The Hebrew, Greek and Latin that is translated as “idol(s)” in English is translated in Central Subanen as ledawan or “images.” (Source: Robert Brichoux in OPTAT 1988/2, p. 80ff. )
In German, typically the term Götze is used. Originally this was used as a term of endearment for Gott (“God” — see here ), later for “icon” and “image, likeness.” Luther started to use it in the 16th century in the meaning of “false god, idol.”
Other terms that are used in German include Götzenbild(er) (“image[s] of idols”) or Bildnis (“image” — Protestant) / Kultbild (“cultish image” — Catholic) (used for instance in Exodus 20:4 and Deuteronomy 5:8). The latest revision of the Catholic Einheitsübersetzung (publ. 2016) also uses the neologism Nichtse (“nothings”) in 1 Chron. 16:26 and Psalm 96:5. (Source: Zetzsche)
The Hebrew that is translated as “provoke (to anger)” in English is translated in Newari as “causing one’s anger to come out” (source: Newari Back Translation).
The Hebrew, Greek, and Ge’ez that is translated as “high places” in English is translated in Chitonga as malende. Ernst Wendland (1987, p. 57) explains: “The preceding expression [‘place for worship/sacrifice on top of hills’], though intelligible linguistically, sounds rather strange to the Tonga who live on the relatively flat plains of southern Zambia. There are ‘hills’ in their country, but normally no one would ever worship regularly there. For this reason the new translation will try out a cultural substitute (see below), malende, the ‘local shrine’ of Tonga traditional religion, where the ‘priest’ (clan head, who may be a chief as well) makes sacrifices to the spirits in time of corporate calamity, especially drought. This would seem to approximate quite closely the main elements of both form and function of the term ‘high places’ in the Old Testament, which were not always or even usually set upon hills, especially in the latter days of the monarchy (cp. 2 Kings 17:9, 29).”
In the Chichewa interconfessional translation (publ. 1999), it is translated as “shrines for worshiping images there.” (Source: Ernst Wendland in The Bible Translator 2002, p. 319ff. )
The Hebrew, Latin and Greek that is translated as “anger” or similar in English in this verse is translated with a variety of solutions (Bratcher / Nida says: “Since anger has so many manifestations and seems to affect so many aspects of personality, it is not strange that expressions used to describe this emotional response are so varied”).
Chichewa: “have a burning heart” (source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation) (see also anger burned in him)
Citak: two different terms, one meaning “angry” and one meaning “offended,” both are actually descriptions of facial expressions. The former can be represented by an angry stretching of the eyes or by an angry frown. The latter is similarly expressed by an offended type of frown with one’s head lowered. (Source: Graham Ogden)
In Akan, a number of metaphors are used, most importantly abufuo, lit. “weedy chest” (the chest is seen as a container that contains the heart but can also metaphorically be filled with other fluids etc.), but also abufuhyeε lit. “hot/burning weedy chest” and anibereε, lit. “reddened eyes.” (Source: Gladys Nyarko Ansah in Kövecses / Benczes / Szelid 2024, p. 21ff.)
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Psalm 78:58:
Chichewa Contempary Chichewa translation, 2002/2016:
“They angered Him with their place of worshiping idols;
they raised his jealousy with their idols.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
Newari:
“By making places to worship other gods,
they angered God.
With their idols, they made Him jealous.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon:
“They made- God -jealous and -angry because of their little-gods/false-gods in the place-of-worship in the high places.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Laarim:
“They made God angry,
because they prayed to false gods,
and God became jealous of their gods.” (Source: Laarim Back Translation)
Nyakyusa-Ngonde (back-translation into Swahili):
“Wakamchukiza Mungu kuabudu kwa miungu,
wakamfanya Mungu kuwa na huzuni sana.” (Source: Nyakyusa Back Translation)
English:
“Because they worshiped carved images of their gods on the tops of hills,
they caused God to become angry.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
God transcends gender, but most languages are limited to grammatical gender expressed in pronouns. In the case of English, this is traditionally confined to “he” (or in the forms “his,” “him,” and “himself”), “she” (and “her,” “hers,” and “herself”), and “it” (and “its” and “itself”).
Modern Mandarin Chinese, however, offers another possibility. Here, the third-person singular pronoun is always pronounced the same (tā), but it is written differently according to its gender (他 is “he,” 她 is “she,” and 它/牠 is “it” and their respective derivative forms). In each of these characters, the first (or upper) part defines the gender (man, woman, or thing/animal), while the second element gives the clue to its pronunciation.
In 1930, after a full century with dozens of Chinese translations, Bible translator Wang Yuande (王元德) coined a new “godly” pronoun: 祂. Chinese readers immediately knew how to pronounce it: tā. But they also recognized that the first part of that character, signifying something spiritual, clarified that each person of the Trinity has no gender aside from being God.
While the most important Protestant and Catholic Chinese versions respectively have opted not to use 祂, some Bible translations do and it is widely used in hymnals and other Christian materials. Among the translations that use 祂 to refer to “God” were early versions of Lü Zhenzhong’s (呂振中) version (New Testament: 1946, complete Bible: 1970). R.P. Kramers (in The Bible Translator 1956, p. 152ff. ) explains why later versions of Lü’s translation did not continue with this practice: “This new way of writing ‘He,’ however, has created a minor problem of its own: must this polite form be used whenever Jesus is referred to? Lü follows the rule that, wherever Jesus is referred to as a human being, the normal tā (他) is written; where he is referred to as divine, especially after the ascension, the reverential tā (祂) is used.”
In that system, one kind of pronoun is used for humans (male and female alike) and others for natural elements, non-liquid masses, and some spiritual entities (one other is used for large animals and another one for miscellaneous items). While in these languages the pronoun for spiritual entities used to be employed when referring to God, this has changed into the use of the human pronoun.
