fear (of God)

The Hebrew and Greek that are translated as “fear (of God)” (or: “honor,” “worship,” or “respect”) is translated as “to have respect/reverence for” (Southern Subanen, Western Highland Purepecha, Navajo (Dinė), Javanese, Tboli), “to make great before oneself” (Ngäbere), “fear-devotion” (Kannada — currently used as a description of the life of piety), “those-with-whom he-is-holy” (those who fear God) (Western Apache) (source for this and above: Reiling / Swellengrebel), “revere God” (Lalana Chinantec), “worship God” (Palantla Chinantec) (source for this and one above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), “obey” (Chichewa) (source: Ernst Wendland), “having/showing respect (for God)” (Makonde) (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext), or with a term that communicates awe (rather than fear of an evil source) (Chol) (source: Robert Bascom).

Bullard / Hatton (2008, p. 8) say the following about this concept: “As the writer of Proverbs states in 1:7, ‘The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.’ (…) ‘The fear of the Lord,’ that is, human fear of God, is an exceptionally difficult concept to express, at least in English. Other languages may have more appropriate terms. The idea probably is rooted in the most ancient days when people were indeed afraid of any deity. But in Israel the concept of fearing God was transformed by God’s revelation into a much fuller idea. Basically, as used in the Bible, the fear of God refers to the proper attitude of reverence and awe before the Holy One. To fear God is to recognize one’s own place as a mere mortal before the Creator, one’s place as a sinner before the Judge, one’s place as a child before the Father, one’s place as the recipient of God’s love. It thus involves submission, repentance, trust, and grateful love toward the One who is fearsome in holiness, in justice, in power that both protects and punishes, and in love. Using the word “fear” is sometimes as good as we can do, but often we will alternate that word with terms like ‘reverence’ or ‘awe.’”

See also fear of the LORD (Isa 11:2) and complete verse (Genesis 22:12) et al.

complete verse (Zephaniah 3:7)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Zephaniah 3:7:

  • Kupsabiny: “Then, I thought that my people of Jerusalem would obey me and accept to be corrected. If they had done like that they would not have been punished. But (they) continued to do sin in every way.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “I thought, ‘Truly he fears me,
    and she accepts my discipline.’
    After that her refuge will not be destroyed.
    Nor will My punishment come upon her.
    but to do all kinds of bad things
    they are more hasty."” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “Because of this which I have-done I thought that my people will- now -respect me and they will- now -receive/accept my rebuke to them, so-that their city will- not -be-destroyed as what I had-destined them. But they in-fact still sinned greatly.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “So I thought to myself,
    ‘Because of what I have done to those other nations,
    surely the people of Jerusalem will revere me now,
    and they will accept my correcting them/my telling them to quit doing what is wrong.
    If they do that, I will not destroy their houses;
    I will not punish them like I said that I would do.’
    But in spite of knowing how I punished those other nations,
    they were still eager to get up early each morning
    and continue to do evil things.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

1st person pronoun referring to God (Japanese)

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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 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.

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

See also pronoun for “God”.

Translation commentary on Zephaniah 3:7

This verse shows the intended purpose of the LORD’s actions in verse 6 and the actual result, which was quite different from what was desired.

Verse 7 opens with the words I said and then gives a quotation within the main quotation that runs from verse 6 to verse 13. Good News Translation interprets I said to mean “I said to myself” (compare Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Bible en français courant) and translates as “I thought” (compare Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). Then it continues by turning the words quoted into indirect speech. Translators may use direct or indirect speech according to the normal patterns of their own language.

In the first two clauses Revised Standard Version uses the third person pronoun she where Bible de Jérusalem, Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, and New International Version use the second person “you.” The Hebrew actually has second person feminine forms in these two clauses (addressing the city, which is feminine in Hebrew) but third person forms in the third and fourth clauses. Such a change of person is somewhat awkward in English. It is not clear whether the Revised Standard Version translators changed the Hebrew text, or whether they made the alteration to third person on translational grounds. Translators should use whichever form best fits the overall paragraph structure in their own language. Note that by using indirect speech Good News Translation avoids this problem.

Surely (Good News Translation “then”) refers back to the words of the LORD in verse 6. Many translators will need to say, for example, “Because of this I thought that my people….” The LORD’s intention was that his own people, on seeing the punishment of gentile nations, would fear me and accept correction. The words “have reverence for” (Good News Translation) give the meaning in this context of the word translated fear in Revised Standard Version and most other modern English versions. The main component of meaning of fear in ordinary usage is “to be afraid of,” whereas the sense intended here is rather that of “respect.” The expression accept correction is the same expression which occurred in verse 2, and its recurrence here helps to tie these paragraphs together.

In the next part of the verse, most modern versions follow the Septuagint in rendering not lose sight or something of similar meaning such as “remember” (compare Bible de Jérusalem, New American Bible, Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible, Good News Translation, New Jerusalem Bible, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). This understanding depends on reading the Hebrew word meʿonah “her dwellings” with different vowels as meʿeneha “from her eyes.” The Hebrew is retained by Traduction œcuménique de la Bible and New International Version as it stands (compare Hebrew Old Testament Text Project), but the Septuagint understanding as found in the majority of modern versions fits the context better, and translators are recommended to follow it.

All that I have enjoined upon her: the Hebrew verb translated enjoined is a word of wide meaning. The basic sense is “to visit” (compare New American Bible), either with the intention of punishing (compare Jerusalem Bible, New International Version, New Jerusalem Bible) or of giving responsibility or instruction (compare Moffatt, New English Bible). Revised Standard Version enjoined has the idea of responsibility. Good News Translation has the idea of instruction and expresses it in simple terms as “the lesson I taught them.”

But all the more they were eager to make all their deeds corrupt: the final sentence shows the reaction of the people to the lessons the LORD had tried to teach them. Literally it says “but they rose early and corrupted all their doings” (Revised Version). The combination of the verb translated “rise early” with another verb is a favorite expression of Jeremiah (for example, Jer 7.13, 25; 11.7; 25.3, 4). It usually means “to do something persistently or eagerly,” and this is the sense here. The words eager or “eagerly” are used in Revised Standard Version, New American Bible, New International Version, and New Jerusalem Bible, but Good News Translation seems to miss this element of meaning. It apparently takes the idea of rising early to refer to time and translates “But soon they were behaving as badly as ever.” An alternative translation model can be “But they were just as eager as before to do all sorts of wicked things.”

Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on the Book of Zephaniah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1989. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .