Does not calamity befall the unrighteous…?: this verse follows the same pattern as verse 2, and it supplies the answer to verse 2. The answer is in the thought of the friends and is the one which Job had always depended upon before his misfortune. He therefore seems to be agreeing with the traditional view of the friends. However, he may be representing their teaching without agreeing that it is true. See Bible en français courant‘s rendering discussed in the following paragraph, “You say….” Calamity means misfortune, as used in 18.12. In 21.17, 30 Job argued that the wicked are spared calamity. Unrighteous translates the same Hebrew noun used in 16.11, “ungodly,” referring to wicked or evil people.

And disaster the workers of iniquity?: disaster means the same as calamity in the previous line, just as workers of iniquity means the same as the unrighteous. For workers of iniquity see also Psalm 6.8; 28.3; Proverbs 10.29; 21.15. There is little or no poetic intensification in these two lines, and Good News Translation, while making two lines, reduces the parallelism to a single sentence: “He sends disaster and ruin to those who do wrong.” Bible en français courant says clearly that Job is attributing these thoughts to the friends but does not hold to them himself: “You say the criminal receives misfortune, and the people who do evil get harsh troubles.” Translators must decide what form verse 3 should take in relation to the longer discourse. Use of the question form as a statement of what happens to the unrighteous may be inappropriate, and in such cases verse 3 may be expressed as a strong statement; for example, “Certainly God makes evildoers suffer disaster and ruin.”

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 .