Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Psalm 32:1:
Chichewa Contempary Chichewa translation, 2002/2016:
“Blessed is a person
whose faults are forgiven;
whose sins are covered.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
Newari:
“Blessed are those,
whose sins and evil deeds have been forgiven.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon:
“Blessed (is) the person/man whose trespasses have-been-forgiven,
whose sins is no longer remembered by God.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Eastern Bru:
“Blessed are the people for whom God forgives their sins. Their sins he has already covered over, those sins are no longer seen.” (Source: Bru Back Translation)
Laarim:
“A bless is a person
whose his bad matters are forgiven,
a person whose his bad matters have been removed.” (Source: Laarim Back Translation)
Nyakyusa-Ngonde (back-translation into Swahili):
“Amebarikiwa ambaye amesamehewa mabaya yake,
ambaye dhambi yake imeondolewa.” (Source: Nyakyusa Back Translation)
English:
“Those whom God has forgiven for rebelling against him,
whose stains of sin have been wiped away,
are truly blessed by God!” (Source: Translation for Translators)
Chicahuaxtla Triqui: “cover over” (a figure of speech which is also employed in Hebrew, but which in many languages is not acceptable, because it implies “hiding” or “concealment”)
Warao: “not being concerned with him clean your obonja.” Obonja is a term that “includes the concepts of consciousness, will, attitude, attention and a few other miscellaneous notions” (source: Henry Osborn in The Bible Translator 1969, p. 74ff. See other occurrences of Obojona in the Warao New Testament.)
Martu Wangka: “throw out badness” (source: Carl Gross)
Kyaka: “burn the jaw bones” — This goes back to the pre-Christian custom of hanging the jaw bones of murdered relatives on ones door frame until the time of revenge. Christians symbolically burned those bones to show forgiveness which in turn became the word for “forgiveness” (source: Eugene Nida, according to this blog )
Koonzime: “remove the bad deed-counters” (“The Koonzime lay out the deeds symbolically — usually strips of banana leaf — and rehearse their grievances with the person addressed.”) (Source: Keith and Mary Beavon in Notes on Translation 3/1996, p. 16)
Ngbaka: ele: “forgive and forget” (Margaret Hill [in Holzhausen & Ridere 2010, p. 8f.] recalls that originally there were two different words used in Ngbaka, one for God (ɛlɛ) and one for people (mbɔkɔ — excuse something) since it was felt that people might well forgive but, unlike God, can’t forget. See also this lectionary in The Christian Century.
Amahuaca: “erase” / “smooth over” (“It was an expression the people used for smoothing over dirt when marks or drawings had been made in it. It meant wiping off dust in which marks had been made, or wiping off writing on the blackboard. To wipe off the slate, to erase, to take completely away — it has a very wide meaning and applies very well to God’s wiping away sins, removing them from the record, taking them away.”) (Source: Robert Russel, quoted in Walls / Bennett 1959, p. 193)
Gonja / Dangme: “lend / loan” (in the words of one Dangme scholar: “When you sin and you are forgiven, you forget that you have been forgiven, and continue to sin. But when you see the forgiveness as a debt/loan which you will pay for, you do not continue to sin, else you have more debts to pay” — quoted in Jonathan E.T. Kuwornu-Adjaottor in Ibadan Journal of Religious Studies 17/2 2010, p. 67ff. )
Kwere: kulekelela, meaning literally “to allow for.” Derived from the root leka which means “to leave.” In other words, forgiveness is leaving behind the offense in relationship to the person. It is also used in contexts of setting someone free. (Source: Megan Barton)
Merina Malagasy: mamela or “leave / let go (of sin / mistakes)” (source: Brigitte Rabarijaona)
Mauwake: “take away one’s heaviness” (compare sin as “heavy”) (source: Kwan Poh San in this article )
For Blessed is he see 1.1 and comments. The expression Blessed is he refers to the fortunate state of the person whose sins have been forgiven. In some languages the force of the congratulations implied is lost when stated in the third person. Therefore one must sometimes shift to the second person; for example, “How fortunate you are!” or “Congratulations to you!”
In verses 1-2 three synonyms are used for sin: the first one (transgression) is generally taken to indicate disobedience, rebellion against the divine will; the second one (sin) is misconduct, faulty action; the third one (iniquity) is wrong, evil. In verse 2b deceit stands for lie, hypocrisy, fraud; and spirit represents the inner self, the person’s character. In some languages it will not be possible to make the distinction in the nature of sins suggested here. However, in some languages it is possible to qualify evil deeds in order to approximate the suggested differences in meaning. The translator must be careful not to create complex syntactic problems in attempting to make these distinctions.
A poetic device sometimes used in parallelism is matching or contrasting genders. In verse 1, for example, the Hebrew noun translated transgression is masculine, and its parallel, sins, is feminine. In the following set of parallel lines, iniquity is masculine and deceit is feminine. One of the functions of this usage of genders in parallelism is to give the impression of completeness or to express harmony. In translation there may be nothing equivalent in the receptor language morphology or in the stylistics of its poetry. However, it is important for the translator to be aware of such Hebrew devices so that equivalent poetic devices may be used when available and appropriate.
