This would be my consolation: This refers back to the previous verse, so that Job is saying “My death would be my consolation.” Good News Translation and others avoid beginning with This and relate the line clearly to verse 9, with a condition: “If I knew he would (kill me).” Pope suggests that Job thinks God owes him the favor of putting him out of his misery, because Job has always been faithful. Good News Translation assumes that Job will accept the decree of death just as he accepted the earlier decrees of God. Consolation is comfort or being cheered up when in distress.

I would even exult in pain unsparing: exult translates a verb found only here. Some interpreters read “jump for joy” as in Good News Translation. In pain unsparing: that is, without regard to the pain involved, in spite of the pain. Pain unsparing is pain that has no mercy on the one suffering.

For I have not denied the words of the Holy One: some scholars drop this line. New English Bible does not translate it but places it in the margin. However, Hebrew Old Testament Text Project considers it an “A” rating, meaning that in all probability this is the correct text. God is called the Holy One in Isaiah 40.25; Habakkuk 3.3; Sirach 45.6-7. Only in the plural does this term have the meaning of “angels” (5.1; 15.15).

In the Hebrew text verse 10 has three lines. Good News Translation, which reduced verse 8 to one line, has increased verse 10 to four lines by splitting line c into two: “I know that God is holy” and “I have never opposed what he commands.” For the purpose of making the lines parallel, the poet matches consolation in line a with exult in line b. Line c is not parallel with either a or b, but rather is the reason underlying both a and b. If the reason clause is more natural at the beginning, we may translate, for example, “I have always obeyed what God has commanded me, and so if I could die, I would jump for joy and not even think of the pain of death.”

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 .