darkness

In Gbaya, the notion of deep darkness is emphasized in the referenced verses with kpɔ̧ɔ̧-kpɔ̧ɔ̧, an ideophone that refers to something very black, dark black like the darkness of night the movement or motion of shaking.

Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)

See also darkness and darkness.

complete verse (Job 28:3)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 28:3:

  • Kupsabiny: “Those stones are searched up to where darkness has closed in.
    One goes into the deep of the earth
    and one digs from that place.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “People banish [lit.: cause not to exist] the deep darkness.
    They search for ore in the dark places of the depths of the earth.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “People used lamp so-that (it is) not dark when they dig into the very deep of the ground. They dig-up stones in the deepest.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “Men use lamps while they work far down under the ground
    to search for the ore inside the mines
    where it is very dark.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 28:3

Men put an end to darkness: this verse, like the following one, has three lines in Hebrew. It describes the miner working under the ground. Men put translates the Hebrew for “one puts.” Put an end to darkness probably means that the miners work in the dark mine by using lamps, or as Bible en français courant translates, “Below the ground, miners carry light.” This is clearer than Good News Translation “explore the deepest darkness,” which does not show how they overcome the darkness inside the earth. The line may also be rendered “Miners take lamps (lights, torches, fire) into the dark mines” or “They carry their lights into the dark places.”

And search out to the farthest bound: farthest bound translates the term used in 26.10 referring to the boundary between light and darkness. Here it refers to the limit or extent to which the miner can explore underground. This may be rendered “They dig to the very limit” or “… as far as they can possibly go.”

The ore in gloom and deep darkness: according to the Hebrew punctuation the main division in this verse comes at the end of the second line, but this leaves line c unconnected with the rest of the verse. Accordingly New English Bible and New American Bible omit it. However, better sense is made by making the chief division after the first line, as in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation. Ore translates the Hebrew for “stone,” as in verse 2b. In Revised Standard Version search in line b serves also as the verb for line c. Good News Translation, which makes lines b and c separate clauses, supplies “dig” as the verb in line c. Either solution is possible, but Revised Standard Version is closer to the Hebrew form. Gloom and deep darkness translates the same expression used in 10.21. There the expression referred to Sheol. Here it refers to the darkness inside the mine. It may be translated “and dig out the ore in the deep darkness” or “search for the rocks in the darkness.”

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.”