26Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words.
The Greek in Romans 8:26 that is translated as “intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” is translated as “is the one who asks in our place when we just sigh, we do not find the words to say” in Highland Totonac, as “when we cannot speak, we groan in our hearts, then the Holy Spirit himself pleads to God for us” in Hopi, as “instead, the very good Spirit of God himself for us asking speaks with God. And he only speaks with groanings, he does not speak so we can understand” in Central Tarahumara, and as “the Holy Spirit himself groans in our hearts in a way which we cannot tell how he does, because he very much prays to God for us” in Chicahuaxtla Triqui. (Source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
“Too deep for words” is translated in Catholic Mandarin ChineseSigao version and the Protestant Union Version with a Chinese idiom: wúkě yányù (無可言喻 / 无可言喻), lit. “cannot (expressed in) metaphors.” (Source: Toshikazu S. Foley in Hong Kong Journal of Catholic Studies, 2011, p. 45ff.)
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 choice of a benefactive construction as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. Here, torinashite (とりなして) or “intercede” is used in combination with kudasaru (くださる), a respectful form of the benefactive kureru (くれる). A benefactive reflects the good will of the giver or the gratitude of a recipient of the favor. To convey this connotation, English translation needs to employ a phrase such as “for me (my sake)” or “for you (your sake).”
One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the choice of a benefactive construction as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. Here, tasukete (助けて) or “help” and torinashite (とりなして) or “intercede” are used in combination with kudasaru (くださる), a respectful form of the benefactive kureru (くれる). A benefactive reflects the good will of the giver or the gratitude of a recipient of the favor. To convey this connotation, English translation needs to employ a phrase such as “for me (my sake)” or “for you (your sake).”
Another way to do this is through the usage (or a lack) of an honorific prefix. When the referent is God or a person or persons to be honored, the honorific prefix go- (御 or ご) can be used, as in go-jishin (ご自身), a combination of “onseself” (jishin) and the honorific prefix go-. This can also be used for other reflexive pronouns (myself, himself, yourself etc.)
Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)
The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).
For this verse, translators typically select the inclusive form (including the writer of the letter and the readers).
Source: Velma Pickett and Florence Cowan in Notes on Translation January 1962, p. 1ff.
“beg” or “ask,” (full expression: “ask with one’s heart coming out,” which leaves out selfish praying, for asking with the heart out leaves no place for self to hide) (Tzotzil)
“raise up one’s words to God” (implying an element of worship, as well as communication) (Miskito, Lacandon) (source of this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
“speak to God” (Shilluk) (source: Nida 1964, p. 237)
“talk together with Great Above One (=God)” (Mairasi) (source: Enggavoter, 2004)
“beg” (waan) (Ik). Terrill Schrock (in Wycliffe Bible Translators 2016, p. 93) explains (click or tap here to read more):
What do begging and praying have to do with each other? Do you beg when you pray? Do I?
“The Ik word for ‘visitor’ is waanam, which means ‘begging person.’ Do you beg when you go visiting? The Ik do. Maybe you don’t beg, but maybe when you visit someone, you are looking for something. Maybe it’s just a listening ear.
When the Ik hear that [my wife] Amber and I are planning trip to this or that place for a certain amount of time, the letters and lists start coming. As the days dwindle before our departure, the little stack of guests grows. ‘Please, sir, remember me for the allowing: shoes, jacket (rainproof), watch, box, trousers, pens, and money for the children. Thank you, sir, for your assistance.’
“A few people come by just to greet us or spend bit of time with us. Another precious few will occasionally confide in us about their problems without asking for anything more than a listening ear. I love that.
“The other day I was in our spare bedroom praying my list of requests to God — a nice list covering most areas of my life, certainly all the points of anxiety. Then it hit me: Does God want my list, or does he want my relationship?
“I decided to try something. Instead of reading off my list of requests to God, I just talk to him about my issues without any expectation of how he should respond. I make it more about our relationship than my list, because if our personhood is like God’s personhood, then maybe God prefers our confidence and time to our lists, letters, and enumerations.”
In Luang it is translated with different shades of meaning (click or tap here to read more):
For Acts 1:14, 20:36, 21:5: kola ttieru-yawur nehla — “hold the waist and hug the neck.” (“This is the more general term for prayer and often refers to worship in prayer as opposed to petition. The Luang people spend the majority of their prayers worshiping rather than petitioning, which explains why this term often is used generically for prayer.”)
