Verse 16 carries the compactness of the animal’s hide a step further. One is so near to another means “each shield is so close to the next.” The word translated as air is ruach, which is commonly translated as “breath, air, or spirit,” but the last meaning is inappropriate here. The poet uses the image of air to depict the lightest and perhaps smallest thing to fit between the compact shields. Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation are very similar in their renderings; we may also translate “Each scale is so close to the next that not even a breath of air could enter between 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 .