Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 14:8:
Kupsabiny: “God, it is only you that the stomach of Israel can put their trust in, you are the one who saves us when trouble comes to us. Why are you behaving as if you were a stranger in our land or like a person who stays one night only?” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “O LORD, you alone is the hope of Israel, the savior in times of difficulty. Why are you just like a stranger to us? Why are you just like (someone)-passing-by for one night in our nation?” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “You are the one whom we Israelis confidently expect to do good things for us when we have many troubles/difficulties. So, why do you not help us? You act as though you are a stranger in our land, like you are someone who is staying here for only one night.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed. The first example is from a language where God is always addressed distinctly formal whereas the second is one where the opposite choice was made.
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Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or 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 Dutch and Western Frisian translations, however, God is always addressed with the formal pronoun.
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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 usage of an honorific construction where the morpheme are (され) is affixed on the verb as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. This is particularly done with verbs that have God as the agent to show a deep sense of reverence. Here, s-are-ru (される) or “do/make” is used.
O thou hope of Israel is translated “You are Israel’s only hope” by Good News Translation and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch. Compare 17.13; 50.7. Not all languages make a distinction between hope and faith. In those languages translators can express O thou hope of Israel as “You, the one we place our hope in,” “You who we expect to do for us what we need,” or “You who we expect to save us.”
Only here in the book of Jeremiah is the LORD referred to as Israel’s savior. Both Good News Translation (“you are the one who saves us from disaster”) and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch (“you alone can save us when we are in trouble!”) shift to a verb construction.
A stranger (see 7.6, where it is rendered “alien”) refers to a person who moves from the land of his birth to another land where he has only limited rights. Translators can also say “foreigner.”
Wayfarer (Good News Translation “traveler”) describes a person who is merely traveling through a certain land. Thus the LORD is accused of showing no more interest in what happens to the land than would an alien or a person merely traveling through.
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Jeremiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2003. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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