The Hebrew that is translated as “steadfast love,” “lovingkindness” (Goldingay 2018: “commitment”) or similar in English is translated in a number of ways:
Vidunda: “love of enduring” (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
Bura-Pabir: “love which cannot be-changed” (hyirkur na a palidzi wa)
HausaCommon Language Bible “his love without changing” (kaunarsa marar canjawa) (source for this and above: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
Elhomwe: “love that does not finish” (echikondi yoohisintheya) (source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
Nyamwezi: chelu, combining “love,” “faithfulness,” “loyalty,” and “kindness” (source: James Lundeen)
Newari: dayāmāyā (दयामाया), a compound word made from two Sanskrit-derived terms: dayā (दया) or “compassion, mercy, kindness” and māyā (माया) or “love, affection” (source: Newari Back Translation)
In Pijintinghevi long or “think heavy about” is used. “The Pijin expression ‘think heavy about’ is very much within the domain of committed relationships. The relationship between father and child, husband and wife, God and His people. There is a very strong element of ‘loyalty’ in this expression.” (Source: Bob Carter)
In Latvian the term žēlastība is used both for “steadfast love” and grace.
In a number of languages, the terms for for “steadfast love” and mercy are used interchangeably.
The Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Ge’ez, and Latin terms that are typically translated as “mercy” (or “compassion” or “kindness”) in English are translated in various ways. Bratcher / Nida classify them in (1) those based on the quality of heart, or other psychological center, (2) those which introduce the concept of weeping or extreme sorrow, (3) those which involve willingness to look upon and recognize the condition of others, or (4) those which involve a variety of intense feelings.
While the Englishmercy originates from the Latinmerces, originally “price paid,” Romance languages (Italian, Spanish, Corsican, Catalan, Friulian) and other Germanic languages (German, Swedish, Danish — Barmherzigkeit, barmhärtighet and barmhjertighed, respectively) tend to follow the Latin misericordia, lit. “misery-heart.”
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Psalm 88:11:
Chichewa Contempary Chichewa translation, 2002/2016:
“Is your love preached in the grave,
about your faithfulness to the place of destruction?” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
Newari:
“What! [is there] testimony of Your mercy in the world of the dead?
What! In the world of destruction
is it said that You are the one who has unceasing faithful love?” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon:
“Your (sing.) love and faithfulness are- not -spoken in the place of the dead ones.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Laarim:
“Would your love be talked in the tomb of death,
or would your faithfulness be talked about in the land of the dead?” (Source: Laarim Back Translation)
Nyakyusa-Ngonde (back-translation into Swahili):
“Je, neema yako inatangazwa katika kaburi?
Au ukweli wako, katika makao ya uharibifu?” (Source: Nyakyusa Back Translation)
English:
“Corpses in the grave certainly do not tell about your faithfully loving us,
and in the place where people are finally destroyed,
no one tells about what you faithfully do for us.” (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.”
In these three verses, by means of rhetorical questions the psalmist gives expression to the belief that the dead in Sheol are completely cut off from Yahweh’s care and concern. Yahweh performs no wonders there (verses 10a, 12a), as he had when he freed his people from Egypt. His steadfast love (chesed; see comments, 5.7), his faithfulness (ʾemunah; see 36.5), his saving help (tsedaqah; see 5.8) are all absent from Sheol, which is called the grave (see verse 5b), Abaddon, which means “destruction” (the Hebrew name comes from the verb “to perish”; see comments on “broken” in 31.12), the darkness (see verse 6), the land of forgetfulness (verse 12b), that is, the land where the inhabitants are forgotten by God (see verse 5c). It is less likely, as Biblia Dios Habla Hoy has it, that the land of forgetfulness means “the land where everything is forgotten.” All these names and phrases accurately portray the concept of Sheol, the world of the dead, which was prevalent at that time. Good News Translation has imitated the Hebrew in using rhetorical questions in verses 10-12 as an effective way of expressing the despairing, hopeless attitude of the psalmist. In some cases strong negative statements may be more effective; for example:
• You make no miracles for the dead,
and they do not rise up and praise you.
Your constant love is never mentioned in the grave,
and no one speaks of your faithfulness in the place of destruction.
No one sees your miracles in that place of darkness,
nor your goodness in the land of the forgotten.
Abaddon or Good News Translation‘s “place of destruction” is synonymous with the grave, and the translator should avoid giving the impression that they refer to different places. Wonders known must often be recast as active; for example, “Do the dead in the grave see the great works that you do?” Land of forgetfulness may sometimes be rendered as “that place of the dead where God is no longer concerned with dead people” or “in the grave where God pays no attention to the dead.”
In verse 10a the psalmist speaks of the dead, but in verse 10b he uses the more dramatic shades. In verse 11a the ordinary term grave is paralleled in verse 11b by the more literary level Abaddon, and in verse 12a the common darkness is matched by the more imaginative land of forgetfulness. In this series of parallel lines the writer is moving the idea of death forward toward the point of total extinction. Translators should pay particular attention to see that the terms they use and the poetic devices they employ reflect this movement.
In verse 10b the dead are called the shades. The Hebrews did not speak of the “souls” or “spirits” of the dead surviving in Sheol, as did the Greeks; the “shades” or “shadows” were pale, lifeless, ineffectual, shadowy images or replicas of the former living, active, robust self. Care should be taken not to picture them as ghosts, however, since this introduces elements not present in the Hebrew concept.
In the translation of the rhetorical questions in verses 10-12, the translator must first decide if such a sequence of questions is natural in the receptor language. If the questions are natural, do they require responses, since they assume a negative reply? Are there implicit elements that need to be made explicit in the receptor language? If the keeping of the question form will result in an unnatural style, the translator may have to recast these questions as statements. Examples are given here of two ways to handle the questions of verse 10 and three ways to treat them in verse 11. The same applies equally well to verse 12 or to any other rhetorical question. Verse 10: “Do you make miracles for the dead? No! Do the dead praise you? Never!” or, as negative statements, “You do not perform miracles for the dead, and they do not get up and praise you.” In verse 11: “Is your constant love spoken of in the grave? No! Is your faithfulness spoken of in the place of the dead? Never!” As negative statements: “Your constant love is not spoken of in the grave, nor is your faithfulness spoken of in the place of the dead.” With further adjustments for implicit information: “Do the dead in their graves speak about how you always love them, or do they talk about how faithful you are to them in the world of the dead?” Each question in the last rendering may in turn be followed by a negative reply or may be transformed into a negative statement, each case depending on the requirements of the receptor language.
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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