complete verse (Job 28:19)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 28:19:

  • Kupsabiny: “Wisdom cannot be compared with pure gold
    nor the way any stone from Cush is.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “The topaz of the country of Cush cannot be compared with it.
    It cannot be purchased with fine gold.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “This can- not -be-equaled with topasio/topaz from Etiopia and this can- not -be-bought with pure gold.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “I was like a tree whose roots reach down into the water
    and whose branches become wet with dew each night.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 28:19

The topaz of Ethiopia cannot compare with it: Ethiopia is known in Hebrew as “Cush.” Here the place name probably designates the quality of the gem and not its place of origin. The word translated topaz also occurs in Exodus 28.17 and Ezekiel 28.13. It is a yellow stone found on the shores of the Red Sea.

Nor can it be valued in pure gold: gold is the same word used in verse 16. This line is about the same as verse 16a. Topaz may be handled in the same way as suggested for “coral” in verse 17.

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.”