Let him take his rod away from me: in Psalm 23 the rod in the hand of the shepherd protects the sheep. Here the rod is a symbol of God’s punishment and is mentioned again with the same sense in 21.9. In 13.21a Job cries out for God to remove his hand from Job. Good News Translation has avoided the image of the punishing rod, with the direct command “Stop punishing me, God.” Although the verbs in both lines in Hebrew are in the third person, Good News Translation has shifted to the second person with direct address. The result is a more natural and vivid account. If the translator finds it best to stay closer to the form of the Hebrew, it may be possible to restructure line a as “I ask that God stop beating me with his stick,” “I ask you, God, to stop beating me,” or “God, stop beating me.”

Let not dread of him terrify me: in 7.14 Job accuses God of terrifying him with dreams and visions in his sleep. Here he asks God to stop terrifying or frightening him. If direct address is continued in line b, this may be expressed, for example, “and stop frightening me.” If verse 34 is taken as addressed to the imaginary judge in verse 33, the verse may be expressed as a request; for example, “Make God stop beating me and causing me to be afraid.”

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 .