In verse 7 Yahweh opens the conversation with Satan which will set the course for all the events to follow. The LORD said to Satan represents the Hebrew usage, but “asked” (so Good News Translation and most other modern English versions) is more appropriate for a question.

The LORD asks Satan Whence have you come? The form of the question in Good News Translation “What have you been doing?” is, however, a more natural way of expressing the kind of question that would prompt Satan’s reply. Here the question and answer form is simply used by the story teller as an opportunity to bring Job into the situation, and is not to be understood to imply that God did not know where Satan had been; for a similar question asked by God to Moses, see Exodus 4.2. Good News Translation uses direct address and quotation marks; likewise Biblia Dios Habla Hoy, Bible en français courant, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, Bible de Jérusalem. New English Bible begins direct address only with Satan’s reply. Good News Translation and others start a new paragraph with each change of speakers. Translators should not necessarily follow this, but rather use the most natural way of indicating a change of speaker.

Satan replies From going to and fro on the earth. Some interpreters see a play on words here in which the Hebrew shut “roam or rove about” is suggested as the origin of the word “Satan” (so Tur-Sinai). Satan is thought of as a roving secret agent who accuses his victims and may serve as their prosecutor, as in Zechariah 3.1. The verb used here is the same one used in 2 Samuel 24.2, 8, in which Joab and his assistants travel all over Israel for the taking of a census. Languages differ greatly in their ways of expressing movement, and it is important here that the expression used convey the sense of going about with a purpose.

The second half of Satan’s reply, and from walking up and down on it, contains the common word for “walk or stroll,” the same word used of David strolling on his roof in 2 Samuel 11.2, and of God walking about in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3.8. In Proverbs 24.34 the same verb is used of poverty compared with an armed robber who “stalks” his victim. Good News Translation has reversed the order of the two verbs, so that “roaming around the earth” is an expansion of “walking here and there.” In some languages it may not be necessary to use both expressions, as both ideas are often contained in a single verb. The author is indirectly revealing characteristics of Satan in the manner of his replies to Yahweh. He is evasive and vague. In translation, terms should be carefully chosen which will reveal the same kind of avoidance of direct reply. However, the translator should weigh carefully the implication of indirectness, as the meaning in the receptor language may be quite different from that intended by the author.

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 .