When he gave to the wind its weight: Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, and others construct verses 25 and 26 as subordinate clauses of time, and verse 27 as the main clause, which gives the result of the action. Other translations relate these verses differently. Pope does essentially the same as Revised Standard Version but begins verse 24 with the “when” clause. Dhorme also begins the subordination with verse 24, discontinues it in verse 25, and starts it again in verse 26. Since the verbs in verse 24 imply continuous present action, as in Good News Translation, rather than a past event, it is better to follow Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation. Most interpreters understand the thoughts of verses 25 and 26 as referring to God’s activity in creation. The Hebrew of verse 25 has no explicit subject and says literally “making for the wind a weight.” The subject is God, from verse 23. The idea is that the wind, which is not normally thought of as a solid object, is here poetically given weight, and in these terms we may translate “When God set the weight of the wind,” or “When God fixed the weight of the wind,” or “When God decided how much the wind should weigh.” If the association of weight with wind is poetically meaningless, it may be possible to translate as in Good News Translation or to say, for example, “When God decided how strong the wind should be.”

And meted out the waters by measure: Revised Standard Version uses meted out and by measure to represent the two words used in the Hebrew of this line. The literal meaning is “to measure with a measuring instrument,” that is, “to measure with a gauge.” The expression depicts a carefully conducted process. The waters probably refers to the waters carried by the wind in the previous line, which then becomes specifically rain water in the next verse. Good News Translation is the only translation consulted that has “seas.” Better than “seas” is “the water in the clouds.” The line may be rendered “and when he measured the amount of water in the clouds.”

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 .