For Acts 28:9: sumbiani — “pray.” (“This term is also used generically for ‘prayer’. When praying is referred to several times in close proximity, it serves as a variation for kola ttieru-yawur nehla, in keeping with Luang discourse style. It is also used when a prayer is made up of many requests.”)
For Acts 8:15, 12:5: polu-waka — “call-ask.” (“This is a term for petition that is used especially when the need is very intense.”)
Source: Kathy Taber in Notes on Translation 1/1999, p. 9-16.
Following are a number of back-translations of Romans 8:26:
Uma: “So also the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not really know what we must say in our prayers. But the Holy Spirit accompanies us in uttering our requests to God with crying-out that is beyond the ability of human language.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “And the Holy Spirit also helps us (incl.) when our (incl.) trusting in God is weak and he encourages our (incl.) liver. Because when we (incl.) pray/ask God and/but we (incl.) do not know what is right to ask for or how we (incl.) should ask, then the Holy Spirit in our (incl.) liver asks God for us (incl.) but/and we (incl.) don’t know as to how.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Another thing the Holy Spirit is doing is, as for us (incl.) who do not have wisdom, the Holy Spirit helps us because we do not know the proper things to pray for. However, the Holy Spirit, it’s possible that He is the one who stands before our Father God by means of beseeching which is not possible in human language.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “It is not only our hope which helps us, but rather God’s Spirit also helps-us in our weakness. Because we don’t know how to pray correctly, but God’s Spirit speaks-with God for us with groans which can-not -be-spoken.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “Concerning us, when we want to pray to God and we do not know what we will say to him, it is the Holy Spirit who helps us then. Even though it just be a groan we make in thinking of God, yet it is the Holy Spirit who makes it become a prayer to God, that word which has not come out to be said.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
Verses 26 and 27 are closely related to verse 23 and also have a relation to verse 16. These verses contain the third witness to the glorious future of God’s people (see vv. 19 and 22). In verse 22 Paul spoke of the groaning of the entire creation, and in verse 23 of the groaning of the believers; but now he speaks of the help which God’s Spirit gives, and of the way that the Spirit himself pleads with God for us, in groans that words cannot express. Although Paul literally says that “the Spirit comes to help our weakness” (see New English Bible “comes to the aid of our weakness”), it is much more natural in English to say, as in the Good News Translation, the Spirit also comes to help us, weak that we are (see Jerusalem Bible “comes to help us in our weakness”). It is not certain just what Paul means by “our weakness,” though one aspect of it is certainly that we do not know how we ought to pray. The New English Bible suggests “what it is right to pray for” as an alternative meaning of how we ought to pray, though no other translation goes in this direction. Although the final meaning of these two expressions (“what is right” and how we ought) is about the same, the structure of the Greek more nearly supports how we ought to pray.
In the same way may be equivalent in some languages to “also,” “at the same time,” or “in addition.”
Weak that we are may be related to the preceding as “to help us since we are so weak,” “to help us who are so weak,” or “to help us—we are very weak.” A literal translation of “weak” may imply mere physical disability, while an expression such as “not strong” may suggest some more spiritual failure; therefore “not strong” may be employed in the place of “weak.” If some expression must be employed to qualify weakness, probably “trust” or “confidence” would be the most satisfactory—for example, “since we are so weak in trusting God.”
Although the words with God are not in the Greek text, they are clearly implied and the Good News Translation makes this information explicit. The Spirit himself pleads with God for us may be translated as “the Spirit asks God on our behalf,” “the Spirit talks to God for us,” or even “the Spirit prays to God for us.”
The expression in groans that words cannot express (An American Translation* “with inexpressible yearnings”; Moffatt “with sighs that are beyond words”) is difficult. It is possible to take that words cannot express in the sense of “unspoken words” (see New English Bible “through our inarticulate groans”). Paul uses a similar expression in 2 Corinthians 12.4, things which cannot be put into words, and it is quite likely that both expressions have essentially the same meaning. Although the majority of translations evidently take these groanings as coming from the Spirit, the New English Bible and Barclay explicitly identify them as the groanings of men. The context would seem to favor the former—that is, the Spirit stands in immediate communion with the Father and so needs no spoken words to express his thoughts. The clause that words cannot express is translated in a number of different ways—for example, “that no person can speak,” “with groanings we cannot say how,” “with groanings for which there are no words,” or “with groanings that surpass what words can say.”
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.