On my right hand the rabble rise: this verse has three lines in Hebrew. Good News Translation marks the three independent clauses with semicolons instead of commas, but it combines the second and third lines into one. The meaning of right hand is uncertain. In Hebrew thought the right hand implied strength as well as honor and prestige. The context may imply an attack against Job, and if this is correct, Job is saying that the mob rises up even where he is strongest, on his right hand. New English Bible is similar to this with “On my right flank they attack in a mob.” Good News Translation probably has a military assault in mind, with “This mob attacks me head on.” The rabble translates a word which occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. The context favors something like “mob” or a word suggesting “violent youth.” This line may also be expressed as “Gangs of them attack me” or “The mobs gang up on me.”
They drive me forth: there is so much uncertainty about this line that it is omitted by many translators, including New English Bible. As the Revised Standard Version footnote indicates, the Hebrew has “my feet” in place of me. The verb is the same as in verse 11, so the Hebrew is literally “they have cast off my feet.” This may suggest that the verb for “cast off” was mistakenly copied from verse 11. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project suggests “My feet they have cast forth,” meaning “They make me give ground,” which is as good a guess as that of Good News Translation. Good News Translation translates “They send me running,” which is another guess but which can serve as part of the description of the result of the attack on Job.
They cast up against me their ways of destruction: in Hebrew this line is similar to the second line of 19.12. See there for discussion. Job 19.12b, which has “their way” in the Hebrew, was interpreted in its context as placing “siegeworks” against Job. This line differs only by substituting another word, “path,” rendered ways by Revised Standard Version, followed by a word meaning “ruin, disaster” or destruction. Pope suggests the expression translated their ways of destruction refers to “siegeworks” as in 19.12, and New International Version translates “They build their siege ramps against me.” Bible en français courant states it more generally and makes destruction a verb phrase involving Job: “They assault me in order to destroy me.” Either New International Version or Bible en français courant may serve as a translation model for this line. We may also translate the line “they attack me and try to kill me.”
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 .