Let his flesh become fresh with youth: in Revised Standard Version the quotation continues with verse 25. Good News Translation, however, takes both verses 24 and 25 as a description of what happens as a result of the angel’s request being granted. Both lines of verse 25 have about the same meaning, and they are reduced to one in Good News Translation. Become fresh renders a Hebrew verb found only here in the Old Testament and having an unusual form. Pope and others change one letter to get “become plump,” and Pope translates “His flesh becomes plump as a boy’s.” The same Hebrew root is found in 8.16 (“thrives”) and 24.8 with the sense of “moist” or “sappy,” and so Dhorme, like Revised Standard Version, translates “His flesh becomes fresh with youth.”

Let him return to the days of his youthful vigor may be rendered “he is again as he was when young” or “he finds his youthful strength all over again.”

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 .