In the fulness of his sufficiency he will be in straits: the wicked man is now said to be in trouble “at the height of his success, wealth.” He cannot find satisfaction no matter how much he succeeds nor how much wealth he obtains. It is not the absence of satisfaction that strikes him, but more actively, “anguish takes hold of, seizes him.” This line may be rendered, for example, “When he has acquired everything he is full of trouble,” “No matter how much wealth he has, he is never happy,” or “Even though he succeeds in all he does, anguish gets him down.”

All the force of misery will come upon him is literally “Every hand of the unfortunate will come on him.” The Septuagint and Vulgate make a change in the text to get the rendering of Revised Standard Version. Force of misery translates the Hebrew “hand of the unfortunate,” which implies striking a blow. In figurative terms “misery strikes him down,” or “all the weight of misery will crush him” (Good News Translation). In some languages the line may have to be restructured to say “misery will grab him like a person grabs something with his hand,” or without the figure, “he will suffer greatly.”

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 .