power / strength

The Hebrew that is typically translated in English as “power” or “might” or “force” is translated in the English translation by Goldingay (2018) as energy or energetic.

complete verse (Job 6:11)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 6:11:

  • Kupsabiny: “What strength do I still have so that it could make me live?
    For what purpose should I still persevere and/while I know that I have no more life?” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “What strength do I have to endure?
    What hope do I have of surviving?” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “‘I do not have strength anymore to still hope. I do not have anything anymore to-hope-for, why should I still continue to live?” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “But now I do not have enough strength to endure all these things.
    And since I have nothing to hope for in the future/this life,
    it is difficult for me to be patient now.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 6:11

Feeling that he has endured all he can, Job implies that his strength cannot hold out. Eliphaz’s promise of a secure future and death at a ripe old age is more than Job can wait for. He is impatient to be finished with his miserable existence.

Lines a and b are parallel, with wait being matched by patient. What is my strength, that I should wait?: Job’s rhetorical question is a way of saying “I do not have the strength, stamina, courage to wait for a happy end.” And what is my end, that I should be patient?: end translates a word which in Psalm 39.4 is parallel with “the measure of my days,” that is, the span of life that remains to be lived, and therefore “my future,” “the remainder of my life.” Bible en français courant says “But I no longer have the strength to continue: why should I be patient, I no longer have a future.” Alternatively we may say, for example, “I do not have the strength to go on living, so why should I be patient when I have no future?” or “… why should I wait patiently for the end of my life?” or “… for the time when I will die?”

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 .