For he crushes me with a tempest: For implies a consequence, although this is not necessarily implied in Hebrew. Crushes me translates the verb “bruise” used in Genesis 3.15, “he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Revised Standard Version). Translations differ in the rendering of the word translated tempest by Revised Standard Version and “storms” by Good News Translation. Syriac translators read the word as “hair,” that is, “with or for a hair.” This same sense is preferred by Dhorme, who understands it to mean “for a trifle,” an expression which parallels without cause in the next line. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project rates the reading “storm” only with a “C” evaluation but thinks that either “hair” or “storm” is possible. Bible en français courant avoids both metaphors and translates “He crushes me for no significant reason,” giving the alternatives of “storm” and “hair” in the margin. In translation crushes may imply total physical destruction, which is not correct in this context. Therefore it may be necessary to say, for example, “He pounds me, beats me, whips me”; and the full expression may be rendered “He blows against me with a storm which whips me” or “He makes a storm strike me down.”

And multiplies my wounds without cause: this clause may need to be restructured to say, for example, “he bruises me all over with no reason at all” or “although I am innocent, he wounds me over and over.”

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 .