Eliphaz has generalized about Job’s suffering and bases his arguments on the assumption that Job has sinned. Job is willing to listen in silence if they will show him how he is at fault. Teach me, and I will be silent: Job will be silent so that he can listen, or as Good News Translation says, “and listen to you.” Teach me is matched in the next line by make me understand, which translates the causative form of the Hebrew verb.

How I have erred: erred translates a verb used in Leviticus 4.13, “If … Israel commits a sin unwittingly…” (Revised Standard Version); “sins … without intending to” (Good News Translation). The note in New Jerusalem Bible says “sinning inadvertently or through ignorance.” So Job is asking his friends to show him how he has unintentionally sinned. In some languages it will be clearer to say, for example, “I will be quiet so you can teach me.” If being silent does not infer clearly the act of listening, it will be better to say, for example, “I will be quiet and listen to you; go ahead and teach me.” How I have erred may need to be recast, and may be rendered idiomatically in many languages; for example, “how I have strayed from the right path,” “how I have failed to walk straight,” or “the wrong path I have taken.”

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 .