speaking directly

In recent years I've gained an appreciation for reading the Bible in different translations. It's amazing the difference that different wording, which essentially says the same thing, makes to what you take from the text. I think I have an awareness of those differences because for many years I just read the NIV. So now, when I read a different translation, and I read something that sounds really unfamiliar or is really striking I look back at the NIV or I'll look at another translation and it gives me a deeper understanding of what the tranlation I'm reading is expressing. 

There was an example of this recently. I've been reading the NET Bible, and I was struck by how some passages from psalms that I read were so direct and the language used was so potent because of that - because it used words that made the point directly not in some flowery, poetic way. Like for example, Psalm 31:7 - "I will be happy and rejoice in your faithfulness, because you notice my pain and you are aware of how distressed I am." It's so direct and clear and real. We don't usually think of God in this way and it's so refreshing. I felt like I had never read anything like that in the Bible before. So, I looked up some other translations and I noticed the difference. The NIV renders Psalm 31:7 as: "I will be glad and rejoice in your love, for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul."

The words used in the NIV and other translations are the kind of words we're used to reading in the Bible, so it blunts the effect a bit. When you are distressed and in pain, it's powerful to read God's word and it says that God notices your pain and is aware of how distressed you are. It's real, whereas affliction and anguish - although more semantically powerful - because they aren't the words we would normally use, they're kind of distant. We know what pain is. We know what distress is.