complete verse (Job 28:2)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 28:2:

  • Kupsabiny: “Metal/iron is dug up from the ground
    and stones that are dug up from the ground are smelted for bronze to appear.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Iron is taken out of the ground, copper is taken out by melting raw metal,
    copper is taken out from raw ore.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “Iron is-taken-out of the ground, and bronze is-melted from the stones.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “People dig iron ore out of the ground,
    and they smelt copper ore/heat copper ore to get the copper from it.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 28:2

Iron is taken out of the earth: in verse 2 Iron and copper continue the list of valuable metals. In Deuteronomy 8.9 the promised land is described as “a land … in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper.” The verb translated is taken is in the passive. However, the parallel verb in line b is active. Revised Standard Version shifts both verbs to the passive, and Good News Translation has both as active. In translation either is possible and should follow the regular rules of style of the translator’s language. Earth translates the Hebrew for “dust,” but the meaning in this context is as in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation. In languages which lack words for Iron and copper, the same procedure suggested in verse 1a should be followed.

And copper is smelted from the ore: copper is said to have been plentiful in the Middle East, and it was mined and smelted in Cyprus, Edom, and the Sinai Peninsula. Smelted translates a verb meaning “to melt.” Dhorme, however, takes it as an adjective meaning “hard” and translates “and a hard stone becomes copper.” It seems best, however, to follow Revised Standard Version. Ore translates the Hebrew “stones.” Good News Translation “melt copper out of the stones” may give the wrong impression that the copper remains in liquid form. Smelted refers to the process of heating the ore in order to extract the copper from it. The copper hardens as it cools. In these verses “refine” (verse 1) and smelted have similar meanings.

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.”