complete verse (Job 19:3)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 19:3:

  • Kupsabiny: “Why do you scold me always and accuse me falsely?
    Yes/indeed, have you no shame so that you hit/eat me for nothing?” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Again and again you have disgraced me,
    without feeling shame, you have attacked me.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “How many times that you (plur.) insult me. You (plur.) were- not -ashamed to make- me -feel-bad.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “You have already insulted me many times;
    are you not ashamed for saying these things to me?/you should be ashamed for saying these things to me.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

formal 2nd person plural pronoun (Japanese)

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Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.

One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the choice of a formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

Translation commentary on Job 19:3

These ten times you have cast reproach upon me: ten times is not to be taken literally, but rather as a round number, as in Genesis 31.7; Numbers 14.22. New English Bible has “time and time again,” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “already too many times,” Biblia Dios Habla Hoy “over and over.” Cast reproach translates a verb meaning “to shame, outrage, insult.” This line may also be rendered, for example, “Over and over you insult me,” “You repeat the same insults again and again,” or idiomatically in some languages, “You pile up insults higher and higher on my head.”

Are you not ashamed to wrong me?: the word translated ashamed is not the same word used in line a but the word that was used in 6.20 and rendered “confounded” by Revised Standard Version. The word translated wrong is found nowhere else in the Old Testament. Scholars have proposed numerous changes to get a more certain sense. In some Hebrew manuscripts the initial consonant is replaced by another consonant that looks similar, and Dhorme takes the variation in spelling to represent a variant pronunciation that does not affect the meaning. The New English Bible footnote implies that there are two different verbs, one as in Revised Standard Version wrong me and the other meaning “others are astonished at me.” New Jerusalem Bible has “maltreating me,” Biblia Dios Habla Hoy “Aren’t you ashamed for treating me like this?” This provides a good model for translation. The line may also be expressed “Aren’t you ashamed for making me suffer from your speeches?” or “You should be ashamed to make me suffer this way.”

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 .