Translating Psalms

 

 

In Ghana, we observed a translation team doing an exegetical check of some recently translated Psalms. I found the discussion of Psalm 98:1 quite interesting as it was difficult to translate “his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him” as the local language uses the same word for hand and arm. 

The team deliberated quite awhile and decided on “his holy hand and his holy power’ instead of another option they considered “his right hand, his holy hand”… of course this is subject to further edits as the Psalms proceed through subsequent translation steps such as reviewers, community testing and finally quality control by a translation consultant.