I have not let my mouth sin: Job’s denial in this verse refers to his enemy in verse 29. For the use of parentheses see verses 5 and 18. Mouth is literally “palate.” Job is saying in his denial that he did not even let his palate (the roof of the mouth) sin. As one of the speech organs, it is a more specific form of my mouth. Rowley thinks that “palate” suggests taste, and so Job never even had a taste of cursing his enemy. Good News Translation combines the two lines of this verse, dispenses with the image, and says, “I never sinned….” Bible en français courant has “I never even allowed myself the wrong….” New Jerusalem Bible substitutes “tongue” for “palate”: “I, who would not allow my tongue to sin….” These examples give models that are both poetic and nonpoetic. In some languages a part of the body cannot be said to sin; accordingly we may say, as in Good News Translation, “I never sinned.”

By asking for his life with a curse: life in the Hebrew is nefesh, which may mean “soul” or life. In 1 Kings 3.11 Solomon is rewarded for not demanding the nefesh of his enemies. A curse may be put on someone in order to kill him, and thus New Jerusalem Bible translates “or to lay his life under a curse,” New International Version “by invoking a curse against his life.” Other translators assume that God must be named as the one who operates the curse; for example, Bible en français courant “of cursing him by asking God for his death.” Good News Translation “I have never sinned by praying for their death” seems to dismiss the curse completely. Verse 30 may also be expressed “I never sinned by cursing his life” or “I never put a curse on his life and so did not sin.”

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 .