The Greek (and Hebrew) that is translated on many English versions as “Zeal for your house will consume me” is translated in various ways in other languages:
Yanesha’: “My protectiveness for your house completely possesses me.”
Xicotepec De Juárez Totonac: “So very much I want the house of God to be honored. And because of this I am treated with contempt.”
Tenango Otomi: “I look with respect on your house, even though I lose my life.”
Lalana Chinantec: “I cannot stand it, so much do I value the house where they worship You.”
(Source: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125.)
In Gbaya, the notion of “consume” (or “burn like a fire” in the Good News Translation) is emphasized with lɛk-lɛk, an ideophone “that is often used to describe the flames of a fire.”
Philip Noss (in The Bible Translator 1976, p. 100ff. ) explains: “A descriptive device common to Gbaya oral literature that is often found in translations of the Psalms is the ideophone. The ideophone may be identified with onomatopoeia and other sound words frequently seen in French and English comic strips, but in Gbaya and other African languages it comprises a class of words with a very wide range of meaning and usage. They may function verbally, substantively, or in a modifying role similar to adverbs and adjectives. They describe anything that may be experienced: action, sound, color, quality, smell, or emotion. In oral literature they are used not only with great frequency but also with great creativity.
Conforming to Gbaya literary style, the team used ideophones in its translation of the Psalms, although an average of less than two per psalm is a considerably lower rate of occurrence than in Gbaya narrative. There were two reasons for this limited usage. The first was that the Psalms are poetry rather than action narrative where their occurrence would be more common. The second was that in a tale being performed for artistic reasons, the ideophone may predominate over the action, whereas in the psalm the ideophone must complement without dominating or overshadowing the message. However, since the ideophone is an integral part of Gbaya literary expression, it could not be omitted. To do so would have rendered the translation colorless and unliterary.”
For the phrase “To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear,” see Romans 15:3.
Note that this quote in the New Testament is not taken from the Hebrew Bible but from the Greek Septuagint (LXX) which translates into English as “the reproaches of those who reproach you fell on me.” (Translation by NETS — for the Greek version see the title’s tooltip)
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Psalm 69:9:
Chichewa Contempary Chichewa translation, 2002/2016:
“for the haste done for your house has gotten me killed
and the insult of those who insult You has befallen me.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
Newari:
“Devotion for Your temple has been burning
like fire in my heart.
Those who disgrace You have brought disgrace on me.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon:
“Because of my loving of your (sing.) temple, I am-harmed.
The insults of the people to you I felt.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Laarim:
“For your House, my love burns like fire,
and when people insult you, they also insult me.” (Source: Laarim Back Translation)
Nyakyusa-Ngonde (back-translation into Swahili):
“Upendo wangu kwa nyumba yako,
unawaka kama moto ndani mwangu.
Matusi ambayo wanakutukana wewe,
yalinikuta na mimi.” (Source: Nyakyusa Back Translation)
English:
“Some people have despised your temple;
but my zeal for keeping your temple holy is like a fire burning inside me.
So it is as though those who are insulting you are also insulting me.” (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.
In a way which is not clear, it was the psalmist’s intense devotion to the Temple in Jerusalem that created trouble for him. Some suggest that he was like the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, whose deep commitment to the rebuilding of the Temple after the Israelites had returned from exile in Babylonia aroused hostility and opposition. The psalmist felt that the Temple was being scorned or misused, and since it was the dwelling of the God of Israel, any insult (from the psalmist’s point of view) directed at the Temple was an affront to God; and the psalmist felt as though these affronts had been directed against him personally.
Verse 9a is quoted in John 2.17; verse 9b is also applied to Jesus, in Romans 15.3.
The word translated zeal means “ardor, love, passion”; in other contexts it can be used in a bad sense, “jealousy, envy” (as in Pro 6.34; 27.4). The expression zeal for thy house has consumed me presents the translator with the problem of expressing adequately the idea of zeal in relation to the Temple, and the consuming effect of such zeal. In some languages the first part may best be translated “my love for your house.” In other languages it is possible to say idiomatically, for example, “I am eaten with love for your house” or “like hunger holds a man, I am devoted to your house.” Many languages can follow Good News Translation in the second part of this expression, while others will find it more natural to say, for example, “eats up my heart” or “melts my insides.”
In many languages it is not possible to speak of insults being hurled or falling. One may sometimes say, for example, “people have insulted you, and their words speak insults to me” or “what people said when they insulted you has now come upon me.” Insult as a verb may be rendered, for example, “to speak evil words about someone” or “to injure people by speaking bad words about them.”
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1991. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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