Dhorme rejects verses 19 and 20 as the comments of copyists. The interpretations of these verses and the changes proposed to give them sense are probably as numerous as there are translations. The Hebrew form is a rhetorical question assuming a negative answer. Good News Translation has expressed this as a negative statement.

Will your cry avail to keep you from distress…?: your cry translates a word which elsewhere has the meaning “riches,” and King James Version translates “Will he esteem thy riches?” The word translated avail means “set in order, or compare,” as used in Isaiah 40.18, and so “be equal to,” and this is the sense of Good News Translation “help you now.” From distress in the Hebrew is literally “not in (or, from) distress.” Pope keeps from distress, but makes a small change from the Hebrew for “not” to get “to him” and translates “Will your opulence (wealth) avail with him in trouble?” This can be expressed in another way, “Will your wealth have any influence on God when you are in trouble?” As can be seen, translations differ as to your cry or “wealth” as the subject of this line. The word rendered from distress can be assigned other vowels in Hebrew to give “gold,” as used in 22.24. Bible en français courant reflects the latter change with “Neither your goods nor your gold will be sufficient….” Hebrew Old Testament Text Project accepts either “cry” or “fortune,” and either “in distress” or “gold,” as possible choices on which to base a translation. And so the thought is that Job’s plea or his wealth will be no help to escape his troubles, which have been brought on by his own sin.

Or all the force of your strength merely strengthens the first line as another thing which cannot help Job, and is well translated by Good News Translation. Good News Translation‘s translation of verse 19 can be adapted to the notion of wealth in line a by saying, for example, “Your wealth will do you no good; all your strength can’t help you now.” This gives a suitable translation model for this 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 .