complete verse (Job 38:9)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 38:9:

  • Kupsabiny: “I am the one who covered the ocean with clouds
    and enveloped it with darkness.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “at the time [when] I covered it with clouds
    and wrapped it in deep darkness,” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “I am the one-who-covered the sea with clouds and darkness.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)

1st person pronoun referring to God (Japanese)

Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.

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 choice of a first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others.

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

See also pronoun for “God”.

Translation commentary on Job 38:9

When I made clouds its garment continues the metaphor of birth, and this line depicts the clouds as being the clothing for the sea, which is the infant. Good News Translation answers the question in verse 8 with “It was I” here in verse 9a. Translators may wish to do the same. This is far better than Revised Standard Version when I made and permits the formation of a new sentence in verse 9a. Good News Translation has departed from the image of making clothing for the newborn sea by switching to “covered the sea with clouds,” which retains something of the purpose of these cloud garments.

And thick darkness its swaddling band is an even stranger metaphor, in which God is depicted as wrapping cloths around the infant sea. Thick darkness translates the same word used in 22.13b and translated as “deep darkness.” The verb in line a must serve also in line b. The thick darkness is used as a swaddling band. The noun translated as swaddling band is found only here in the Old Testament. However, the verb is used in Ezekiel 16.4. The allusion is to wrapping a new born infant with strips of cloth to keep its limbs straight. The same was applied to the baby Jesus in Luke 2.7. As in the first line Good News Translation has replaced the noun here with a verb, “wrapped it in darkness.” New English Bible preserves the imagery of verse 9 with “When I wrapped it in a blanket of cloud and cradled it in fog.” In some languages it will be necessary to avoid the images of garment and swaddling band and say, for example, “I am the one who covered the sea with clouds and made it dark.”

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 .