As for the earth, out of it comes bread: here the contrast seems to be between what happens on the surface of the ground and what takes place underneath. As for has no verbal equivalent in the Hebrew, which is literally “Earth out of it comes bread.” The thought is that the surface is orderly and produces what the farmer expects of it, namely, bread. Bread here symbolizes “food” generally, or “crops”: “Food grows on the surface of the earth.” In order to make the contrast between the two lines of the verse clear, it may be necessary to say, for example, “On top of the ground they harvest crops, but under the ground….”

But underneath it is turned up as by fire: the meaning of this line is not certain. It may refer to the process of heating rocks in a fire and cooling them to split them open. Another suggestion is that the poet thinks of igneous rocks being formed in fire. Good News Translation does not mention the fire, which it takes as a metaphor on the view that the poet was describing the layers of rock under the ground in terms of the havoc left in a town after a severe fire. This line should show a strong contrast with the previous line: “but under the ground it is as if fire had turned everything upside down” or “but below the surface it looks like fire has stirred everything up.”

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 .