Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Psalm 89:40:
Chichewa Contempary Chichewa translation, 2002/2016:
“You have broken down all his walls
and you have turned into ruins all his fortresses.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
Newari:
“You have dismantled all the walls that protect his cities,
and You have destroyed and ruined his fortresses.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon:
“You have-broken-down the stone-walls of his city
and ruined its hiding-places.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Laarim:
“You destroyed the fence of his city,
and destroyed his strongholds.” (Source: Laarim Back Translation)
Nyakyusa-Ngonde (back-translation into Swahili):
“Umezibomoa kuta zake zote,
ngome zake umezifanya kuwa mahame.” (Source: Nyakyusa Back Translation)
English:
“You have torn down the walls that protect his city,
and allowed all his forts to become ruins.” (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/reckon” is used.
Jerusalem has been captured by the enemy and its defenses destroyed (verse 40). The land is open to neighboring peoples, who plunder it and mock the king and his people (verse 41). All of these misfortunes are God’s doing; and in the whole bitter narrative, not once is there any admission of sin which might account for God’s anger.
In verse 40a the word translated breached means to break through the walls, normally by destroying a section so as to gain entrance into the city through the break in the wall. Here, however, all his walls shows that the walls have been broken down completely; thus Good News Translation “You have torn down the walls of his city.” The same Hebrew word occurs in 80.12a, “broken down.” His walls (Good News Translation “walls of his city”) may have to be recast to say, for example, “the walls that protect his city.”
For translation notes on strongholds (Good News Translation “forts”) see 18.45, “fastnesses.”
All that pass by, verse 41, is the same expression as in 80.12b. Despoil means to take away everything that belongs to someone else, to plunder.
He has become the scorn of his neighbors resembles the scene pictured in 44.14; 79.4; 80.6. It would be better to translate neighbors as “all the neighboring peoples” or “the people of all the nearby nations….”
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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