complete verse (Job 3:13)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 3:13:

  • Kupsabiny: “If (only) I had died and was buried,
    I would have gone to sleep and rested from those sufferings.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “If I had died at that time
    I would now be at rest.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “If I only had-died that-time, I would had-been at peace now, that sleeps and rest” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “If I had died at the time when I was born,
    I would be asleep, resting peacefully iin the place where the dead people are.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 3:13

For then I should have lain down and been quiet: verse 13 presupposes that, if the events of verse 12 had not occurred, then Job would have died, and line 13a, which is a consequence, would have been true. Accordingly Good News Translation supplies “If I had died then” from line 13b and goes on to complete the consequence, “I would be at rest now.” In 10.21-22 Job will characterize Sheol as a place of gloom, deep darkness, and chaos. Here, however, the idea of death appeals to him as a place of rest and quiet, compared with his earthly suffering.

I should have slept; then I should have been at rest: this line is parallel to line 13a, and Good News Translation reduces the two lines to one. Sleep is an image of death (Deut 31.16; Psa 13.3; 1 Cor 15.51). Both lines contain metaphors for death: “lie down” and “sleep.” Here the author avoids stepping up the force of the imagery, since he is dealing with death as a quiet, restful, inactive existence. Good News Translation shifts “sleep” to verse 14 and applies it to Job’s wish to be buried with kings and rulers. New English Bible fills out the idiom with “asleep in death.” Translators must be certain that the metaphor “sleep” is used naturally of death and dying. If there is an alternative metaphor which is appropriate for this context, it should be used; if there is no metaphor, then it will be better to say “I would have died” or “I would be dead.”

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 .