לֹֽא־יִתְיַצְּב֣וּ הֽ֭וֹלְלִים לְנֶ֣גֶד עֵינֶ֑יךָ שָׂ֝נֵ֗אתָ כָּל־פֹּ֥עֲלֵי אָֽוֶן׃
5The boastful will not stand before your eyes;
you hate all evildoers.
The Hebrew that is translated as “before you,” “to you” or similar in English is translated in the Contemporary Chichewa translation (2002/2016) as pamaso panu, lit. “on your eyes.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
See also before / in the sight of / presence of (God) (Japanese honorifics).
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Psalm 5:5:
Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed.
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 Translator 2002, 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 Dutch, Afrikaans, and Western Frisian translations, God is always addressed with the formal pronoun.
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 to do this is through the usage (or a lack) of an honorific prefix as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. When the referent is God, the “divine” honorific prefix on- (御 or み) can be used, as in on-me (御目) or “eye (of God)” in the referenced verses.
(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
See also ear (of God) (Japanese honorifics).
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 usage of an honorific construction where the morpheme are (され) is affixed on the verb as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. This is particularly done with verbs that have God as the agent to show a deep sense of reverence. Here, nikum-are-ru (憎まれる) or “hate” is used.
(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
Yahweh’s judgment on sinners is described in four different ways: (1) they may not stand, or “cannot remain,” in his presence (literally “cannot stand before your eyes”). Care should be taken in translating this expression, so as not to give the impression that the psalmist is talking about not going to heaven. The expression fits well with the idea of God as king (verse 2), who does not allow criminals and lawbreakers to come into his presence (see 101.7). So the translation can be “You do not allow proud people to come into your presence.” The main idea here is that God will not listen to their prayers as they come into the Temple to worship him; see the next verse and 15.1-5. The expression stand before thy eyes refers to entering God’s holy presence and is rendered in some languages as “enter where you are” or “come near to you.”
(2) The LORD “hates” them, (3) “destroys” them, and (4) abhors them. This is not simply descriptive; it is the psalmist’s way of calling down God’s anger and punishment on his enemies. All these verbs denote strong dislike, revulsion, and hatred, and are part of the very human vocabulary that the Old Testament writers use of God’s attitude toward sin.
In line b of verse 6, the LORD is referred to in the third person; Good News Translation keeps the second person, which is used in verses 4-6a.
The sinners are described as boastful, evildoers, those who speak lies, bloodthirsty, and deceitful. Bloodthirsty translates what is literally “man of bloods,” which may be translated as “the violent” (New Jerusalem Bible) or “murderous” (New Jerusalem Bible). In translation bloodthirsty or “murderous” must sometimes be rendered, for example, “people who want in their hearts to kill others” or “people who go about killing others.” The word translated deceitful may mean “traitors” (New English Bible); Biblia Dios Habla Hoy translates “traitors and assassins,” and another possible version is “murderous and treacherous men.”
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 .
The following is a presentation by the Psalms: Layer by Layer project, run by Scriptura .
Copyright © Scriptura
Copyright © Scriptura
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)
“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 5 from the 1946 edition is in pentameter with rhyme schemes based on -ao and -e (the 1946 edition did not have verse numbers either):
疾惡如讎
呼籲公明主。為我伸冤屈。昔曾出我厄。令我得安逸。今者復求主。垂憐申舊德。 嗚呼濁世子。何時知曲直。狂妄安能逞。豈無黑與白。 須知主公明。忠良是所秩。我求主必應。何苦自作孽。 清夜當捫心。一省順與逆。 應獻忠誠祭。順命斯無失。
眾庶喁喁望。何日見時康。吾心惟仰主。願見主容光。 主已將天樂。貯我腔子裏。人情樂豐年。有酒多且旨。豐年誠足樂。美酒豈無味。未若我心中。一團歡愉意。 心曠神亦怡。登榻即成寐。問君何能爾。恃主而已矣。
Transcription into Roman alphabet:
jí è rú chóu
yǎ wěi wú zhǔ zǎi 。 qīng ěr tīng wǒ dǎo 。 jiàn wǒ mò mò qíng 。 líng wǒ āi āi hào 。 míng fā jí huái zhǔ 。 chén shěng qǐ bù zǎo 。 wú wàng wéi 眞 zǎi 。 huái rén yǐ wéi bǎo 。 zhèng xié bù tóng jū 。 shàn è bù tóng dào 。 wéi shàn gù jí è 。 tòng jué zhū xiōng bào 。 qún xiǎo zài zhǔ qián 。 yān néng cháng zì bǎo 。
wǒ yù rù zhǔ shì 。 chàng zhān zhǔ gāo zé 。 yuán jù jìng wèi xīn 。 zhāo bài ěr shèng zhái 。 qiú zhǔ bǎo wǒ shēn 。 mò wéi dí suǒ dé 。 píng yì ěr dào lù 。 fú wǒ shù wú jué 。 dí rén hé jiǎo huá 。 chū yán wú chéng shí 。 xié è sāi fèi fǔ 。 xīn dú kǒu zé mì 。 yān hóu rú huāng fén 。 xià mái xiǔ fǔ gǔ 。 wàng zhǔ cì chěng fá 。 biǎn zhé zhū pàn nì 。 yù shǐ zhòng chǒu lèi 。 zì zhuì xiàn rén kū 。 shù jī lài zhǔ zhě 。 wàng fēng xián xiāng yuè 。 yáng méi ér tǔ qì 。 huān shēng sòng dì lì 。 ài dài shèng míng zhě 。 tuō bì xiǎng ān yì 。 yuàn zhǔ nà shàn rén 。 yōng róng shì ěr cè 。
With thanks to Simon Wong.
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