complete verse (Job 28:6)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 28:6:

  • Kupsabiny: “Those stones have another metal which is called sapphire
    and one finds gold inside the soil.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Sapphires come out from its rock,
    its dust contains gold.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “The stones of the ground have sapiro/sapphires and its dust have gold.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “My herds provided me with plenty of milk,
    and streams of oil flowed from the rock where my olives were pressed.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 28:6

Its stones are the place of sapphires: Its refers to “the earth” in verse 5a, and so Good News Translation “The stones of the earth.” In English “rock” is more commonly used when speaking of ore bearing minerals or precious stones. Rowley says that sapphires were probably unknown before Roman imperial times, and that the stone discussed were probably lapis lazuli, as in the Revised Standard Version footnote. Sapphires are bluish transparent gems. Lapis lazuli is deep blue and is not transparent. This line may be rendered, for example, “Men find sapphires in the rocks of the earth” or “Men find (blue) gems in the rocks in the earth.”

And it has dust of gold: lapis lazuli is speckled with yellow iron pyrites, which give the impression of being gold dust. New English Bible, which translates the word for sapphires as lapis lazuli, renders this line “dusted with flecks of gold.” Some believe that this is the preferred meaning, since the metal “gold” was mentioned earlier, in verse 1. Most modern translations, however, follow Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation. If lapis lazuli is known in the language, New English Bible may serve as a good translation model. Otherwise it is better to follow Good News Translation or to say, for example, “and they find gold in the dirt.”

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.”