The two lines of verse 3 are parallel, with the common verb instructed in line a, and the figurative strengthened the weak hands matching it and stepping up the poetic intensity in line b. Some scholars suggest changing the Hebrew verb translated instructed to a similar one meaning “bind or support.” This is done to make the verb in line a closer in meaning to strengthened in line b. However, such a procedure is based on the assumption that parallel lines should say the same thing in different words, and fails to take into consideration that parallel lines more commonly are in a dynamic relation to each other. The second line goes beyond the first in poetic effect. For Behold see 1.12.

Eliphaz proposes to speak to Job by reminding him that once Job was the one who gave advice and confidence to discouraged people, as Job himself says in 29.21-25. Instructed translates a verb meaning “corrective teaching or disciplinary instruction,” as found in Proverbs 19.18, “discipline your son.” The object of instructed in Revised Standard Version is many, which means “many people,” as in Good News Translation. New English Bible translates “those who faltered,” to make it closer in meaning to the next line.

Strengthened the weak hands is a metaphor meaning that Job helped people who were helpless. The expression is used in Isaiah 35.3 and is found in Hebrews 12.12, where the parallel expression is “weak hands and feeble knees.” Translators must deal with the two lines as a unit in which line b carries the thought of Job’s helping other people, not only by teaching them but also by helping them in their weakened condition. In English the two lines may be rendered, for example, “Listen, Job, you have not only taught many people, you have also come to their rescue when they were helpless” or “… you have even made weak people strong 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 .