [‘your’] for this very reason. To use them for God would be, in Lipovzoff’s [one of the two translators] words, ‘the most uncouth and indecent way to speak to the Almighty — as if He were a servant or slave.’ There was also a grammatical problem. In Manchu, si and sini could refer to both singular and plural subjects. For a faith that insisted on the singularity of God, this was potentially confusing. By contrast, repeating ama removed any ambiguity.”
In verse 17a the Hebrew verb form translated How precious may mean “how difficult” (Good News Translation, Bible en français courant, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Bible de Jérusalem, New Jerusalem Bible); see the use of the related adjective in 116.15. This seems preferable: the psalmist is exclaiming over the impossibility of understanding God’s thoughts (same word as in verse 2), which are beyond counting (verses 17b, 18a). Verse 17 may sometimes be rendered more clearly by switching lines a and b; for example, “God, your thoughts are so many,” “God, you think so many thoughts,” or “God, you have so many ideas.” Line a may then follow, “And your thoughts (or, the things you think) are so difficult for me to understand.”
More than the sand in verse 18 means “more than there are grains of sand.” The meaning of verse 18b is disputed. The verb in the Masoretic text is “awake” and is so translated by Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, and others. A few Hebrew manuscripts have another verb which elsewhere in the Old Testament means “to cut” but here is conjectured to mean “to come to an end”; this text is preferred by An American Translation, New English Bible, Bible de Jérusalem, New Jerusalem Bible, Bible en français courant, New American Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, Biblia Dios Habla Hoy. The sense is “If I should finish counting them (that is, Yahweh’s thoughts)….” This gives excellent sense; the rest of the verse (“I am still with you”) would then mean that even if the psalmist were able to count all the thoughts of Yahweh, still he would not have begun to know Yahweh, who is ever beyond human capacity to understand. Toombs says the line means “If I were to count God’s thoughts till my strength failed, the task would remain unfinished.” Bible en français courant translates “Even if I were to finish my calculation (of your thoughts), I would not have finished understanding you.” The meaning can be expressed as follows: “I could never count them all because they are more than the grains of sand.” In languages in which sand is not common, and in which some other material object is used for comparing quantities, a substitution for sand should be used.
In this context the meaning of awake (of the Masoretic text) is not easy to determine. Kirkpatrick takes it to mean waking up after falling asleep; even then there would be more of God’s thoughts to count (also Cohen). It may refer to the next life (so Briggs, Dahood); but its statement here is so abrupt, with no relation to the context, that one is quite uncertain. Anderson and others believe that some words or a line must have fallen out of the text. The result of this uncertainty leaves the translator in a position of having to choose between what appears as an abrupt insertion in verse 18b and those versions which follow the conjectured meaning “to come to an end.” New English Bible renders it “to finish the count, my years must equal thine.” In other words “If I were able to count all of them, I would have to live as long as you.”
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 .
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