UTN uW Translation Notes:

Job 31 General Notes

Structure and Formatting

This chapter is the conclusion of Job’s final response to his three friends.The ULT sets the lines of this chapter farther to the right on the page than the rest of the text because it is poetry.

Translation Issues in This Chapter

Litany

In verses 1–34 and 38–40, Job swears a series of oaths to insist on his innocence. Typically he uses a statement that begins with “if” to suggest something he might have done wrong, and he then uses a statement that uses verbal forms such as “may” or “let” to wish that he would receive an appropriate punishment if he has indeed committed such a sin. In some cases, rather than wish for punishment, Job gives a reason why he would not have committed the sin he has described. In some other cases, Job makes only the “if” statement, leaving the rest of the conditional statement to be inferred. Notes throughout the chapter indicate how Job responds to each of the “if” statements that he makes.A series of similar statements such as this is known as a litany. If your readers would recognize what Job is doing, you can translate and format this litany the way the ULT does. If the litany form would not be familiar to your readers, you could help them appreciate it by putting each sentence of the litany on a separate line. See what you did with the similar litanies in chapters 9, 12, 26, and 29. (See: figs-litany and writing-oathformula)

Religious and Cultural Concepts in This Chapter

Job’s understanding of appropriate punishment for sin

In this chapter, Job insists that he has been righteous by wishing aloud that he would receive the just punishment for any crimes that he may have committed. In most cases, Job himself would suffer the punishment that he describes. But in verses 9 and 10, Job says that if he has committed adultery with another man’s wife, then may other men have sexual relations with his wife. It seems that Job is wishing that God would punish his wife for something that he himself had done. Since the book describes Job as a wise and righteous, it appears that readers are supposed to consider that this would be a just punishment, but it does not seem to be just or fair. One way to understand this may be to consider that Job is saying that if he has been unfaithful to his wife, then may his wife be unfaithful to him in return. This is not the ideal that the Bible as a whole teaches. As Christians, we are not supposed to take revenge on others by doing to them what they have done to us. But in this specific context, in which Job is swearing oaths to guarantee his innocence, having his wife be unfaithful to him if he had been unfaithful to her would be a punishment that fit the crime, and Job is insisting on his innocence by saying that he is prepared to receive the punishments that fit any crimes he has committed.