This verse has a pair of parallel lines which pick up the thought of “weak hands” from verse 3b and intensify it through the figures of stumbling and feeble knees. Stumbling is used in Proverbs 4.12b to refer to falling from the path of wisdom. Both stumbling and feeble knees are used metaphorically for failure in faithfulness to live in the right way. The words of instruction uphold the stumbler and firm up the feeble knees. Good News Translation rearranges the poetic parallelism into two clauses related as background condition to consequence: “When someone … your words encouraged him to stand.” Both metaphors are kept and put into line a. A further figure “stand” is introduced into line b. In some languages the figures will have to be replaced by nonfigures; for example, “By teaching people who needed help, you kept them living in the right way, and you were able to give them strength to go on.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, Wiliam. A Handbook on Job. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .