forget

The Hebrew, Latin, Ge’ez, and Greek that is translated as “forget” in English is translated in Noongar as dwangka-anbangbat, lit. “ear-lose.” (Source: Portions of the Holy Bible in the Nyunga language of Australia, 2018).

See also remember and forget (Japanese honorifics).

addressing God

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.

Translation commentary on Wisdom 16:11

To remind them of thy oracles they were bitten: Oracles are messages from God. The Greek verb for bitten does not really mean “bite,” but “goad” or “prod.” The bites were the goads, of course, but the idea could be expressed in the line as follows: “The snakebites were intended to force them to remember your Law [or, commands],” “The purpose of [or, reason for] the snakebites was to force…,” or even “The purpose of the snakes biting your people was to force….”

And then were quickly delivered: “Healed” or “cured” may be used here rather than delivered or “rescued” (Good News Translation). The question here is whether this second line is a parenthetical expression between the first and third lines (which would mean “they were bitten lest they should fall…”) or whether lest they should fall refers back to delivered as well as to bitten. We believe it is best interpreted as a parenthesis, and will suggest a model below.

Lest they should fall into deep forgetfulness and become unresponsive to thy kindness: There are difficult problems here, mainly centering around the meaning of deep forgetfulness and of the obscure word translated unresponsive. Does forgetfulness refer to death (see Psa 88.12) or to spiritual insensitivity? Could unresponsive be rendered “unconcerned about” or should a change be made so it reads “cut off from” (New Jerusalem Bible similarly Reider)? We doubt that death is intended by forgetfulness, and believe that the meaning of the two lines is “to keep them from becoming so insensitive or oblivious to you that they would be incapable of responding to your kindness.”

We suggest these models for the verse:

• You intended the snakebites to force your people to remember your Law, so that they would not completely forget you, and become unable to recognize your kindness. But you quickly healed those bites.

• You decided to have the snakes bite your people to force them to remember your Law [or, commands]. In this way they would not completely forget you and become unable to recognize how kind you were to them….

Bringing the parenthetical second line and then were quickly delivered to the end allows the thought of the rest of the verse to flow freely and uninterrupted, and also leads smoothly into the next verse.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Wisdom of Solomon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2004. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.