Are the consolations of God too small for you: Job’s friends have tried to comfort him (2.11) by speaking to him about God and how God deals with sinners. These views are best seen in Eliphaz’s speech in 5.17-27, Bildad’s in 8.5-8, and Zophar’s in 11.13-20. In 4.12-21 Eliphaz told of receiving a revelation. Job’s friends hold their advice to be inspired by God, but Job calls them “miserable comforters” (16.2). Consolations of God is the comfort that God gives through the agency of the friends. Good News Translation has expressed this noun phrase as a verb phrase: “God offers you comfort.” Biblia Dios Habla Hoy says “Doesn’t it suffice you that God himself comforts you?” This line may also be expressed, for example, “Is it not enough that God himself comforts you?” “Do you need still more than God’s comfort?” or “God offers to make you feel better. Isn’t that enough?”

Or the word that deals gently with you?: the word is best taken as being in apposition with consolations of God and referring again to the words spoken by Eliphaz, or by all three of the friends (Good News Translation “we”). Deals gently with you is the same expression found in 2 Samuel 18.5, when David ordered his military leaders to “deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.” See also “gently” in Isaiah 8.6. Eliphaz is saying “We spoke gently with you” or “Our words to you were spoken calmly.”

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 .