Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Psalm 76:4:
Chichewa Contempary Chichewa translation, 2002/2016:
“Honorable you are,
powerful more than mountains which have more animals.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
Newari:
“You are brighter and more glorious
than the everlasting mountains.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon:
“O God, you (sing.) (are) powerful and honorable while you (sing.) descend from the mountains where you killed your enemies.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Laarim:
“Your face shine very much always,
more than big mountains which are full of animals.” (Source: Laarim Back Translation)
Nyakyusa-Ngonde (back-translation into Swahili):
“Ewe Mungu, ee mheshimiwa sana,
uko na utukufu sana wakati unarudi kutoka kwa milima,
ambako umewashinda maadui wako.” (Source: Nyakyusa Back Translation)
English:
“God, you are glorious!
You are like a king as you return from the moun-tains where you defeated your enemies.” (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.”
God is praised as the victorious warrior. The word Glorious translates what appears to be a form of the verb “to shine”; so New Jerusalem Bible “resplendent,” New Jerusalem Bible “radiant,” and New International Version “resplendent with light.” New English Bible and others prefer to change the order of the consonants to get the word “terrible” (noraʾ instead of naʾor; see also 65.5 and comments). Glorious art thou must be rendered in some languages as “How great you are” or “How wonderful you are.” If the translator follows Revised Standard Version and Good News Translationmajestic, this expression may be rendered in this context as a simile; for example, “Like a great king you return….”
After “How majestic” (Good News Translation) the Masoretic text is simply “from the mountains of prey,” which Good News Translation has taken to mean “as you return from the mountains where you defeated your foes” (the enemy being understood as Yahweh’s “prey”). New Jerusalem Bible translates this second line “glorious on the mountains of prey”; Traduction œcuménique de la Bible “because of the mountains of prey.” New International Version takes “prey” to mean animals to be hunted: “mountains rich with game.” Revised Standard Version translates the Septuaginteverlasting instead of the Hebrew “prey” in order to arrive at its text. The Septuagint, however, is not “(more majestic) than the everlasting mountains”; it is “you are marvelously resplendent from the everlasting mountains.” Bible en français courant is like Revised Standard Version. Interestingly enough, Hebrew Old Testament Text Project (“C” decision) recommends the Revised Standard Version conjecture here and says the phrase may be interpreted in two ways: (1) “from the eternal mountains” or (2) “from the mountains of booty.” Since the meaning of the original text is so difficult to determine, the translator should feel free to follow either Revised Standard Version or Good News Translation.
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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