complete verse (Job 24:2)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 24:2:

  • Kupsabiny: “A man/person may move the boundary marks of another person so as to add soil/field to himself
    while some/others steal the sheep of another person to add to his own.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Wicked people move boundary stones,
    [they] graze flocks of other [people’s] stolen sheep.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “The wicked people take-away land by moving the landmarks. They steal animals and mix- them -together with their animals.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “Some evil people remove the markers of boundaries of other people’s land, in order to steal their land;
    they seize/steal other people’s sheep and put them in their own pastures.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 24:2

Having set forth the general question in verse 1, Job now goes on to illustrate examples of evil acts which God fails to judge.

Men remove landmarks is in the Hebrew “they remove landmarks,” and the Septuagint has added “the wicked.” Landmarks are boundary stones placed at the edges of property to show where one man’s field ends and another’s begins. By moving these a person could increase his holdings at the expense of his neighbor. Good News Translation has made the purpose of moving the landmarks clear: “to get more land.” This practice is condemned in Deuteronomy 19.14; 27.17. See also Proverbs 22.28; 23.10; Hosea 5.10. “They” refers in these verses to the powerful, the rich, in contrast to the poor. Where such landmarks used to signify land ownership are unknown, this line will require some adjustments; for example, “Men take land that is not theirs,” “People farm without permission on other people’s land,” “People farm other people’s land and the owners don’t know it,” “People grow their crops on other people’s land,” or “People steal their neighbor’s farm lands.”

They seize flocks and pasture them: flocks refers to groups of animals which are not specified here. To pasture animals is to let them graze (feed) in a pasture, or where there is grass. By changing the vowels of pasture, the Septuagint gets “and their shepherd,” which is preferred by Dhorme and others. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project rates the Hebrew text as a “B” reading and recommends the rendering as in Revised Standard Version, which Good News Translation expands to make more specific: “and put them with their own flocks.” So the powerful take the herds of animals and the pastures from their weaker neighbors. They feed these stolen animals as if they were their own. As in the first line, this line may also require adjustments in some languages; for example, “these same people steal animals and feed them as if they were their own,” or “the rich steal animals and feed them among their own flocks,” or “these people pasture herds of animals they have stolen.”

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 .