For the mountains yield food for him begins with the Hebrew connective ki, which does not seem to connect with the preceding verse. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project interprets this connective in three ways: “Therefore,” “But,” or as an emphatic marker, “Yes indeed.” This line, like verse 19b, has given rise to many interpretations. Some point out that mountains are not the habitat of the hippopotamus, are not near the Nile, and are totally bare of vegetation. Others point out that mountains can refer here to the low hills which do grow vegetation in the upper valley of the Nile, and that these places are accessible to the hippopotamus. The word translated as food occurs only in Isaiah 44.19, where it means “block of wood,” but it is generally accepted as meaning “produce, crop.” Revised Standard Version renders the line clearly without changing the text, and is supported by Hebrew Old Testament Text Project. Good News Translation makes “produce” more specific as “grass,” but gives a rendering essentially agreeing with Revised Standard Version.

Wild beasts is literally “beasts of the field.” The thought of this verse is perhaps that the wild animals have nothing to fear from Behemoth, who eats nothing but grass. Verse 20 may also be rendered “He eats his food in the hills while many other wild animals are at play.”

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 .

In verse 26 the weapons are held or thrown. In verse 28 the weapons are shot by strings. Arrow in the first line is literally “son of bow,” a different expression than that used in verse 26b. “Shooting an arrow at him does not make him run away.”

For him slingstones are turned to stubble: slingstones refers to stones that are thrown from a sling. A sling consists of two cords attached to a pouch where the stone is placed. The cords are held so that, as the sling revolves over the head of the thrower, one cord is released, the pouch opens, and the stone flies out. David used a sling to kill Goliath in 1 Samuel 17.49,50. For a further description see a Bible dictionary. Turned to stubble means they have no more effect than if they were made of straw. Stubble translates a word meaning “chaff,” which is the lightest part of the straw blown from the grain in winnowing. See 5.26 for a description. Good News Translation is correct, with “like bits of straw.” In languages in which the slingshot is not known, the translator may follow something like Good News Translation, “rocks thrown at him.”

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 .

This verse appears to interrupt the continuity of verses 15-17. Consequently New English Bible inserts it after verse 12, while New American Bible puts it after verse 11. Most modern translations, however, do not transpose this verse from its traditional place. It seems best to retain the order of verses as in Revised Standard Version. Good News Translation avoids transposing verse 16 by repeating “sleeping” in verses 14, 15, 16. In this way the condition “if I had died” in verse 13 is followed by three result clauses, all beginning with “sleeping.” The two lines of the Hebrew of this verse are contracted into one in Good News Translation, for which a better translation may be “I would be buried and hidden like a stillborn child.”

Or why was I not as a hidden untimely birth: if Job had been an aborted fetus, he would have been buried and hidden among the dead. The second line, as infants that never see the light, is parallel to the first line, and Good News Translation reduces the two to one line with “or sleeping like a stillborn child.” By keeping the “Why” question the two lines may be rendered, for example, “Why was I not gotten rid of like an abortion, or buried like a baby that never lives to see the light of day?” In Hebrew only the first line contains the verb “hide.” The second line omits the verb in order to have more room for the expanded noun clause. In the form of a wish, the two lines may be rendered, for example, “I wish I had been put out of sight while still a fetus, or even gotten rid of like a dead baby which never opens its eyes.”

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 .

His harvest the hungry eat: in Hebrew this line begins with the pronoun “whose,” which refers back to the fool in verse 3. Good News Translation has “Hungry people will eat the fool’s crops.” The meaning is that the fool (and his sons in verse 4) is so helpless that the poor and hungry can help themselves to his crops. If verse 4 has been translated as a petition, verse 5 should be also, as New Jerusalem Bible “May the hungry devour his harvest.” Harvest must be expressed in some languages as, for example, “the food he grows” or “the plants he has hoed.”

The next two lines are difficult to interpret, and numerous changes in the text have been suggested. And he takes it even out of thorns: the Hebrew says literally “and to from thorns he takes it.” The word translated thorns is found only here and in Proverbs 22.5. Some interpreters simply delete the line, feeling it is too unclear to bother with, but such a decision should be avoided. Others have proposed changes in the text that permit “and their sheaf the poor take it,” or “all their substance he takes,” or “a strong man snatches it from baskets.” The latter refers to baskets of grain being taken to the threshing floor, which is the rendering followed in part by New English Bible, “The stronger man seizes it from the panniers,” meaning large baskets. Dhorme changes one consonant in the Hebrew word thorns and gets “and carry it away to hiding places.” Still others change thorns to “teeth,” with the meaning “from their mouths.” New Jerusalem Bible has “God snatches it from their mouths.” In spite of the variety of interpretations, New International Version, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Bible en français courant, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, and Biblia Dios Habla Hoy translate similarly to Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation. The thought is “The hungry gather and eat the crops grown by the fool, even that part that grows among thorns” or “… even that part that is protected by thorns.”

