That you can reprove words: Job is driven to the conclusion that his visitors are deceitful, because they devise arguments to correct him and disregard what he says in his despair. Reprove words should be taken to mean “make up words of reproof,” “correct what I say,” “set me right.”

Speech of a despairing man is wind: as a dependent clause, line b in Revised Standard Version implies that what Job says is really wind, a position which Job obviously does not accept. Good News Translation avoids this by making line b a statement: “You think I am talking nothing but wind.” To do this Good News Translation has switched the order of the lines. It is not necessary, however, to switch the lines. New International Version, for example, says “Do you mean to correct what I say, and treat the words of a despairing man as wind?” Despairing man translates a word also found in Isaiah 57.10 and Jeremiah 2.25, where Revised Standard Version has “hopeless” in both places. New Jerusalem Bible translates line b “but count a hopeless man’s words as wind.” Wind translates “for the wind,” meaning without substance, not serious, foolish. In some languages this verse may be restructured to say, for example, “Do you think you can correct my ways when you look on me as hopeless and speaking foolish words?” or “… as a man who has lost hope and speaks foolishness?”

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 .