But I have understanding as well as you: verse 3 has three lines as in Revised Standard Version, but as the second line is identical with the second line of 13.2, some interpreters think it is out of place here and omit it. However, it makes good sense and appears to be part of the design for the closure of the first unit of the poem, and so it should not be omitted in translation. Understanding translates the Hebrew term “heart,” which is rendered “sense” in Good News Translation, New English Bible, and others. Bible en français courant says “I know how to think as well as you do.” The line may also be expressed “But I understand things as well as you do,” “Your sense does not surpass mine,” or “How you understand matters is not greater than the way I understand them.”

I am not inferior to you is a more general statement than lines a or c of the verse. Accordingly Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch places it at the beginning. Translators may wish to do the same. This line translates a Hebrew idiom “I do not fall from you,” meaning “I do not fall short of you” or “I am not less than you.” New English Bible translates “In nothing do I fall short of you.” Job is assuring his friends that he is their equal. This line may also be rendered, for example, “I am equal to you” or “What you are in thinking I am also.”

Who does not know such things as these?: the verb know does not occur in Hebrew but is clearly implied. Revised Standard Version translates Job’s remark as a negative question which expects the reply “Everybody knows.” Good News Translation and others translate as a statement: “Everyone knows all that you have said.” Job thus continues to ridicule his friends’ wisdom, saying that all they have said is nothing new. This line may be rendered as a question by translating, for example, “Is there anyone who does not know these things you are saying?” “Doesn’t everyone know these words you speak? Of course they do!” As a statement we can say “There is no one ignorant of what you have said” or “Everybody knows the things you have said.”

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 .