complete verse (Job 17:11)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 17:11:

  • Kupsabiny: “My days have come to an end, and my plans are in ruins,
    so that there is nothing left that I can still trust in.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “My days are finished, my desires are scattered,
    and the will of my heart has perished.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “My days are now about to end soon. My plans and desires did- not -materialize.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “Everywhere they went, there were things that caused them to be terrified;
    it was as though those things were pursuing them and biting at their heels.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 17:11

This verse has been analyzed by many scholars in order to get a satisfactory understanding of it. It is not clear how the Hebrew is to be divided into lines, and the two lines of Revised Standard Version are just one way of looking at its structure. For the purpose of discussion we will refer to the three parts of the verse as lines a, b, and c.

My days are past: this line (a) is equivalent to verse 1 “my days are extinct.” My plans are broken off makes sense as line b in parallel to line a, but this then leaves line c the desires of my heart dangling on the end without any connection to the rest of the verse. Dhorme thinks line c is not be tied in with line b, but that it is a suspended thought, an idea that the author does not wish to complete: “The desires of my heart are….” Good News Translation translates lines b and c independently by supplying a verb for line c: “My plans have failed; my hope is gone.” Bible en français courant uses the verb of line b to apply to both plans and desires: “The plans I have made and my most cherished desires have been reduced to nothing.” Hebrew Old Testament Text Project refers to Bible de Jérusalem, which divides the verse after my plans and attaches the verb are broken to line c, as in the Septuagint. Furthermore, Bible de Jérusalem adopts a Hebrew variant which gives “the strings of my heart” in place of the Masoretic text, “desires of my heart,” which Hebrew Old Testament Text Project rates as a “B” reading. Therefore New Jerusalem Bible translates “My days have gone, along with my plans, and the strings of my heart are broken.” This gives a good translation with limited change to the Hebrew text and is recommended to translators. The whole verse may also be rendered, for example, “The days I have to live are finished; my plans, too, have ended, and my heart is broken.” The final clause is rendered idiomatically in many languages; for example, “my innermost has laid down,” “my liver has fallen,” or “my stomach has become silent.”

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 .