Behold, all of you have seen it yourselves: here Behold is better translated “If” or else left untranslated: “If you all have observed this.” Good News Translation translates “But no, after all….” All of you … yourselves translates a pair of pronouns “you (plural), all of you.” In 13.4 these are used in parallel, and here they are put side by side, but the meaning is as in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation. In Hebrew seen has no object but appears to refer to verse 11b, which speaks about what is in God’s mind.

Why then have you become altogether vain?: this is best handled as a question, as in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation. The Hebrew construction translated become altogether vain is the noun “vain thing” followed by a verb of the same root, and so “become vain with a vain thing.” It may represent an intensification of the worthlessness Job attributes to the friends. Good News Translation renders the line well: “So why do you talk such nonsense?” Verse 12 may also be expressed, for example, “All of you have seen these things, so why do you talk in such a foolish way?” or “You have all seen these things for yourselves; why then do you talk such nonsense?”

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 .