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Home › Library › Philology › God Is Always With You — a singer's Chinese tattoo, the Bible's blessing rearranged

上帝興你常在 shangdi yu ni chang zai God Is Always With You — a singer's Chinese tattoo, the Bible's blessing rearranged

上帝興你常在 is six Chinese characters from a pop singer's tattoo, meant to say God is with you, always. The tattoo writes 與, with, where this line writes 興, rise. This study follows the Chinese Bible's wording for the blessing, from 1852 to 1919, to the tattoo and a 2011 reading of its photograph.

Abstract

上帝興你常在 is a singer's tattoo with one character changed: the tattoo, read from its photograph in 2011, writes 與, with, and this line writes 興, rise, raise, to which two Chinese dictionaries give no sense of with. With 與, the line says God is with you, always, a rearrangement of the Chinese Bible's blessing, which the Union Version of 1919 writes 與你同在 and an earlier Mandarin New Testament wrote with 常在, the tattoo's own last two characters. As printed, with 興, the line can be read only with 興 as a verb, God raises you or God delights in you, followed by ever enduring, and no text read writes it so.

Overview

The sense. In Chinese, Shàngdì yǔ nǐ cháng zài; there is no Japanese reading, because the line is not Japanese. Read as the tattoo has it, with 與, the sense is one: God is with you, always. Read as printed, 興 can only be a verb: raise, set in motion, as the dictionary's 左傳 example raises a thousand armored men, or at its other reading delight in, as in its 禮記 example: God raises you, or God delights in you, then ever enduring. No text read writes the line that way, and no reader of Chinese has been asked how it reads.

The words. 上帝 is God: the Ministry dictionary's first sense is the high god of the classics, quoted from the 易經, its second the sovereign, quoted from the 詩經, and only its third the Christian God, quoted from the novel 文明小史 [1], so the word is far older than Christianity in China. It is the word of one of the two editions of the Protestant Union Version, the 上帝版; the other, the 神版, writes 神 with a full-width space before it, which keeps the two editions' pages identical and is read as the traditional honorific space [2], and the Catholic Bible writes 天主 [3]. 與, yǔ, is with: 漢典 gives it as equivalent to with, together with [4], and the Ministry dictionary gives the character eighteen senses at this reading, among them the verbs give, follow, befriend, and the conjunction and, with, 和、同、跟, with 我與你, I and you, as its example [5]. 興, xīng, is the character a later copy has instead: rise, flourish, undertake, set in motion, and at its other reading, xìng, interest, enjoyment. Neither dictionary gives 興 any sense of accompaniment, at either reading [6][7]. 興 and 與 share their outline, the two hands at the sides and the 一 beneath; they differ only in the component the hands hold, 同 in 興 and 与 in 與, and anyone setting Chinese by shape can take one for the other. They are different words. 你 is you. 常在 is to endure, to remain: the Ministry dictionary defines it 時常存在 and quotes the 易林's 福祿常在, blessing and rank endure, and 陶淵明's 民生鮮常在, a life seldom endures [8]. In the Union Version it is most often abide with a place after it, as in abide in me (John 15:4), but it can stand alone: Daniel's 亙古常在者, the Ancient of Days, is the one who has endured from of old. With you in the Union Version is not 常在 but 同在.

The text in English. God is with you is the plain rendering of the blessing the tattoo rearranges, behind the King James Bible's own I am with you alway and God with us.

The historical record

1852 and 1882. The promise before the Union Version. The Delegates' Version, the Protestant Bible in classical Chinese, gives Christ's last words in Matthew as 我常偕爾、至世末焉, I am always with you, to the end of the age, with 偕 for with [9]. A missionary's catechism of 1882, also in literary Chinese, already gives them in the later wording, 我常與爾同在、直到天地末日, 與…同在 for with, and the older 爾 for you [10].

1885. The Mandarin New Testament. Before the Union Version, the Mandarin New Testament that the American Presbyterian Mission Press printed beside the King James at Shanghai in 1885 gives Christ's last words as 我就常在你們中間、直到世界的末日, I am always in your midst, to the last day of the world, with 常在 and a place, 你們中間, for with you alway [11]. The American Bible Society's printing at Yokohama in 1902 has the same line on the same page [12].

1919. The Chinese Union Version, 和合本. The Protestant Bible in the vernacular, published in two editions that differ only in the word for God [2]. I am with you always, even unto the end of the world is 我就常與你們同在、直到世界的末了 (Matthew 28:20); the LORD thy God is with thee is 耶和華你的神必與你同在 (Joshua 1:9); Emmanuel, God with us is 以馬內利繙出來、就是神與我們同在 (Matthew 1:23) [13]. The formula is 與 for with and 同在 for present together; 常, always, goes in front of it, as in the Matthew verse and in Moses's words in Deuteronomy, 耶和華你的　神常與你同在, the LORD thy God hath been with thee (2:7), the Union Version's nearest line to the tattoo [13]. Where the Mandarin of 1885 has 常在你們中間 in Matthew, the Union Version has 常與你們同在.