Lynell Zogbo (in The Bible Translator 1989, p. 401ff. ) explains: “From informal discussions with young Christians especially, it would appear that, at least for some people, the experience and/or concepts of Christianity are affecting the choice of pronoun for God. Some people explain that God is no longer ‘far away,’ but is somehow tangible and personal. For these speakers God has shifted over into the human category.”
In Kouya, God (the Father) and Jesus are referred to with the human pronoun ɔ, whereas the Holy Spirit is referred to with a non-human pronoun. (Northern Grebo and Western Krahn make a similar distinction.)
Eddie Arthur, a former Kouya Bible translation consultant, says the following: “We tried to insist that this shouldn’t happen, but the Kouya team members were insistent that the human pronoun for the Spirit would not work.”
In Burmese, the pronoun ko taw (ကိုယ်တော်) is used either as 2nd person (you) or 3rd person (he, him, his) reference. “This term clearly has its root in the religious language in Burmese. No ordinary persons are addressed or known by this pronoun because it is reserved for Buddhist monks, famous religious teachers, and in the case of Christianity, the Trinity.” (Source: Gam Seng Shae in The Bible Translator 2002, p. 202ff. )
In Thai, the pronoun phra`ong (พระองค์) is used, a gender-neutral pronoun which must refer to a previously introduced royal or divine being. Similarly, in Northern Khmer, which is spoken in Thailand, “an honorific divine pronoun” is used for the pronoun referring to the persons of the Trinity (source: David Thomas in The Bible Translator 1993, p. 445 ). In Urak Lawoi’, another language spoken in Thailand, the translation often uses tuhat (ตูฮัด) — “God” — ”as a divine pronoun where Thai has phra’ong even though it’s actually a noun.” (Source for Thai and Urak Lawoi’: Stephen Pattemore)
The English “Contemporary Torah” addresses the question of God and gendered pronouns by mostly avoiding pronouns in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (unless God is referred to as “lord,” “father,” “king,” or “warrior”). It does that by either using passive constructs (“He gave us” vs. “we were given”), by using the adjective “divine” or by using “God” rather than a pronoun.
Some Protestant and Orthodox English Bibles use a referential capitalized spelling when referring to the persons of the Trinity with “He,” “His,” “Him,” or “Himself.” This includes for instance the New American Standard Bible or The Orthodox New Testament, but most translations do not. Two other languages where this is also done (in most Bible translations) are Twents as well as the closely related Indonesian and Malay. In both languages this follows the language usage according to the Qur’an, which in turn predicts that usage (see Soesilo in The Bible Translator 1991, p. 442ff. and The Bible Translator 1997, p. 433ff. ).
The psalmist now speaks of the Hebrews settling in Canaan and gives a summary of the history of the people’s repeated infidelities against their God.
He repeats the language already used: they rebelled (verses 17, 40a), “put him to the tests” (verses 18a, 41a). For Most High God see verse 35; for testimonies see verse 5a. If the translator has followed Good News Translation and ended verse 55 with two pronominal references, it will often be clearer to begin verse 56 by avoiding the pronoun and saying “But the people of Israel rebelled.”
In verse 57a Good News Translation “were rebellious” translates the verb “turn away” (see the passive use, “turned back,” in 35.4); and acted treacherously means they “were … disloyal” (New International Version, New Jerusalem Bible, Good News Translation; New Jerusalem Bible “treacherous,” New International Version “faithless”; see comments on “untrue” in 73.15b).
Verse 57b is not easy to understand; the Hebrew seems to say “they changed like a loose bow” (see the same language in Hos 7.16). The Hebrew adjective may mean “deceitful” (see “deceit” and comments in 32.2b) or “slack, loose.” The idea seems to be of a defective, unreliable bow, either because the bowstring isn’t tight or for some other reason; and so it could not shoot an arrow accurately. Good News Translation has changed the figure to “a crooked arrow” as being more easily understood by most of its readers; other translations may find bow more natural. New Jerusalem Bible has “like a faulty bow”; Dahood and New American Bible have “they recoiled like a treacherous bow” (see also New Jerusalem Bible “a treacherous bow”). Anderson suggests “they were perverse like a slack bow,” and Bible en français courant translates “like a bow with a slack cord.” If bow is to be kept, something like “unreliable” or “defective” is more natural. New International Version does it well: “as unreliable as a faulty bow.” In languages where the bow is not known, another weapon may be substituted. If that solution is unsatisfactory, it will be best to drop the simile and say, for example, “they were unreliable” or “God could not depend upon them.”
In verse 58 high places refers to pagan shrines, which were usually located on elevated places such as mounds or hills. These were the places of worship of the native Canaanites and which the Hebrews adopted, along with their idols, which were graven (or carved) images of the fertility god Baal and the goddess Astarte. In verse 58 the verb provoked … to anger (“angered,” Good News Translation) translates “to vex, irritate” (see 106.29) and moved him to jealousy (“made him furious”) is the causative of the verb “be jealous” (see comments on “envious” in 37.1; 73.3). This attribute of God is used quite often and quite naturally in the Old Testament of Yahweh’s reaction to his people’s idolatry. See Exodus 20.5, Good News Translation “I tolerate no rivals.” It is an expression of God’s exclusive rights to his people’s devotion and loyalty. The current idea of jealousy is a bit narrow, and its application to God may carry some wrong connotations. If the translator follows the Good News Translation handling of the two Hebrew terms rendered “angered him” and “made him furious,” the parallelism of the two halves becomes very closely equivalent and in that case may have to be reduced to one; for example, “they made God terribly angry with their heathen places of worship and their idols” or “the false gods they worshiped and their worship places caused God to be very angry.”
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 .
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.