Didst thou not pour me out like milk: related thoughts on the formation of the embryo are expressed in such passages as Psalm 139.13, “For thou didst form my inward parts, thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Some of the ancient Greeks taught that the semen clotted to form the fetus. The Koran speaks of the marvel of procreation through a drop of semen or a clot of blood. Pour translates the causative form of the Hebrew verb, which means to make flow, and is used in Ezekiel 22.20 in the sense of making metals molten, and in 2 Kings 22.9 of melting down silver coins for other purposes. Good News Translation has chosen to set aside the metaphors in this verse with “You gave my father strength to beget me” in line a. In so doing Good News Translation changes the nature of the poetic description of procreation. In verse 9 Job says God has made him of clay. Gordis sees the process referred to in this verse as the semen being poured like milk into the womb, where it solidifies like cheese. In verse 11 it will finally be knitted with bones and muscles and covered with skin.

This poetic description appears to be unaware of the active participation of the female ovum uniting with the male sperm to form the fetus. The adjustments made by Good News Translation affect the intention of the author and distort the nature of his description of prenatal formation. It is likely that the significance of the images in verse 10 will be lost in many languages unless more of the implied information supporting the images of milk and cheese is provided. For example, Bible en français courant translates verse 10 “One day you formed me in the body of my mother as one curdles milk in the bottom of a pot.” It is also possible to render the line as a rhetorical question, “Did you not pour me like milk into my mother’s womb?”

And curdle me like cheese: this line is parallel to the previous line, and a comparison is used again here. This time it is the curdling of cheese. The primary meaning of the verb translated curdle is “coagulate.” Here it is used in its causative form, meaning to “stiffen or congeal,” and so with cheese, curdle. The word translated cheese, which is cognate with Arabic, is found only here. The line may be rendered, for example, “and caused that milk to curdle like cheese.” In areas in which the making of cheese is unknown, it will be better to avoid these images and say, for example, “Did you not pour me like water into my mother’s womb and make my body start growing there?”

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 .