Job returns to the theme of the swiftness with which life passes away. In 7.6 he said “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle.” He now uses the figure of a runner. My days are swifter than a runner: the word runner is found also in 2 Samuel 18.19-33, where the runner is a bearer of an urgent message for the king. Good News Translation avoids the analogy of the runner and says “My days race by.” This line may also be rendered “the days of my life pass swiftly” or “my days are all quickly gone.” They flee away repeats the thought of the first line without using a parallel comparison. They see no good is an idiomatic way of saying the days are without happiness, or nothing good happens during the passage of the days. In many languages days cannot be described as being able to see, like people, and so we may have to restructure this expression to say, for example, “nothing good happens to me” or “my days pass by without anything good happening to me.”

They go by like skiffs of reed: the comparison shifts from the runner on land to small, speedy boats made of reeds. The word for reed is used only here. The more common term is “papyrus” as in 8.11 and in Isaiah 18.2. Skiffs of reed or papyrus were Nile boats whose sides were made of papyrus reeds and which were known for their swift travel on the river. Line a may be rendered, for example, “My days go quickly like fast sailing boats.” In areas where sailing boats are unknown, the comparison may be shifted to any swift water craft; for example, “My days flow swiftly like a fast dugout.” Where boats are completely unknown it may be necessary to drop the image and say, for example, “My life is very soon over” or “The days of my life come quickly to an end.”

Like an eagle swooping on the prey: the third analogy shifts again, from water to the air. This time the comparison is to the eagle or hawk pictured as swooping down out of the sky to snatch its prey. Prey translates the Hebrew “food,” and Good News Translation attempts to be more specific still with “rabbit.” Translators may find it necessary to substitute another bird of prey. The pictures of the runner, the skiff, and the eagle all emphasize the swiftness of the passing of time, and so whatever comparisons are used, they must be characterized by swiftness of movement.

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 .