Man is also chastened with pain upon his bed: is chastened is a passive construction which Good News Translation expresses as active: “God corrects a man.” With pain is the way God corrects, and may require a verb to relate it to the first clause; for example, as in Good News Translation, “by sending pain,” or “by means of sickness,” or “by allowing him to become sick.” Good News Translation considers upon his bed as implied in “sending sickness.” Bible en français courant expresses this phrase as “sickness which sends him to bed.”

And with continual strife in his bones: this line has an alternative reading in the Hebrew. Revised Standard Version translates the form in the written text. King James Version follows the other alternative: “and the multitude of his bones with strong pain.” Most modern translations follow the same text as Revised Standard Version. Strife is not a word that is used in English in connection with the bones. The reference is to suffering in the bones, which Good News Translation translates as “pain.” Dhorme prefers “a continual shaking of his bones, which may imply fever,” and Bible en français courant says “Fever makes his limbs constantly tremble.” Good News Translation is an adequate rendering for the general picture; Bible en français courant is better for capturing the poetic image.

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 .