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Home › Library › Philology › Psalms 118-14 The Lord is My Strength

主は我が力 shu wa waga chikara Psalms 118-14 The Lord is My Strength

主は我が力 (shu wa waga chikara), the Lord is my strength, is the first clause of Psalm 118:14 as the 1955 colloquial Bible prints it, with 我 written for わ. The Meiji Old Testament of 1887 named God here ヱホバ; the oldest print of the clause with 主 in the National Diet Library is the Anglican Psalter of 1899, and the Anglican hymnal of 1922 prints the five characters exactly.

Japanese Scroll of Psalms 118:14 The Lord is My Strength (shu wa waga chikara) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Psalms 118:14 The Lord is My Strength (shu wa waga chikara)

主は我が力shu wa waga chikara

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Abstract

主は我が力, the Lord is my strength, is the first clause of Psalm 118:14 in the 1955 口語訳's words, 主はわが力, with a kanji supplied where that Bible prints kana. The Meiji Old Testament of 1887 gave the divine name, ヱホバはわが力; the Anglican Psalter of 1899 already read 主ハわが力, and the Anglican hymnal of 1922 prints 主は我が力, the five characters exactly, thirty-three years before the 口語訳.

Overview

The sense. The psalmist's God as his strength, the first clause of a verse that goes on to song and to salvation: 主はわが力、わが歌であって、わが救となられた, in the 口語訳's words.

The words. 主 in the Christian sense, the Father God or Christ, is dated by the dictionary to the Old Testament of 1888 itself, 「主ヱホバよ」 in Genesis [1]. 力 is cited from the 古事記 of 712 [2].

The text in English. Psalm 118:14: the King James reads the LORD is my strength and song; the American Standard, Jehovah is my strength and song; the New International, my strength and my defense; the English Standard, my strength and my song; the New Revised Standard, my strength and my might [3].

The historical record

1852 and 1919. The Chinese Bibles beside the Japanese. Two Chinese translations stand beside the Japanese wording, read here for what they share with it, not as its source. The Delegates' Version of 1852 reads 耶和華是我的力量、是我的詩歌 for the Psalm [4], and the Union Version of 1919 reads it the same way [5]: both give the divine name, 耶和華, where 主は我が力 has 主.

1887 and 1907. The Meiji Old Testament. The Meiji committee's Old Testament of 1887 reads Psalm 118:14 ヱホバはわが力(ちから)わが歌(うた)にしてわが救(すくひ)となりたまへり, in the 1907 旧新約全書 printing [6] and again in the 1937 引照附 printing [7]. Where 主は我が力 has 主, the Meiji Bible transliterates the divine name, ヱホバ.

1899. The Anglican Psalter. 日本聖公会's own Psalter, translated by 中川藤四郎 and others, reads Psalm 118 for its twenty-fourth morning: 十四 主(しゆ)ハわが力(ちから)わが歌(うた)なり又(また)わが救(すくひ)となり給(たま)へり [8]. 主 for the divine name, where the Meiji Old Testament transliterated it ヱホバ, is the Anglican tradition's word, fifty-six years before the 口語訳 put it in this verse. It is the oldest print of the clause with 主 that the National Diet Library's full-text search finds [9].

1922. The Anglican hymnal. 古今聖歌集, the Anglican church's revised hymnal, sets Psalm 118 as the epigraph to hymn 462 in the same five characters: 主は我が力わが歌にして我が救となり給へり 詩百十八〇十四 [10]. 主は我が力 stood in print thirty-three years before the colloquial Bible of 1955.

1955. The colloquial 口語訳. The Japan Bible Society's colloquial translation, the whole Bible in 1955, reads 主はわが力、わが歌であって、／わが救となられた at its own verse-search endpoint [11]. The Japan Bible Society's own list of the wordings it revised in 1975, 1984 and 2002 does not touch this verse [12]. 主は我が力 is this Bible's first clause with 我 for わ.

