The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek that is typically translated in English as “joy” or “happiness” is translated in the HausaCommon Language Bible idiomatically as farin ciki or “white stomach.” In some cases, such as in Genesis 29:11, it is also added for emphatic purposes.
Other languages that use the same expression include Southern Birifor (pʋpɛl), Dera (popolok awo), Reshe (ɾipo ɾipuhã). (Source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
“Rejoicing in his inhabited world”: “Rejoicing” is the same word as in verse 30. “Inhabited world” is literally “in the world of his earth” and simply means “his world” or “his earth.”
“And delighting in the sons of men”: “Sons of men” refers to mankind, humanity, the people of the world. In verse 30 Wisdom dances or celebrates to give the creator delight; in this line she herself is delighted. In verse 30 the order was “delight . . . rejoice” while in verse 31 the order is reversed to “rejoice” . . . “delight”. This is a poetic device used by the author to create a chiasmus (X-structure, see the glossary at the end of this Handbook) as the closure for the poem. Good News Translation says, “happy with the world and pleased with the human race.” We may also say, for example, “I celebrated [danced and sang] because I was happy with his world, and full of joy because of the people in the world,” or more briefly “I was happy to see the world and happy to see the people in it.”
Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Proverbs. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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 one 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 in the following way: “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 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. ).
Notice the parallel parts that are similar in meaning:
31a I was rejoicingin His whole world,
31b delighting togetherin the sons of men.
8:31a
I was rejoicing in His whole world: In Hebrew, this phrase is literally “in the world of his earth.” There are two ways to interpret this repetition of synonyms:
(1) It means “his whole world.” For example:
at play everywhere on his earth (New Jerusalem Bible)
(2) It means the inhabited part of his world. For example:
his inhabited world (New Revised Standard Version)
It is recommended that you follow interpretation (1), along with most versions and scholars. The previous verses describe Wisdom being present at the creation of oceans, mountains, and sky. There is nothing to suggest that Wisdom rejoiced only in the inhabited part of the earth.
The Good News Translation and the Contemporary English Version both leave implied the emphasis of whole world, and the Good News Translation also omits “his.” It has “happy with the world.” It is recommended that you retain the emphasis and the pronoun “his” if possible. If it is unnatural in your language to say “his entire world,” another way to express the meaning is:
the entire world that he created
-or-
everything that he created
8:31b
delighting together in the sons of men: Other ways to translate this phrase are:
and pleased with the human race (Good News Translation)
-or-
and delighted with all its people (New Century Version)
General Comment on 8:30b–c and 8:31a–b
The words “delight” and “rejoicing” in 8:30 are here reversed to “rejoicing” and “delighting,” forming a chiasm to complete this paragraph. In some languages, it will not be possible to retain the chiasm due to a lack of synonyms. However, it may be possible to emphasize the idea of rejoicing/delighting by saying something like:
Indeed, I was very happy at the whole world that he created, including people.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.