In a verse like this one, it is possible to forget for the moment that this is poetry and insist that the flesh does not disappear from view. Here flesh seems to refer to the muscles, which are not literally seen because skin covers them. Hunger and sickness can shrink the muscles so that they are no longer noticeable, and the skin then reveals the shape of the bones. However, the translator is not expected to be scientific but to reflect the author’s poetic images in a suitable manner.

His flesh is so wasted away that it cannot be seen: there is a contrast between the visible flesh that has disappeared, and the invisible bones that now appear. Flesh can be the visible body in contrast to the bones, and so Good News Translation translates more generally as “his body.” It is also possible to refer to the person rather than to his flesh or “body”; for example, “He is so thin…,” or “He has lost so much weight…,” or “He has become like a skeleton.” That it cannot be seen translates the Hebrew “from view” and is clearly implied in a rendering such as “he has become like a skeleton.”

And his bones which were not seen stick out is translated by Good News Translation “You can see all his bones.” A more idiomatic rendering in English may perhaps be “and he is nothing but skin and bones.”

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 .