complete verse (Job 3:18)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 3:18:

  • Kupsabiny: “If/When prisoners have gone to the realm of the dead
    those who guarded them no longer yell at them” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “There, prisoners will also have peace.
    There, the voice of slave drivers [lit. those who order work for slaves] will not be heard.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “And there, the captives are- now -at-ease and they no-longer can-hear the scream(s) of the people who force them to work.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “Those who were in prison rest peacefully after they die;
    they no longer have slave-drivers who curse them.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 3:18

There the prisoners are at ease together: in the context of people being shouted at by a taskmaster, the term prisoners is probably to be taken as “captives doing forced labor” rather than as prisoners who are locked up, doing nothing. At ease means they are “at peace” as in Good News Translation, and together simply designates them as a group, or as New Jerusalem Bible says, “all left in peace.” In some languages it may be necessary to recast this clause to say, for example, “In the world of the dead, the people who have been captured and forced to work are all at peace.”

They hear not the voice of the taskmaster: the term translated taskmaster is used of Egyptian “slave-drivers” who oppressed the Israelites (Exo 3.7; 5.6). Good News Translation leaves implicit the origin of “shouts and harsh commands” directed at the prisoners. New International Version, New American Bible, and Moffatt are to be preferred, with “slave-driver.” In some languages the role of “slave-driver” will be unknown, and in such cases it will be best to follow Good News Translation.

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 .