In 10.22 Job finished his speech by referring to Sheol as the place where “light is as darkness.” Zophar assures Job now that instead of darkness your life will be brighter than the noonday. The line is literally “(More) than noonday will be (or, stand) your life.” The word translated life also means “world,” so that Gordis translates “brighter than noonday will be your world.” Brighter, although not expressed in Hebrew, is clearly implicit in the comparison with noonday. Translators in many languages will find it difficult to speak of Job’s life or world being brighter than the noonday sun, since a person’s life is not spoken of in those terms, and “world” is not used in this way, which may imply that Job owns the world. Therefore it may be necessary to say, for example, “The noonday sun will shine on you” or “The sun will shine brightly on all you own, as it shines at noonday.”

Its darkness will be like the morning: the exact meaning of this line is uncertain. Darkness is obtained by a slight change in the vowels of the Hebrew and is preferred by many scholars. Zophar appears to reinforce his assertion of the previous line by saying that Job will find that even what he thinks of as darkness will be light. Good News Translation shifts away from the comparison of darkness to morning light with “Your life will be brighter than sunshine at noon.” In many languages it will be clearer to speak of a change from darkness to light rather than comparing them; for example, “The darkness in your life will change to sunlight” or “The troubles you suffer will change as darkness of night changes to morning sunlight.”

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 .