I loathe my life is literally “I despise” with no object stated. Therefore an object must be supplied from the context. “Death” may be supplied from verse 15, but “life” is more likely as in Revised Standard Version, in accordance with 9.21, which says plainly “I loathe my life.” Some take the meaning of the verb translated loathe to mean “give in, succumb,” which does not require supplying an object, and so Good News Translation has “I give up.” Either Revised Standard Version or Good News Translation may be followed by translators. In languages in which life cannot be used as the object of “hate,” we may say, for example, “I hate to go on living” or “I hate to be alive.”

I would not live for ever: it hardly seems necessary for Job to make such an obvious remark. Habel thinks Job is making a mock rejection of God’s offer of eternal life. He does this on the basis of a comparable situation in a Canaanite legend. However, it does not seem necessary to go outside the text. We can still understand Job’s remark as irony, since he does not need to inform God that he is a mortal and will soon die. In the context of Job’s life being a mere breath, it does not seem justified to take for ever to refer to living eternally, as in the New Testament concept of eternal life; rather, to live “always,” to always remain alive.

Let me alone, for my days are a breath: in 10.20 Job says “are not the days of my life few?” Here he pleads that God will leave him alone, or leave him in peace because he has such a short life span. The same word translated breath is used in Psalm 144.4, “Man is like a breath, his days like a passing shadow.” There does not seem to be any justification for Good News Translation to shift from the image of the frailty of life to its meaninglessness: “My life makes no sense.” For my days are a breath may be rendered “because I have only a short time to live” or “after only a few breaths I will be dead.”

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 .