power / strength

The Hebrew that is typically translated in English as “power” or “might” or “force” is translated in the English translation by Goldingay (2018) as energy or energetic.

complete verse (Job 3:17)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 3:17:

  • Kupsabiny: “When sinners have gone to the realm of the dead
    they no longer go around disturbing people
    and those that life has pained are resting.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Evil people will never again give trouble at the grave again.
    There the weary will have rest.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “There in the place of the dead-ones, the wicked-ones no-longer do evil/bad(-things) and the ones-who-are-weary are- now -resting.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “After wicked people die, they do not cause any more troubles;
    those who are very tired now will rest.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 3:17

In verses 17-19 Job depicts those freed by death. The parallel lines in these three verses show little movement between each pair of lines. Here the lack of rising emotion is used to call attention to the subjects of each verse, who are pictured as being at rest and at peace. Job identifies himself with the workmen, prisoners, and slaves.

There the wicked cease from troubling: There is separated from its referent by verse 16; it refers to Sheol or the place of the dead and is rendered by Good News Translation as “In the grave.” New Jerusalem Bible has “down there.” The Revised Standard Version rendering of line 17a is ambiguous, since troubling may denote either causing trouble to others or being anxious. Good News Translation “wicked men stop their evil” interprets the Hebrew to mean “doing evil deeds.” In other words, Job praises the grave as the place not only where “tired workmen find rest,” but also where wicked people no longer carry out their evil acts.

And there the weary are at rest: the weary translates what is literally “the exhausted of strength.” Gordis takes the expression to mean “those exhausted by violence,” the violence being that of the wicked in line 17a. In this interpretation the meaning would be “victims of oppression.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch understands the Hebrew to mean “forced laborers.” New English Bible agrees with Good News Translation “tired workmen” without relating their condition to the previous line. The two lines refer to different groups of dead persons, and the two parallel phrases cease from troubling and are at rest are without intensification.

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 .