Job now adds sarcasm to his observations. The two lines are parallel with increased emotion in the second line. Have I said, ‘Make me a gift’?: if Job had asked his visitors to use their wealth to help him, he could have understood their attitude; such is the effect of money on good human relations. The Hebrew says, literally, “Is it because I say give to me?” Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation understand the final Hebrew verb phrase as giving a gift.
‘From your wealth offer a bribe for me’?: in 1.3 Job’s prestige rested on his great wealth, and after losing all of it, he has not attempted to regain anything by asking his visitors for gifts or to bribe someone to help him. The word for bribe is also used in Ezekiel 16.33, where Jerusalem is accused of playing the role of the prostitute who bribes her lovers to come to her. A bribe is money or a reward promised or given to someone to influence them to act on behalf of the one giving the money. The word suggests that the one accepting the money is being corrupted, that is, has lost the desire to be honest. In Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation verses 22-23 are translated as rhetorical questions. In some languages it will be necessary to reply to these questions with something like “Certainly not!” Other languages will prefer strong negative statements; for example, “I have never said to you ‘Give me a gift,’ and I certainly never asked you to bribe someone for me.”
Job continues his rhetorical question, ‘Deliver me from the adversary’s hand’? Again there are two parallel lines with some poetic reinforcing in the second line. These lines may be understood as the reasons Job might have asked for money in verse 22. As in 29.12, deliver translates a verb meaning free, rescue, save from one who has power or control. Adversary’s hand is the poetic use of a part for the whole. Job does not name a specific enemy, and so it is best to say, as Good News Translation, “from some enemy” or “from an enemy.”
Ransom me from the hand of oppressors is also used in 5.20 and 33.28 and implies payment to the captor or oppressor. Oppressors translates a plural noun derived from a verb root meaning to terrify or inspire fear. It is translated by Revised Standard Version in 15.20 as “ruthless,” and by Good News Translation “tyrant.” Ransom is more specific than deliver, and it is this movement toward the concrete idea in line b that gives the step-up of poetic feeling. Ransom must sometimes be translated “pay money to the oppressors so they will free me” or “give a gift to buy me back from people who treat me badly.”
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 .