Yea, I know that thou wilt bring me to death: Job acknowledges a number of times that death comes to everybody. Yea translates the Hebrew ki, whose function is not to join verses 22 and 23 but to introduce the clause beginning I know. Since it often marks an emphatic statement, it should be taken here as emphasizing Job’s certainty that he must die some day. Bring me translates the Hebrew “bring me back, return me,” which is probably used as a reflection of 1.21, in that death meant a return to the place from which a person started, namely, the earth. Death is personified here as in 28.22 and is the same as Sheol. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates “I know you bring me toward the world of the dead.” This line may also be rendered, for example, “I know you are taking me to my death” or “I know you are carrying me away to the land of the dead.”

And to the house appointed for all living: the verb in line a serves also for line b. The movement from line a to line b is from the nonfigurative to the figurative. House appointed is “house of meeting” or “meeting place.” It expresses the place where the dead are brought together, and it means the same as Sheol. This place is for all living, that is, “for everyone.” All living seems to carry a bit of irony, reminding those now living that some day they will no longer be living. Good News Translation avoids the figure “house of meeting” and translates “the fate in store for everyone.” In this line Bible en français courant emphasizes the parallelism in terms of a place: “that meeting place set for all the living.” Other possible translations are “the place where all living people will meet when they die” or “the meeting place set aside for all who live and die.”

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 .