Job

The Hebrew and Greek that is transliterated as “Job” in English is translated in Spanish Sign Language with a sign for “patience,” referring to James 5:11 and many other passages within the book of Job. (Source: Steve Parkhurst)


“Job” in Spanish Sign Language, source: Sociedad Bíblica de España

In Swiss-German Sign Language it is translated with the sign for “suffering.”


“Job” in Swiss-German Sign Language, source: DSGS-Lexikon biblischer Begriffe , © CGG Schweiz

For more information on translations of proper names with sign language see Sign Language Bible Translations Have Something to Say to Hearing Christians .

Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Job .

complete verse (Job 9:1)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 9:1:

  • Kupsabiny: “Then Job said,” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Job replied,” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “Then Job replied,” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “Then Job replied,” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 9:1 - 9:2

Then Job answered: see comments on 4.1 and 8.1. Truly I know that it is so: Truly is a characteristic expression used in Job (12.2; 19.4; 34.12; 36.4) and may be rendered “certainly, indeed, yes.” Job says in 13.2 “What you know I also know; I am not inferior to you” (Revised Standard Version). Job may be dismissing most of what Bildad has said as being common knowledge, and therefore Good News Translation has “I’ve heard all that before.” However, Bildad has said that God does not pervert justice, whereas Job will argue the contrary. So we must understand a certain irony in Job’s reply. He does not mean that he agrees and accepts all that Bildad has said. The relationship between the two lines in verse 2 may be understood in different ways. Some take line b to be the object of the verb know in line a. For example, New English Bible translates “Indeed this I know for the truth, that no man can win his case against God.” Others make 2b a contrast with 2a, and so the thing which Job knows refers to the traditional wisdom expounded by Bildad in chapter 8. Bible en français courant translates 2a “Certainly, I am well acquainted with this point of view,” which is similar to Good News Translation. In some languages this line may be rendered, for example, “Yes, I know well the path of your words” or “I certainly know the story your words tell.”

But how can a man be just before God?: line b begins with a contrast in which Job picks up Eliphaz’s question in 4.17, “Can mortal man be righteous before God?” The Hebrew verb tsadaq is here translated be just and means to be righteous or to be in the right. It is used in the legal sense in Exodus 23.7. In 4.17 Eliphaz used it in the moral and religious sense. The entire thrust of chapter 9 has to do with the hopelessness of obtaining justice from God, and tsadaq is therefore understood in the sense of being acquitted by winning a lawsuit against one’s opponent, in this case God. This is the meaning as translated by Good News Translation, Moffatt, New English Bible, and New Jerusalem Bible. In languages in which legal cases are not heard formally by a judge, it may be necessary to say, for example, “How can a person prove to God that he is innocent?” “How can a person show God that he is not in the wrong?” or as a direct statement, “A person cannot say to God ‘I am innocent.’ ”

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 .