Psalm 51:3-5: An Exercise in Translation

Wayne Leman has done a great service by working through my translation of Psalm 51 and noting problematic aspects as he sees them. It is highly instructive to think through issues of translation calmly and constructively. Wayne’s comments provide an excellent jumping-off point for doing so.

In this post, I record Wayne’s observations on my translation of Psalm 51:3-5 and respond as best I know how. My purpose is not to resolve issues so much as to pose the right questions and suggest a path or paths by which the questions might be explored.

 
3    Favor me, God, in your kindness,

                                   in your great mercy 

                                                  erase my crimes.

W’s comment re “in your kindness” and “in your great mercy”: I suggest this is not literary English, but, rather syntactic transliteration from the biblical language. English does not naturally use "in ___" phrases like this, as far as I know.

 
My response: REB, NAB, NJB, and Kugel all translate with "in ___" phrases here. I follow their example. But that doesn’t settle the question. What is needed is a tagged and searchable database of literary English against which the question might be probed.

 
W’s comment re “erase my crimes”: I don't think crimes can be erased in English. A record of crimes can, however, be erased. We cannot erase something which has already been done.

 
My response: “erase my/your crime/s” is acceptable English. Google them and you will discover I am not inventing an idiom. I did so only after Wayne sowed a seed of doubt in my mind, and I discovered that Barbara Elison Rosenblit translates Psalm 51 here just as I have. Her entire translation of the psalm is worth looking at. But the following point needs to be made: if an idiom turns out to occur only in religious language, that is one thing. If it is used in a variety of contexts, that is another. It turns out that the idiom under consideration is not restricted to religious use, but also occurs in secular song lyrics, political journalism, and novels. That makes it all the more usable in a translation of Psalm 51. Let me reformulate the assertion as a question: if an idiom occurs across a wide swath of genres in the target language, and constitutes a dynamic equivalent to its counterpart in the source language, does that make it a good candidate for use in translation?

4    Wash me clean of my misdeed,

                   purify me of my offense.

5    My crimes I know,

                   my offense is ever before me.

 
W’s comment re “ever before me”: Hebraism; not natural literary English; natural literary English would be more like: "I continually remember my offense."

My response: “ever before me” IS a biblish phrase, going back to KJV at the latest. It is fun to google it and see how it has nonetheless entered the bloodstream of literary English. In my view, it has become natural literary English. Let me reformulate this assertion as a question: how deeply embedded must a biblish phrase become in English literature before it is deemed natural literary English?

Comments

[Wayne Leman]

What is needed is a tagged and searchable database of literary English against which the question might be probed.

This is the arena of corpus linguistics and there are such huge searchable databases.

[Wayne Leman]

Neither hits on Google nor use in other Bible versions establishes a wording as being literary English. There is a long history of unnatural English in Bible translations, so we cannot take this corpus as a guide to literary English. That would be circular.

Again, we discover what is literary English by reading English literature, written by good English authors. They will, on the whole, use grammatical English, not English which has Hebrish or Gringlish syntax and lexical collocations.

[Wayne Leman]

Let me reformulate this assertion as a question: how deeply embedded must a biblish phrase become in English literature before it is deemed natural literary English?

Excellent question, John. I don't know the answer, but I would suggest that if we are trying to create a literary translation for *current* speakers of English we need to use literary English that they use. Using biblish which has been embedded in previous stages of English may not be appropriate for the best literary English for today. There is a reason we have courses in the *history* of English literature. That reason is that the English language changes, as every language changes. Today's speakers and authors, on the whole, are far less biblically literate than those of previous generations. We can decry this fact. We can state that we need to education them so that they can understand the English of previous generations. Or we can accept each stage of a language as it is and write for that stage. I prefer the last approach, but I recognize that there are others who prefer English of the past, or at least that for one to be "educated", they need to be conversant with that English. I do not consider that it is necessary to be conversant with English of the past to be "educated". If someone wants to be educated in the history of English literature, then it is appropriate for that person. But we should not require people to learn a language or dialect of a language other than their own for them to enjoy good literary language.

[Wayne Leman]

John, I should qualify what I said about googling. Hits from googling are useful *if* they are from natural literary English. Hits from translations are generally not helpful since it is circular to determine good literary translation English from translations. We need to bring objectivity to the exercise by breaking out of the translation English circle and using English that is considered good literary English by a majority of English speakers.

Google doesn't yet rank quality of hits as to whether or not their English is natural literary English or not.

[Wayne Leman]

But the following point needs to be made: if an idiom turns out to occur only in religious language, that is one thing. If it is used in a variety of contexts, that is another. It turns out that the idiom under consideration is not restricted to religious use, but also occurs in secular song lyrics, political journalism, and novels. That makes it all the more usable in a translation of Psalm 51

Right on! Write on!

[JohnFH]

Thanks for your continuing interaction, Wayne. This is a ball of fun for me and, I hope, for others who read this.

[Wayne Leman]

This is a ball of fun for me

How do you translate that to Italian?! :-)

[JohnFH]

"Tutto questo mi diverte un sacco."

Note how un-literal the translation is. Still, that is what comes first to my bilingual mind. Simultaneous translation is a sobering business.

[Truman 1]

Truman 1,

In this passage King David realizes that he is wrong for what he did and is now asking God for forgiveness. David’s crimes were adultery and murder. Both of these crimes were severe and he was punished as some saw. In the beginning David didn’t seem to feel poorly for what he had done, however his feeling changed as did he. He made major changes to improve his life and I think that God saw this. I think that in this case God once again takes a parent like approach by first punishing David and then in the end rewards him. King David’s punishment for what he had done was that he lost his first child with his new wife. Then his second child, Salomon, become the greatest and wisest king of them all.

[chariots of fire 3]

When you and Wayne were discussing the third translation “Favor me, God, in your kindness, in your great mercy erase my crimes.” In Wayne’s second response he stated that crimes can not be erased but the record of the crimes can. I agree that crimes can not be erased once they are done because the past is the past and you can not change it. It is a fact that crime records can be erased, but the crime was still preformed. I don’t think that the crime being forgotten is nearly as important as being forgiving for the crime, righting the wrongs, and growing from the experience.

[Pulp Fiction 4]

The phrase “erase my crimes” is perfect in Psalm 51:3. It creates a much stronger sense of God’s forgiveness than it would if only a criminal record was erased. If I was David, I wouldn’t just ask God to “officially” remove the record of my wrongdoings, because I know it would still be in the back of His mind. Erasing them completely would be the ultimate relief for the sinner and the ultimate show of compassion from God.