1970, 2003 and 2017. The 新改訳. 新改訳 first appeared in 1970; its 2003 text reads 主は、私の力であり、ほめ歌である [13] and its 2017 text 主は私の力　またほめ歌 [14]: 私の力 for 我が力.

1987. The 新共同訳. 新共同訳, published September 1987, reads Psalm 118:14 主はわたしの砦、わたしの歌。主はわたしの救いとなってくださった [15] — 砦, a fortress, for 力, strength.

2018. The 聖書協会共同訳. 聖書協会共同訳, published December 2018, reads 主こそ私の力、私の歌 [16] — 私の力 for 我が力.

Across the Bibles. Every Japanese Bible read here from 1955 on names God in this verse 主; none after the 口語訳 keeps わが, and one, the 新共同訳, trades the strength for a fortress.

A reading

主は我が力 is the 口語訳's first clause with 我 written for わ, and it is the five characters the Anglican hymnal printed in 1922. The Meiji Old Testament kept the transliterated name, ヱホバ, in the Protestant Bible from 1887 until 1955; the Anglican Psalter and hymnal, not the standard Protestant Bible, are where the Psalm's Lord is first called 主 among the prints found here, from 1899.

Sources not seen

The Catholic フランシスコ会訳 and バルバロ訳, two twentieth-century Catholic translations still in copyright, with no public verse-search endpoint. Their text of this verse would show whether the Catholic church's modern Bible differs from the older Bibles read here.

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

References

  1. 「主」, 精選版日本国語大辞典・デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/主
  2. 「力」, 精選版日本国語大辞典・デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/力
  3. Psalm 118:14, Hebrew text and English versions, at biblehub.com. https://biblehub.com/text/psalms/118-14.htm
  4. 詩篇, 聖經 (委辦譯本或稱代表譯本), 1852, at zh.wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/聖經_(委辦譯本或稱代表譯本)/詩篇
  5. 詩篇, 聖經 (和合本), 1919, at zh.wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/聖經_(和合本)/詩篇
  6. 旧新約全書, 1907, scan 434 (Psalm 118:14). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992555/1/434
  7. 舊新約聖書 引照附, 1937, scan 545 (Psalm 118:14, p. 1076). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1030419/1/545
  8. 詩篇, 中川藤四郎 等訳, 日本聖公会出版社, 1899, scan 178 (Psalm 118:14, the twenty-fourth morning). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/825502/1/178
  9. National Diet Library next-generation full-text search on 主はわが力, searched again 26 September 2026: 3 books to about 1949, of 1899 (this verse), 1921 and 1926 (other verses). https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/book/search?searchfield=contentonly&keyword=主はわが力
  10. 古今聖歌集 譜附, 古今聖歌集改訂委員, 1922, scan 283 (hymn 462, Psalm 118:14). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/941747/1/283
  11. 口語訳, 日本聖書協会, at the publisher's verse search (Psalm 118:14). https://www.bible.or.jp/read/vers_search.html
  12. 聖書語句訂正一覧（口語訳聖書）, 日本聖書協会, the 1975 · 1984 · 2002 revisions. https://www.bible.or.jp/read/si_word_correction/jc_word_correction.html
  13. 新改訳 第三版, 新日本聖書刊行会, 2003 text, at the publisher's verse search (Psalm 118:14). https://www.seisho.or.jp/biblesearch/
  14. 新改訳2017, 新日本聖書刊行会, 2017 text, at the publisher's verse search (Psalm 118:14). https://www.seisho.or.jp/biblesearch/
  15. 新共同訳, 日本聖書協会, 1987, at the publisher's verse search (Psalm 118:14). https://www.bible.or.jp/read/vers_search.html
  16. 聖書協会共同訳, 日本聖書協会, 2018, at the publisher's verse search (Psalm 118:14). https://www.bible.or.jp/read/vers_search.html

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.

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