כִּֽי־חֲמַ֣ת אָדָ֣ם תּוֹדֶ֑ךָּ שְׁאֵרִ֖ית חֵמֹ֣ת תַּחְגֹּֽר׃
10Human wrath serves only to praise you,
when you bind the last bit of your wrath around you.
The Hebrew, Greek and Latin that is translated as “(was or became) angry” in English is translated in Kwere as “saw anger.” In Kwere, emotions are always paired with sensory verbs (seeing or smelling or hearing). (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
In Bariai it is “to have grumbling interiors” (source: Bariai Back Translation).
See also anger and feel (terror, pain, suffering, anxiety).
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Psalm 76:10:
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “survive,” “escape,” “save,” or similar in English is translated in the Contemporary Chichewa translation (2002/2016) in these verses with pulumuka, describing someone whose life was in danger but who has freed himself or herself. (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
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, Gronings, and Western Frisian translations, God is always addressed with the formal pronoun.
See also formal pronoun: disciples addressing Jesus, female second person singular pronoun in Psalms.
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 rare (られ) 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, obi-rare-ru (帯びられる) or “encircle” is used.
(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
The psalm closes with an exhortation to offer gifts to God. Verse 10 in Hebrew is quite unclear. The first line is “for (or, surely) human anger praises you”–which Good News Translation takes to mean that, by defeating and overcoming all human opposition to him (the wrath of men), God will be praised even more. New International Version takes “the anger of man” to mean “your wrath against men”; this is not very likely. Traduction œcuménique de la Bible has “Even the fury of men contributes to your glory” (so Bible en français courant); Biblia Dios Habla Hoy “Man’s hatred turns into praise to you.” Dahood translates “They (that is, ‘the oppressed’ of verse 9) will praise you for your rage with other men”; New Jerusalem Bible has “The fiercest of men shall acknowledge You,” which is almost identical with An American Translation. If the translator follows either the Revised Standard Version or the Good News Translation rendering, the problem remains difficult, for it is not at all clear how the wrath of men or “Men’s anger” is made to serve a purpose quite opposite from its usual intention. Furthermore, it is not natural in some languages for an abstract such as anger to praise. Therefore it will be necessary in many languages to indicate that it is God who causes it to happen; for example, “God, you cause angry men to praise you even more.”
Line b in Hebrew is “the remainder of angers you will put around you” (the same verb is used in 65.12b, “gird themselves”). Good News Translation has taken “the remainder of angers” to mean the enemies “who survive the wars,” the wars being the expression of God’s anger against them; God’s enemies who survive will worship him. “Keep your festivals” translates the Septuagint. Bible en français courant is like Good News Translation. Traduction œcuménique de la Bible translates the Masoretic text: “those who survive this anger (that is, of men, in the previous line), you bind to yourself”; Biblia Dios Habla Hoy has “even man’s least hatred turns into a crown for you.” New Jerusalem Bible, somewhat similarly, has “the survivors of your anger will huddle round you.” Hebrew Old Testament Text Project is of the opinion that the verse may be translated as follows: “surely the fiercest men praise you, those who remain angry gird themselves (with sackcloth).” Another interpretation is possible: “surely the fiercest men praise you, you gird (like a diadem) those who have escaped from your wrath.” If the translator follows Good News Translation in line b, “keep your festivals” may sometimes be rendered “will worship you on your special feast days.”
New American Bible and New English Bible, using different vowels with the consonants in the Masoretic text, get “wrath of Edom” in line a and “the survivors in Hamath” in line b. Edom was the country south of Israel, and Hamath was a city in Syria, north of Israel.
Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch appears to be following the second interpretation of Hebrew Old Testament Text Project in its translation, “So that the fury of your enemies will cause your fame to increase, and all who have escaped this fury are like a crown with which you adorn yourself.” It is recommended that the translator follow either Good News Translation or Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch in translating this very obscure Hebrew verse.
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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