1965. A parting remembered. A Japanese record of a Protestant mission in 熱河, in north China, published in 1965, recalls a parting: on the way home, 主与你同在, the Lord be with you, was always said from the heart [14]. Japanese Protestants preached in 熱河 before the war's end; the pastor 福井二郎 went there after resolving on the China mission in 1935 and came home in 1948 [15]. The excerpt does not show who said the words, or in which year. Its word for God is 主, the Lord, not 上帝.

1968. The Catholic Bible. The Catholic translation writes 天主 for God and keeps the same formula: 天主常與你同在, God is always with you, which Abimelech says to Abraham as they make a covenant (Genesis 21:22), with 常 in front of 與, as in the Protestant Matthew [3]. The 2011 reader below hears 上帝与你同在 at Catholic churches in China; the Catholic Bible read here writes 天主, and the sources read do not reconcile the two.

About 1999. A singer's tattoo. The line was tattooed on a pop singer's upper left arm at about sixteen; it had been meant for the back of the neck, and the needle on the bone moved it to the arm. Two pages that report this date the tattoo only by her age [16][17], which her birth in December 1982 puts at about 1999 [18]. One quotes an interview in which she says I wish I never got the tattoo, because it's on my arm, and, asked whether she would do it again, No, I wouldn't do it again. I would've gotten one Chinese character right there, like on my neck [17].

2011. A reading of the photograph. One page transcribed the characters from a photograph and read them as Chinese: 上帝與你常在, Shàngdì yǔ nǐ cháng zài, God is with you [19]. Its writer: The grammar, though, seems a little strange to me. The sentence I'm used to hearing (at Catholic churches in China) is: 上帝与你同在. He reads 常 here not as often but as a "normal," unchanging, continuous state, and concludes: although neither this sentence nor the Catholic version is everyday Chinese, they both make sense. A commenter counted 常在 through the whole Union Version, sixty-four times, as far as I can tell, always with an object; Wikisource's text of that Bible has the string sixty times, and in Daniel's 亙古常在者 it has none [13]. Three photographs of the tattoo, checked against this transcription, confirm the character is 與: the crude hand of the tattooist does not change which character it is [20].

2014 to 2016. A later copy. A design was set with 興 by the file date of December 18, 2014, in four hands: in three the component between the hands is the boxed 同, and in the cursive hand it is a closed loop, read here as 興 [21]. A page describing it was posted on August 29, 2016, at an address naming the singer's tattoo as its inspiration [22]. No witness found before it carries 興; the tattoo does not, and the Bible does not.

What is not a source. The Bible verses are the source of the formula, not of the sentence; the tattoo is the source of the sentence, not of the character. Japanese is not a source of anything here: Japanese has its own words for this blessing, such as the Emmanuel line of the Japanese Matthew of 1881, 神われらと偕に在…, God with us [23], and that is not what this line is copied from.

The word in English

The King James Bible. I am with you alway (Matthew 28:20), I am with thee (Isaiah 41:10), God with us (Matthew 1:23) [24]. The celebrity pages gloss the tattoo God is always with you [16] and God Is With Me Always [17], neither as her own words; the 2011 reading gives God is with you [19].

A reading

The line is a Chinese Christian's God is with you, rearranged on a singer's arm so that ever enduring closes it, which a Chinese reader notices and an English reader never will; the one reader of Chinese found to write about it found it strange, and found that it makes sense. The Bible gives that ending some footing: a Mandarin New Testament before the Union Version wrote I am with you alway with 常在, and the Union Version calls God 亙古常在者. That oddity belongs to the tattoo, and a reader asking for the tattoo is asking for that line, not for the church's. The character 興 does not belong to it. The tattoo and the Bible write 與, with; 興 shares 與's outline and differs only between the hands, and I read the change as one made by matching shapes rather than by reading, though no witness shows how it was made. As printed, the six characters say God raises you, or delights in you, ever enduring, if they say anything. The dictionaries settle what 興 means; how a reader of Chinese takes the printed line is the question still to ask.

Sources not seen

The 1965 record of the mission in 熱河 is quoted from the excerpt the National Diet Library's full-text index returns; the page is served only to registered readers in Japan. The page would show who was speaking, to whom, and when. The Japanese Matthew of 1881 is quoted from its excerpt in the same index, whose text layer turns unreadable after 在; the page is served the same way. The Mandarin New Testaments before 1885, among them the Peking translation of the 1870s, were not opened; they would show when 常在 entered the Mandarin line.

