complete verse (Job 27:3)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 27:3:

  • Kupsabiny: “as long as I am still breathing,
    and God still gives me life that,” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “as long as my body has life,
    and as long as the breath of The Almighty is in my nostrils,” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “As long as I still breath, and God still allows me to live,” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “as long as God’s Spirit enables me to breathe,” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 27:3

As long as my breath is in me: verse 3 may be taken as the conditions which will keep Job faithful to his oath. “I swear … that as long as my breath is … and the spirit of God….” Job is frail and probably near death but still has the breath which comes from God’s act of creation in Genesis 2.7. To have breath is to have life, and Bible en français courant translates “As long as I have a little bit of life left in me.” Good News Translation reduces verse 3 to one line: “as long as God gives me breath.”

And the spirit of God is in my nostrils: spirit of God translates ruach Eloah, in which the first word can mean “spirit, wind, breath,” but in association with nostrils “breath” is the sense to be understood. Although the two lines of verse 3 are the same in meaning, line a is general and line b specific, which is the stylistic technique often used to raise the poetic intensity in the second line. So Job is saying that he swears “that as long as I have a spark of life and a breath from God in me….” In languages in which the parallelism is to be retained, verse 3 may be rendered, for example, “As long as I have a bit of life, and as long as God enables me to breathe.” Some may find that the meaning of the two lines is too similar to retain the double lines.

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 .