This verse has two lines in Hebrew, which are restructured in Good News Translation so that the first line is placed at the end of the verse as an independent sentence, and the second line in Hebrew is made into two lines which express the consequence of the situation described in verse 19.

If his loins have not blessed me: his loins is a part of the body representing the whole body, or at least the lower part of the body suffering from the cold. In poetic terms the loins are pictured as a person expressing gratefulness to Job. New Jerusalem Bible and others render this expression “bless me from his heart.” Bible en français courant, which translates verse 19 as a question, has “Have I ever seen a poor person…, someone in misery…” and follows in verse 20a with “without their thanking me…?” This line may be shifted to the end of verse 20, as in Good News Translation, or kept before verse 20b by relating it properly to verse 19b. For example, “Whenever I found … he would thank me because….”

And if he was not warmed with the fleece of my sheep: in languages which do not use the passive, this question may be translated, for example, “is there anyone who has not warmed himself by wearing clothes made from the wool of my sheep?”

The two lines of verse 20 may be transposed, as in Good News Translation, or kept in their Hebrew order, provided they are related in a clear way. For example, verses 19 and 20 may be expressed “If I ever saw a person dying from lack of clothing, I would give him clothes made from the wool of my own sheep, and he would be full of thanks” or “I never saw a person suffering from lack of clothing without giving him clothes made from the wool of my own sheep, and he always gave me thanks for them.”

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 .