complete verse (Job 33:25)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 33:25:

  • Kupsabiny: “Then the body of that person will return,
    and be healthy like when he was a young man.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Then that man’s flesh will become new like [that of] a child.
    It will become just like that of his youth.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “Then his healthy body will-be-restored. He will-become-strong again like when he was still young.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “Allow his body to be strong again;
    allow him to be strong like he was when he was a youth!’” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 33:25

Let his flesh become fresh with youth: in Revised Standard Version the quotation continues with verse 25. Good News Translation, however, takes both verses 24 and 25 as a description of what happens as a result of the angel’s request being granted. Both lines of verse 25 have about the same meaning, and they are reduced to one in Good News Translation. Become fresh renders a Hebrew verb found only here in the Old Testament and having an unusual form. Pope and others change one letter to get “become plump,” and Pope translates “His flesh becomes plump as a boy’s.” The same Hebrew root is found in 8.16 (“thrives”) and 24.8 with the sense of “moist” or “sappy,” and so Dhorme, like Revised Standard Version, translates “His flesh becomes fresh with youth.”

Let him return to the days of his youthful vigor may be rendered “he is again as he was when young” or “he finds his youthful strength all over again.”

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 .