And the thirsty pant after his wealth renders what is literally “and inhales the snare their wealth.” The word “snare” is found only here and in 18.9. In Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation thirsty translates the ancient versions. (See Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation footnotes.) This same text is followed by many other modern translations, although Hebrew Old Testament Text Project finds “snare” the more likely text. Most modern translations use some form of greed, envy, or thirst. New Jerusalem Bible takes verse 5b to be a continuation of the curse petition and says “May the thirsty swallow their wealth,” with a note saying the Hebrew is uncertain. Many languages express consuming, destruction, and spending with the verbs swallow or eat. Translators must make certain that the verb is used naturally with the subject. If the “thirsty” do not eat, it will be better to say, for example, “greedy people eat his wealth,” or as a curse, “may greedy people eat, take away, use up his wealth.”

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 .

Verses 15-20 compare Job’s friends to treacherous desert stream beds that give hope to traveling caravans but in the end lead them to their deaths. Line a of verse 15 is a simile in which torrent-bed matches freshets in line b. Line b is not the intensification of line a but rather serves as an extension of the simile in line a.

My brethren are treacherous as a torrent-bed: Job addresses his friends as My brethren. In 19.13 the same term includes all of Job’s kinsmen, but here he uses this expression of close relationship to refer ironically to his visitors. Good News Translation says “But you, my friends.” Job is speaking sarcastically because he has no reason to look on them as being brotherly or friendly. Treacherous here means fickle, undependable, deceptive. In Jeremiah 15.18 the brook whose waters fail is called “deceitful.” Torrent-bed translates the Hebrew nachal, which refers to the stream beds in the Middle East that carry off rain and ground water, but in the hot season may be completely dried up. Because they may be running with water one month and completely dry the next, they are deceptive and even treacherous for travelers. As freshets that pass away: freshets, an archaic English word for streams, translates the Hebrew for “like river beds streams,” where the plural of nachal from line a is used again. They refer to dry stream beds, or as Good News Translation makes explicit in the text, those “that go dry when no rain comes.” If such dry stream beds are unknown, an explanatory note may be required for the reader, or “when no rain comes,” as Good News Translation says, may be used in the text.

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 .

With verse 3 Bildad shifts from scolding Job to instructing him, and begins his discourse on God’s justice with a pair of parallel rhetorical questions whose meanings are about the same. Does God pervert justice?: Bildad blames Job for accusing God of not being just, because Job insists that he is innocent. Even if he has sinned, Job demands that God leave him in peace, because his time to live is so short (7.20-21). In Bildad’s view God can only act fairly. The word translated pervert means “to bend or distort” and is used of falsifying scales in Amos 8.5. Good News Translation “twist” applies well in English when used with “justice.” Justice or judgment refers not only to the act of judging but also to what is right. If the rhetorical question must be answered in translation, the reply will be “No.” It may be necessary to shift to a negative statement, “God does not pervert justice!” Pervert in the sense used here may sometimes be rendered, for example, “God does things in the right way,” or “God judges things straight,” or sometimes idiomatically, “When God judges people he does not do it with two mouths.”

Or does the Almighty pervert the right?: this line expresses the same thought as the previous line. In line a God translates ʾEl, and in line b Almighty translates Shaddai. Almighty is discussed in 5.17. Instead of a word with similar meaning being used to replace pervert in line b, the same Hebrew verb is repeated. Right translates the Hebrew tsedeq and in this context has the same meaning as justice. Because the two parallel lines are so close in meaning, Biblia Dios Habla Hoy condenses the two into one by saying “God, the Almighty, never twists justice nor the right.”

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 .

Though I am innocent, I cannot answer him: innocent translates the Hebrew tsadaq “to be righteous,” which also occurs in 4.17; 9.2, 20; 10.15; 15.14; 22.3; 34.5; 35.7; here it means innocent of wrongdoing, and therefore to be in the right in a lawsuit. (See also the language of a lawsuit in 11.2; 13.18; 40.8.) I cannot answer him is rendered by some of the ancient versions as a passive, “I am not answered.” In verse 3 it was said that God does not answer his opponents, and here the passive seems to fit this context. But in verse 16 there is the possibility of God replying. Job does not doubt his innocence of wrongdoing, and therefore Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation are to be preferred over New International Version “Though I were innocent.” I cannot answer him: answer in the sense of defending oneself against charges is used in verses 14, 15, and 16. Job’s failure to answer his accuser is not because he has no defense, but rather because God will not listen to anything Job says.

I must appeal for mercy to my accuser: since Job has no possibility of answering or defending himself before God, he has no recourse but to throw himself on God’s mercy. Translations differ in their rendering of the term translated accuser by Revised Standard Version. Good News Translation and others have “judge.” It is evident that Job’s opponent is also the one who judges him, and “judge” appears to render the term better in English than does “accuser,” which carries no special legal connotation. Appeal for mercy must often be restructured to say, for example, “ask God to be kind to me” or “beg the one who judges me to have mercy on me.”

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 .