In verses 1-2a three verbs are used for forgiveness: (1) “carry away” (the Hebrew for forgiven), sin being thought of as a burden; (2) “conceal, hide” (covered), sin seen as an imperfection, a defect which must be removed, or else as a stain which must be wiped out; (3) “not to regard as guilty” (imputes no iniquity), that is, to consider innocent. Some see in this last one a commercial figure, to cancel a debt (see New English Bible “the LORD lays no guilt to his account”). In the case of the second verb (verse 1b), the English verbal phrase is covered may suggest “covered over,” that is, disguised or concealed in such a way that it is not seen. This is not an adequate statement of what forgiveness involves, and a translator must be careful not to give the wrong impression.
Verses 1-2a are quoted in Romans 4.7-8 exactly as they appear in the Septuagint.
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 .
John Wu Ching-hsiung (1899-1986) was a native of Ningbo, Zhejiang, a renowned jurist who studied in Europe and the United States, and served as a professor of law at Soochow University, as a judge and the Acting President of the Shanghai Provisional Court, and as the Vice President of the Commission for the Drafting of the Constitution of the Republic of China, before becoming the Minister of the Republic of China to the Holy See. Wu has written extensively, not only on law but also on Chinese philosophy, and has also written his autobiography, Beyond East and West, in English. Wu was a devout Catholic and had a personal relationship with Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975). Wu began translating the the Psalms in 1938, and was encouraged by Chiang to translate the entire New Testament, which he corrected in his own handwriting. (…) John Wu Ching-hsiung’s translation of the Psalms (first draft in 1946, revised in 1975) was translated into Literary Chinese in the form of poetic rhyme, with attention paid to the style of writing. According to the content and mood of the different chapters of the original psalm, Wu chose Chinese poetic forms such as tetrameter, pentameter, heptameter [4, 5 or 7 syllables/Chinese characters per stanza], and the [less formal] Sao style, and sometimes more than two poetic forms were used in a single poem. (Source: Simon Wong)
John Wu Ching-hsiung himself talks about his celebrated and much-admired (though difficult-to-understand) translation in his aforementioned autobiography: (Click or tap here to see)
“Nothing could have been farther from my mind than to translate the Bible or any parts of it with a view to publishing it as an authorized version. I had rendered some of the Psalms into Chinese verse, but that was done as a part of my private devotion and as a literary hobby. When I was in Hongkong in 1938, I had come to know Madame H. H. Kung [Soong Ai-ling], and as she was deeply interested in the Bible, I gave her about a dozen pieces of my amateurish work just for her own enjoyment. What was my surprise when, the next time I saw her, she told me, “My sister [Soong Mei-ling] has written to say that the Generalissimo [Chiang Kai-shek] likes your translation of the Psalms very much, especially the first, the fifteenth, and the twenty-third, the Psalm of the Good Shepherd!”
“In the Autumn of 1940, when I was in Chungking, the Generalissimo invited me several times to lunch with him and expressed his appreciation of the few pieces that he had read. So I sent him some more. A few days later I received a letter from Madame Chiang [Soong Mei-ling], dated September 21, 1940, in which she said that they both liked my translation of the few Psalms I had sent them. ‘For many years,’ she wrote, ‘the Generalissimo has been wanting to have a really adequate and readable Wen-li (literary) translation of the Bible. He has never been able to find anyone who could undertake the matter.’ The letter ends up by saying that I should take up the job and that ‘the Generalissimo would gladly finance the undertaking of this work.’
“After some preliminary study of the commentaries, I started my work with the Psalms on January 6, 1943, the Feast of the Epiphany.
“I had three thousand years of Chinese literature to draw upon. The Chinese vocabulary for describing the beauties of nature is so rich that I seldom failed to find a word, a phrase, and sometimes even a whole line to fit the scene. But what makes such Psalms so unique is that they bring an intimate knowledge of the Creator to bear upon a loving observation of things of nature. I think one of the reasons why my translation is so well received by the Chinese scholars is that I have made the Psalms read like native poems written by a Chinese, who happens to be a Christian. Thus to my countrymen they are at once familiar and new — not so familiar as to be jejune, and not so new as to be bizarre. I did not publish it as a literal translation, but only as a paraphrase.
“To my greatest surprise, [my translation of the Psalms] sold like hot dogs. The popularity of that work was beyond my fondest dreams. Numberless papers and periodicals, irrespective of religion, published reviews too good to be true. I was very much tickled when I saw the opening verse of the first Psalm used as a headline on the front page of one of the non-religious dailies.”
A contemporary researcher (Lindblom 2021) mentions this about Wu’s translation: “Wu created a unique and personal work of sacred art that bears the imprint of his own admitted love and devotion, a landmark achievement comparable to Antoni Gaudi’s Basilica of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain. Although its use is still somewhat limited today, it continues to attract readers for the aforementioned qualities, and continues to be used in prayers and music by those who desire beauty and an authentic Chinese-sounding text that draws from China’s ancient traditions.”
The translation of Psalm 32 from the 1946 edition is in tetrameter and the rhyme schemes are -ou, -ui, -ao, -u, and -uan (the 1946 edition did not have verse numbers either):
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