Why did the knees receive me?: it is not clear from the Hebrew whose knees are meant. Joseph’s great-grandchildren are said to have been born on his knees (Gen 50.23). Some have suggested that the knees are those of Job’s father, who in this manner legitimizes or formally acknowledges his infant son as his own. However, line 12b refers to the mother’s breasts, and so Good News Translation and others are perhaps right in relating the knees to the mother. Living Bible (Living Bible) has “why did the midwife let me live? Why did she nurse me at her breasts?” There is no justification in the text for introducing a midwife into this verse. The question in line a is literally “Why were the knees before me?” In translation it is again possible to restructure the rhetorical question Why did the knees …, using “I wish…,” as done by Good News Translation in verse 11. However, in some languages this type of repeated structure may be less satisfactory than varying them as Good News Translation has done. In some languages it will be more natural to say “lap” or “arms”; for example, “Why did my mother hold me on her lap?” or “… hold me in her arms?” If the translation follows a wording similar to Revised Standard Version, it may be advisable to provide a note saying, for example, “This is an act showing that the child is formally welcomed into the family.”

Or why the breasts, that I should suck?: Revised Standard Version translates the Hebrew literally, and the result is stilted, awkward English. Good News Translation has restructured this line so that “she feed me” is parallel with “my mother hold me” from line 12a. To avoid monotony of style Good News Translation has used the double “Why” question instead of the wish of the previous verse.

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 .