And after my skin has been thus destroyed: verse 26 offers even more scope for textual changes, conjectures, and outright guesses. While the individual words are fairly clear, the clause as a whole is far from clear. The list of proposals given by interpreters is too long and doubtful to make even a partial list. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project recognizes that the Hebrew text is probably damaged in line a and gives it only a “C” rating, meaning that there is considerable doubt about it. Modern translations seem to fall into three groups regarding the meaning of this line: (1) those like New English Bible, which put “Hebrew unintelligible” in the footnote and then embark on changes which give renderings that bear no relation to the Hebrew; (2) those which try to keep the Hebrew text, but adjust the translation with some conjecture, such as Good News Translation “Even after my skin is eaten by disease,” Bible en français courant “When they have finished tearing off my skin”; (3) those like Moffatt, which switch from “skin” to “body”: “This body may break up….” Translators can follow the Hebrew in cases (2) and (3) by following some model such as Good News Translation or Bible en français courant. Good News Translation‘s translation may need to be expressed as an active construction; for example, “When disease has eaten away my skin.”

Then from my flesh I shall see God: from my flesh can also be understood as “without my flesh,” as in the Revised Standard Version footnote, or the Good News Translation footnote “although not in this body.” The question most argued is the manner of Job’s seeing God. Job’s overwhelming desire so often repeated is to come to court face to face with God (13.15, 20, 24). He wants to confront God as a living human being, not as a spirit, and in verse 27 he hopes to see God with his eyes. As King James Version says, “In my flesh shall I see God,” or as Good News Translation translates, “while still in this body I will see God.” In some languages it may be necessary to transpose the two lines of verse 26 to say, for example, “While I still have my physical body, I shall see God even though disease has eaten away my skin.”

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 .