complete verse (Job 19:24)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 19:24:

  • Kupsabiny: “Or inscribed in a stone
    so they could stay there for many days!” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “It would be better if it were carved
    on the stone with an iron chisel [lit.: weapon] and lead.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “or were-engraved carefully in a rock so-that (it) would- not -be-erased forever/[lit. until whenever].” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “Or else, I wish that he would carve them on a rock with a chisel/an iron tool
    in order that they would last forever.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 19:24

Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were graven in the rock for ever!: the first part is literally “with an engraver of iron and lead.” This can refer to the instrument for engraving on rock, or perhaps to the material on which engraving took place. It is difficult to understand how an instrument of lead could be used for engraving, due to its softness; and so Hebrew Old Testament Text Project “suggests tablets of iron and lead” or “with lead,” meaning melted lead placed into the spaces of the inscription. This is the thought of New English Bible: “cut with an iron tool and filled with lead.” Bible en français courant has “engraved with an iron point which one blackens with lead.” That refers to filling the engraved lettering with molten lead, giving it a dark color. Iron pen is misleading for present day readers. Job wants future generations to have access to his argument so that they will know the truth, and so these rock inscriptions should last for ever. Verse 24 may need to be expressed differently in some languages to say, for example, “Let someone even scratch them into a rock with an iron tool so they will last,” “Let my words even be dug into the face of a rock with an iron tool so they will not disappear,” or “Let someone engrave my words on a rock and fill the letters with melted lead so they will last.”

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 .