Drought and heat snatch away the snow waters: some interpreters think verse 19 is a proverbial saying. Whether that is true or not, it represents a sudden change of subject. Other examples of sayings in Job are found in 5.7 and 14.11-12. The two lines are not balanced, the second line being very short. Good News Translation fills out the comparison with “As snow vanishes in heat and drought, so a sinner vanishes….” Revised Standard Version translates the line quite literally. The verb snatch has to do service for both lines. However, in English snatch does not describe the action of heat on snow, which involves gradual disappearance as in melting. Biblia Dios Habla Hoy translates “in the heat of the drought, the snow melts.” Good News Translation attempts to build the parallel around a common verb “vanish” in both lines and does it well. Bible en français courant does not attempt to have a single verb in both lines but allows the implication of disappearance in the simile: “Like snow in the sun, so they (that is, all who are guilty, as mentioned in the next line) disappear into the world of the dead.” All of these are adequate translation models. In languages in which snow is unknown and a borrowed word is not sufficiently understood by readers and listeners, it may be possible to substitute frost, hail, or dew. In such cases the simile will need to be shifted to say, for example, “Just as frost (hail, dew) disappears in the heat and drought….”

So does Sheol those who have sinned: this line has two words in the Hebrew, “Sheol (those) sinning.” The parallel event is pictured as Sheol snatching away the sinner (the verb being supplied from line a). This requires treating Sheol as a living being. Most modern translations adjust this line as noted above. According to the expression suggested for the first line, this line may be rendered, for example, “in the same way those who have sinned disappear into Sheol.”

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 .