Feeling that he has endured all he can, Job implies that his strength cannot hold out. Eliphaz’s promise of a secure future and death at a ripe old age is more than Job can wait for. He is impatient to be finished with his miserable existence.

Lines a and b are parallel, with wait being matched by patient. What is my strength, that I should wait?: Job’s rhetorical question is a way of saying “I do not have the strength, stamina, courage to wait for a happy end.” And what is my end, that I should be patient?: end translates a word which in Psalm 39.4 is parallel with “the measure of my days,” that is, the span of life that remains to be lived, and therefore “my future,” “the remainder of my life.” Bible en français courant says “But I no longer have the strength to continue: why should I be patient, I no longer have a future.” Alternatively we may say, for example, “I do not have the strength to go on living, so why should I be patient when I have no future?” or “… why should I wait patiently for the end of my life?” or “… for the time when I will die?”

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 .