For that would be a fire which consumes unto Abaddon: Job expresses here his horror of the sin of adultery. The thought is evidently based on Deuteronomy 32.22, “For a fire is kindled by my anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol, devours the earth and its increase, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains” (Revised Standard Version). Adultery is compared with fire in Proverbs 6.27-29. For comments on Abaddon see 26.6. Abaddon is here equated with Sheol. Good News Translation expresses the line as a simile, “like a destructive, hellish fire,” in which “hellish” corresponds to Abaddon. It may be clearer in translation to avoid a pronoun like that and say “adultery” or “committing adultery.” In many languages the thought needs to be expressed as a simile: “adultery would be like a fire.” The whole line may be rendered “Adultery would be like a fire that would burn and destroy me.”

And it would burn to the root all my increase: burn to the root translates the Hebrew verb “uproot.” However, rooting out something is not what fire does, and so many scholars agree to change one letter to get “burn”; Revised Standard Version translates burn to the root, which Good News Translation renders “consuming.” My increase translates “my income or revenue.” In this context, if one assumes that “roots” are somehow involved, the income is in terms of the produce of the land. New English Bible translates specifically, “crops,” but Bible en français courant remains general like Good News Translation, with “all that I have acquired.” Both are appropriate. The line may also be rendered, for example, “it would destroy everything I own” or “and burn away everything I have.”

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 .