complete verse (Job 30:22)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 30:22:

  • Kupsabiny: “You threw me into a violent wind that took me
    and your whirlwind tossed me around.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “You have seized me and thrown me out against the wind.
    You threw me out into the whirlwind.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “It-seemed like you (sing.) cause- me -to-be-blown-away by the wind and being-tossed by the storm.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “He allows the wind to lift me up and blow me away,
    and he tosses me up and down in a violent storm.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Honorary "are" construct denoting God ("rack")

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Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.

One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the usage of an honorific construction where the morpheme are (され) is affixed on the verb as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. This is particularly done with verbs that have God as the agent to show a deep sense of reverence. Here, honrōs-are-ru (翻弄される) or “rack” is used.

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

Translation commentary on Job 30:22

In verse 19 God throws Job to the ground. Now he is picked up by the wind and helplessly tossed about.

Thou liftest me up on the wind: the poet depicts more variety of movement than is suggested by Good News Translation “You let the wind blow me away.” Revised Standard Version expresses these movements through the translation of the Hebrew verbs translated liftest me up and makest me ride. This may be translated, for example, “You cause the wind to pick me up and make me ride away on it.”

And thou tossest me about in the roar of the storm: the verb translated tossest can mean “melt” and is translated “soften” in Psalm 65.10. That sense does not seem to be appropriate in the context of this verse. In Amos 9.5 Good News Translation renders it as “the whole world rises and falls like the Nile river.” A similar word in Arabic is used of the surging of the ocean, and this is the sense of tossest, meaning to throw up and down. Good News Translation has “You toss me about.” The roar of the storm: there are two alternatives for the word translated storm in the Hebrew. The one means “success” as found in 5.12; see there for comments. The other form is a variant of the word meaning “crash” and is used in Isaiah 22.2 as “shoutings.” Pope interprets the word as “noise,” and in this context it refers to that which makes the noise, namely, the storm. There are numerous other suggestions, but Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation, which are supported by many other modern translations, are as good if not better than most and so are recommended to translators. This line may also be expressed “and you cause the storm to pitch me up and down” or “you cause the storm to throw me here and there.”

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 .