inclusive vs. exclusive pronoun (Job 28:22)

Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)

The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).

For this verse, the Jarai and the Adamawa Fulfulde translation both use the exclusive pronoun.

complete verse (Job 28:22)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 28:22:

  • Kupsabiny: “The world of the dead and the place of the dead
    heard (a rumor) that wisdom exists.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Death and the place of destruction say,
    ‘We only have heard about it’.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “Even the place of destruction, which is the place of the dead-ones, what they have-heard about it is only rumor.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “It is as though the places where people go after they die say,
    ‘We have only heard rumors about where to find wisdom.’” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 28:22

This verse has no two-line parallelism: only the two subjects are parallel in meaning. Abaddon, meaning “destruction,” was used in 26.6. See there for comments. Death also is personified. The allusion is to the place of the dead, as in 30.23; 38.17.

We have heard a rumor of it with our ears: rumor translates a noun form of the verb “hear” and means “what one hears,” “what is talked about.” With our ears: this expression is also found in Psalm 44.1. Bible en français courant translates “Yes, indeed, we have heard it spoken of.” In languages in which Abaddon and Death cannot be said to speak, translators will have to express the verse differently; for example, “In the place of the dead, only a rumor of it has been heard” or “Those in the world of the dead have only heard it spoken of.”

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.”