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 「上帝」, 教育部國語辭典, at moedict. https://www.moedict.tw/raw/上帝
  2. "Chinese Union Version," Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Union_Version
  3. 聖經 (思高本), 創世紀 21:22, 思高聖經學會, 1968, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/聖經_(思高本)/創世紀
  4. 「與」, 漢典, at zdic. https://www.zdic.net/hant/與
  5. 「與」, 教育部國語辭典, at moedict. https://www.moedict.tw/raw/與
  6. 「興」, 教育部國語辭典, at moedict. https://www.moedict.tw/raw/興
  7. 「興」, 漢典, at zdic. https://www.zdic.net/hant/興
  8. 「常在」, 教育部國語辭典, at moedict. https://www.moedict.tw/raw/常在
  9. 聖經 (委辦譯本或稱代表譯本), 馬太福音 28:20, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/聖經_(委辦譯本或稱代表譯本)/馬太福音
  10. 楊格非 (Griffith John), 『真道入門問答』, 1882, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/真道入門問答
  11. 『新約全書 中西字』, The New Testament in English and Mandarin, Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1885, p. 86 (Matthew 28:20), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/XinYueQuanShuZhongXiZiTheNewTestamentInEnglishAndMandarin/page/n94/mode/1up
  12. 『新約全書 中西字』, The New Testament in English and Mandarin, Yokohama: American Bible Society, 1902, p. 86 (Matthew 28:20), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/xinyuequanshuzho00amer/page/n93/mode/1up
  13. 聖經 (和合本), 申命記 2:7, 約書亞記 1:9, 但以理書 7:9, 13 and 22, 馬太福音 1:23 and 28:20, 約翰福音 15:4, at Chinese Wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/聖經_(和合本)/申命記 · https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/聖經_(和合本)/約書亞記 · https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/聖經_(和合本)/但以理書 · https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/聖經_(和合本)/馬太福音 · https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/聖經_(和合本)/約翰福音
  14. 飯沼二郎 編, 『熱河宣教の記録』, 未来社, 1965, scan 61 (the excerpt at the NDL full-text index; the page is served only to registered readers in Japan). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2940517/1/61
  15. 「福井二郎」, Wikipedia (Japanese). https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/福井二郎
  16. Capital XTRA, list of tattoos, entry for Nicki Minaj. https://www.capitalxtra.com/features/lists/rappers-tattoos/nicki-minaj/
  17. Steal Her Style, tattoo entry 46042, posted December 11, 2012. https://stealherstyle.net/tattoo/46042/
  18. "Nicki Minaj," Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicki_Minaj
  19. John Pasden, "Nicki Minaj's Chinese Tattoo," Sinosplice, December 1, 2011. https://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2011/12/01/nicki-minajs-chinese-tattoo
  20. Three photographs of the tattoo: the Complex studio photograph, embedded at Sinosplice via Flickr, https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7154/6430560371_8886af0c17.jpg; two Steal Her Style photographs of 2012, one a close crop of the arm, https://stealherstyle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/nicki-minaj-chinese-upper-arm-tattoo.jpg and https://stealherstyle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/nicki-minaj-tattoo.jpg
  21. The house's design as set, Takase Studios, in four hands (S0045HB4A, S0045HC4A, S0045HD4A, S0045HS4A), file date December 18, 2014; the masters are not published.
  22. The Wayback Machine, snapshot of November 18, 2019, of a page posted August 29, 2016. http://web.archive.org/web/20191118192822/https://www.takase.com/inspired-by-nicki-minaj-chinese-tattoo/god-is-always-with-you/
  23. 『新約聖書馬太伝』, 米国聖書会社, 1881, scan 4 (the excerpt at the NDL full-text index; the page is served only to registered readers in Japan). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1885892/1/4
  24. The King James Bible, Matthew 1:23 and 28:20, and Isaiah 41:10, at Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_(King_James)/Matthew · https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_(King_James)/Isaiah

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-09-15, citations — every claim tested at its address; some resolve; several resolve but differ — a quoted grammar note found to drop a qualifying clause that mattered, a page's category claimed but not actually shown, and the house's title corrected to match its own lowercase 'is'; a couple do not resolve — a page called undated is in fact dated, and a missing NDL search file; the rest not openable (URLs with no cache, images); every differing row re-opened by hand and corrected in the body

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 上帝興你常在 (shangdi yu ni chang zai)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/shangdi-yu-ni-chang-zai.