The Lord God is like a sheep gatherer for me..
Psalm 23 in the Tampulma language of Ghana
1. My Lord God is like a sheep gatherer for me;
He cares for me all the time.
2. He takes me to the bush staying place that I habitually can eat and be resting.
He takes and shows me the water lake which is a lying down place that I habitually can drink water.
3. He also lets my spirit be strong.
He is teaching me the good work road following that his name sees honour.
4. Even if I live in the middle of a catching place (big trouble) or in the death living place, I will not be fearing anything because you who are my God are staying with me.
How you are following me with your walking stick and are protecting me, that takes fear away from me.
5. Even when people come to me that that they hate me, you will give me food that I eat in front of them.
You take oil and pour it on my head, and fill my calabash with water even that it overflows.
6. I already know how you are working good work and standing in one place in you love for me, and are letting me keep long in the time that I am living in this world.
I also know that I will live in the house of the Lord my God even for time which does not have an end.
Notes:
v. 2-3……….. It’s more natural in the African mind that when animals rest in a hot climate beside a lake or pool that they will also ‘drink,’ and in Tampulma you can’t let the verb ‘drink’ stand on its own so we added ‘water.’
………The ‘habitually’ is a particle which can be inserted to indicate that this was done, not continuously, but on a regular basis
v. 4…………..The Hebrew word for the ‘valley of the shadow of death’ actually means ‘valley of deep darkness’ and not of ‘death’ particularly. So we have translated ‘big trouble’ and added the ‘death living place.’
v. 6…………..The phrase ‘standing in one place’ describes how God is faithful in his love for us.
