complete verse (Job 28:15)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 28:15:

  • Kupsabiny: “Wisdom is not bought with silver
    or bought even with gold.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “It cannot be bought with fine gold.
    Nor can Its price be paid by weighing silver.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “This can- not -be-bought with the pure gold or silver.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “It was as though I was eyes for blind people
    and feet for people who were lame.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 28:15

It cannot be gotten for gold: in this verse Good News Translation reduces lines a and b to one. Wisdom cannot be found, but if it could, gold and silver would be inadequate to buy it. Gold translates a different Hebrew word here than in verses 1 and 6. The word is found only here, and Dhorme takes it to refer to “solid gold,” which would probably apply to a “bar of gold” in contrast to nuggets or gold dust. In any event an adequate translation will depend on the knowledge and experience of the readers. In some cases “gold” without further description may be adequate. This line may also be expressed, for example, “Even the best gold is not enough to buy it” or “You cannot buy it with gold.”

And silver cannot be weighed as its price: this line extends the thought of the previous line by suggesting a transaction in the market, where silver is weighed on a scale by the merchant. The thought is parallel to line a, namely, “neither can one purchase it with silver.” If the translator has to combine the two lines into one, verse 15 may be rendered “Neither gold nor silver will buy it,” “You cannot buy it even if you have gold and silver for money,” or “No amount of wealth will buy it, not even gold and silver.”

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 .

textual location of Job 28:1-28

According to the Job translation by Greenstein (2019), Job 28:1-28 should be located following Job 37:24. He explains:

“In the preceding passage (37:14-24), Elihu describes the uncanny marvels of the created world in the upper realm, in the sky. In the present passage (chapter 28), Elihu continues to describe a world that is beyond human comprehension, now focusing on the lower realm, the earth and, more particularly, the subterranean, which includes both the netherworld—the domain of the dead—and the sea that was believed to lie beneath the land. The passage is structured by two questions that ask, Where can (divine) wisdom be found? The question turns out to be a riddle, for the answer is not about where, but when (see verses 25-27).

“Modern commentators tend to regard chapter 28, which does not comport with Job’s perspectives, as an independent poem that cannot be attributed to any of the known speakers. The assumption that the poem is autonomous is highly problematic. Biblical poems do not begin with the conjunction ki, ‘for, because,’ as this passage does. There is no antecedent to the pronoun ‘he’ in verse 3. But more important, the motif of esoteric wisdom lying beyond human reach typically includes both the above and the below (see for example Job 11:7-8; Deuteronomy 30:11-13; Jeremiah 31:36; as well the Babylonian hymn to the sun god Shamash). The conclusion of this passage (28:28) echoes the conclusion of the survey of the heavenly wonders in 37:24, and it is following that passage that this one belongs.”