“To you, O men, I call”: The quoted words of Wisdom begin with this verse. “You” is plural. “Men” is a rare plural form in the Hebrew Old Testament; the sense is “everybody.” One translation says, for instance, “Everybody! I’m talking to you all.”
“My cry is to the sons of men”: Her cry is addressed to everyone, not just to male adults. See Good News Translation. Bible en français courant says, “I address the whole world.” New Jerusalem Bible translates the whole verse: “I am calling to you, all people, my words are addressed to all humanity.”
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 .
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Proverbs 8:4:
Kupsabiny: “‘Please, I am the one, oh my people, I am calling you (plur.) as many as you are in (the) world/land!” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “O people! I am making a request of all of you. ” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “‘You (plur.) all people, I am speaking to you (plur.).” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “‘I-am-calling/inviting all you people on the earth.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.
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 first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others.
Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.
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 formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).
In this paragraph, personified Wisdom invites all mankind to become shrewd and intelligent (4–5). She then describes the good qualities of her words as motivation to heed her invitation (6–9). She ends with another appeal that is based on her high value (10–11).
8:4
Notice the parallel parts that are similar in meaning. They form a chiasm. The parts in 8:4a occur in the opposite order from the parallel parts in 8:4b.
4a To you, O men, I call out,
4b and my cry isto the sons of men.
If a chiasm is not natural in your language, you may need to reorder the parallel parts. For example, 8:4a could be reordered:
4a I call outto you, O men.
Another option would be to reorder 8:4b. For example:
4b To the sons of menI cry out.
8:4a–b
To you, O men, I call out, and my cry is to the sons of men: The word men means “everyone” or “all people.” When this word is used together with the phrase to the sons of men, it refers to all classes of humanity, without distinction. The position of the first phrase, To you, gives special emphasis to Wisdom’s audience. The New Living Translation (2004) conveys this emphasis by saying:
I call to you, to all of you! I raise my voice to all people. (New Living Translation (2004))
I call out…my cry: For call out, see 2:3a. The phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as my cry is literally “my voice.”
General Comment on 8:4a–b
In some languages, it may be more natural to combine and/or reorder the parallel lines. See the Display for 8:4a–b (combined/reordered).
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.