The Hebrew, Latin and Greek that is translated as “anger” or similar in English in this verse is translated with a variety of solutions (Bratcher / Nida says: “Since anger has so many manifestations and seems to affect so many aspects of personality, it is not strange that expressions used to describe this emotional response are so varied”).
Chichewa: “have a burning heart” (source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation) (see also anger burned in him)
Citak: two different terms, one meaning “angry” and one meaning “offended,” both are actually descriptions of facial expressions. The former can be represented by an angry stretching of the eyes or by an angry frown. The latter is similarly expressed by an offended type of frown with one’s head lowered. (Source: Graham Ogden)
In Akan, a number of metaphors are used, most importantly abufuo, lit. “weedy chest” (the chest is seen as a container that contains the heart but can also metaphorically be filled with other fluids etc.), but also abufuhyeε lit. “hot/burning weedy chest” and anibereε, lit. “reddened eyes.” (Source: Gladys Nyarko Ansah in Kövecses / Benczes / Szelid 2024, p. 21ff.)
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated into English as “the wrath of God” or “God’s anger” has to be referred to in Bengali as judgment, punishment or whatever fits the context. In Bengali culture, anger is by definition bad and can never be predicated of God. (Source: David Clark)
Translations in other languages:
Quetzaltepec Mixe: “translated with a term that not only expresses anger, but also punishment” (source: Robert Bascom)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “the coming punishment of God on mankind” (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “God’s fearful/terrible future punishing of people” (source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “the coming anger/hatred of God” (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “the punishment which will come” (source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
Bariai: “God’s action of anger comes forth in the open” (source: Bariai Back Translation)
Mairasi: “His anger keeps increasing (until it will definitely arrive)” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
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 to do this is through the usage (or a lack) of an honorific prefix as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. When the referent is God, the “divine” honorific prefix mi- (御) is used as in mi-ikari (御怒り) or “wrath (of God)” in the referenced verses. (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 4:9:
Kupsabiny: “When God breathes his spirit/breath on those people, they perish and when he roars in anger they are destroyed.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “They will be destroyed by God’s breath and [they] will be reduced completely to ashes by his anger.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “They are-destroyed by just a breath of God. In his anger, they perish/fall.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “They die when God angrily blows his breath on them, when he is very angry with them.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
Eliphaz now calls upon his personal experience regarding the teaching of retribution, or punishment. In the two-line parallelism, line a is the process and line b the consequence. Plowing and sowing are the process, and harvesting the consequence. These agricultural images provide the link between wickedness and destruction. For similar usage see also Proverbs 22.8; Hosea 8.7; 10.13; and Galatians 6.7-8.
In many languages the metaphor plow iniquity will have to be expressed as a simile; for example, “Like a farmer prepares the ground for planting, some people are busy sinning.” Sow trouble may have to be restructured to say “and spread trouble like a farmer spreads seeds.” The final clause may then be “The sin and trouble they make is like a harvest,” “They get back sin and trouble like a harvest,” or “For a harvest they gather sin and trouble.” Bible en français courant says “Plowing injustice or sowing misery leads to a harvest of injustice and misery.” Biblia Dios Habla Hoy has reduced the figures to two and says “Experience has taught me that those who sow crime and evil reap what they sow.”
In verse 9 Eliphaz qualifies his statement made in verse 8 by adding that it is God’s anger that destroys the wicked. The two lines are parallel with dramatic heightening in line b, where the image of snorting anger matches the more prosaic breath of God in line a. The same image is seen in Exodus 15.8; 2 Samuel 22.16; Hosea 13.15. Blast of his anger translates “the wind of his anger,” which is the same term for “wind” or “spirit” used in Genesis 1.2. Perish in line a is matched by the more dramatic consumed in line b. The picture may be that of the hot wind blowing from the desert, and Good News Translation takes it in that sense: “Like a storm, God destroys them….” The noun phrase breath of God may have to be expressed as a clause; for example, “God breathes on them and they die.” In a poetic rendering which attempts to reflect the form of the Hebrew, we may translate, for example, “God breathes on them and they die; he blows on them and they disappear completely.”
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 .
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