complete verse (Job 4:5)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 4:5:

  • Kupsabiny: “But when matters come also to you, Job, can you not persevere?
    Why have you become so anxious/upset/troubled like this?” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “But now trouble has come to you, you have broken your heart.
    It has touched you, and you are afraid.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “But now that you (sing.) are the (one-who) suffers, you (sing.) become-weak and troubled.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “But now, when you experience disasters, you become discouraged.
    The disasters hit you, and you are stunned.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 4:5

This verse has two parallel lines in which has come to you in line a is matched in line b by the more specific touches you. Eliphaz’s opening words can be seen as both compassionate and critical. But now marks a turn in his speech. It emphasizes the contrast between Job’s former role and his present desperate situation. It has come translates an impersonal form, “it comes or happens.” In line b it touches is the same verbal form meaning “it strikes,” and in Hebrew the matching in the two lines is more apparent than in Revised Standard Version. It refers to the same discouragement Job has seen in those whom he helped in verses 3 and 4. Eliphaz generalizes because the writer has not allowed him to know what has happened in the first two chapters, namely, that Job is being put to a test. It may be necessary to make clear what it refers to; for example, “trouble comes to you,” or “suffering happens to you,” or “when you suffer.” In some languages “trouble” and “suffering” will serve as agents of the action; for example, “trouble takes hold of you.”

Impatient translates a Hebrew term which Dhorme renders “dejected.” Other translations use “discouraged, falter, lose patience,” and Good News Translation “in trouble.” The parallel verb in the second line is more forceful, as seen in both Revised Standard Version dismayed and Good News Translation “stunned.” Moffatt represents effectively the poetic movement: “But now that your own turn has come, you droop; it touches you close, and you collapse.”

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 .