The verse opens with another comparison from nature. This time it is another plant, but a much larger one than the flower in verse 2.

For there is hope for a tree: For translates a Hebrew conjunction which refers back to verse 5 and the time limits imposed on human life by God. The world of vegetation is not restricted the way human beings are, because the tree can be cut down and then send out new shoots that will become another tree. By contrast human death is the final end. Job repeats Zophar’s expression of hope from 11.18. In 5.16 Eliphaz said “So the poor have hope” (Revised Standard Version). The hope expressed for the tree is that being cut down is not the end of its life. In translation it may be necessary to combine lines a and b to make clear that the tree is one that has been cut down; for example, “If someone cuts down a tree, there is hope for it to sprout again” or “We can hope that a tree that has been cut down will sprout again.”

If it be cut down, that it will sprout again expresses both the condition and the consequences. The second consequence, which is parallel to the first, is that its shoots will not cease. Good News Translation has reduced the two consequences to “come back to life and sprout,” which expresses the meaning economically and adequately. In translation it will often be necessary to say who is hoping. For example, “If a person cuts down a tree, he can expect that tree to come back to life and sprout again” or “When someone cuts down a tree, he can hope to see that tree continue to live and send out shoots.” If it appears in translation that it is the rootless trunk of the tree that continues to live, it will be better to say, for example, “He can expect to see the tree stump send out shoots and go on living.”

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 .