complete verse (Job 3:16)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 3:16:

  • Kupsabiny: “And again, if I had been buried as an infant,
    one that was aborted after having died.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Or [I] would have been buried like a still born child.
    [I] would be like an infant who has never seen the light of day.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “It would had-been-good if I were just like the children who had-died at their birth and were-buried, who have- not -seen the light.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “I wish that I had been buried like a child who died in its mother’s womb
    and never lived to see the light.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Honorary "rare" construct denoting God ("measure")

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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 rare (られ) 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, haka-rare-ru (量られる) or “measure” is used.

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

Translation commentary on Job 3:16

This verse appears to interrupt the continuity of verses 15-17. Consequently New English Bible inserts it after verse 12, while New American Bible puts it after verse 11. Most modern translations, however, do not transpose this verse from its traditional place. It seems best to retain the order of verses as in Revised Standard Version. Good News Translation avoids transposing verse 16 by repeating “sleeping” in verses 14, 15, 16. In this way the condition “if I had died” in verse 13 is followed by three result clauses, all beginning with “sleeping.” The two lines of the Hebrew of this verse are contracted into one in Good News Translation, for which a better translation may be “I would be buried and hidden like a stillborn child.”

Or why was I not as a hidden untimely birth: if Job had been an aborted fetus, he would have been buried and hidden among the dead. The second line, as infants that never see the light, is parallel to the first line, and Good News Translation reduces the two to one line with “or sleeping like a stillborn child.” By keeping the “Why” question the two lines may be rendered, for example, “Why was I not gotten rid of like an abortion, or buried like a baby that never lives to see the light of day?” In Hebrew only the first line contains the verb “hide.” The second line omits the verb in order to have more room for the expanded noun clause. In the form of a wish, the two lines may be rendered, for example, “I wish I had been put out of sight while still a fetus, or even gotten rid of like a dead baby which never opens its eyes.”

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 .