Revised Standard Version places verse 29 between dashes to show that verse 30 connects in sense with verse 28 and that verse 29 is parenthetical. New English Bible encloses verses 29 and 30 in brackets to show these verses are secondary additions. New Jerusalem Bible connects them closely in thought to verses 27 and 28. Good News Translation and others link these two verses closely together grammatically—a solution that seems best to follow.
The first two lines of verse 29 present few difficulties. They are both parallel rhetorical questions expecting the answer “Nobody.” When he is quiet, who can condemn?: he refers to God. Is quiet translates a verb meaning “to be calm, taking no action,” as used in 3.26. In Isaiah 57.20 and Jeremiah 49.23 it means “to rest” and has the sense of “ceasing to be active” or “doing nothing at all” (Good News Translation). Dhorme and others transpose two letters in the verb translated condemn to get the meaning “stir up,” and this is followed by New Jerusalem Bible. This gives the sense “If God decides to rest, who can stir him up?” It seems best, however, to follow Good News Translation and Revised Standard Version. Condemn here may also be rendered “to accuse of doing wrong,” and so Good News Translation has “criticize,” which is perhaps better than condemn, particularly when God is the object of man’s accusations. Good News Translation expresses the rhetorical question as a negative assertion.
When he hides his face, who can behold him is similar to Job’s question in 13.24, “Why dost thou hide thy face?” Here the poetic heightening takes place with the figurative expression placed in the second line. Behold means “see, perceive,” but the Hebrew has also been changed in many different ways by interpreters. Good News Translation “men would be helpless” is an attempt to give a more specific meaning to the Hebrew, but there is no textual justification for it. It is best to accept the verb as meaning “see,” as Job says in 23.9, “On the left hand I seek him, but I cannot behold him.” We may translate, for example, “If he hid his face, none would be able to see him.”
Whether it be a nation or a man is literally “upon a nation or upon a man together.” Revised Standard Version keeps this oddly worded line within the section marked by dashes. Many translations, however, link it to verse 30. The word in Hebrew translated “together” has been changed in countless ways to obtain a more satisfactory rendering. None of these have met with general acceptance. Good News Translation has translated lines b and c of the verse in its third line. That is, it has kept When he hides his face from line b and then joined the second half of line b with line c. Therefore who can behold him is translated “helpless,” and a man is rendered as “men,” and a nation is shifted to verse 30a. This may require more adjustments than most translators will wish to follow. Dhorme links line c to verse 30 but adjusts the text to get “now he watches nations and persons.” Since most modern translations connect line c to verse 30, it is necessary to look first at verse 30 before completing recommendations regarding verse 29c.
That a godless man should not reign translates the Hebrew closely. The second line, that he should not ensnare the people, is literally “from the snare of the people.” Hebrew Old Testament Text Project sets out the problems of verse 29c and verse 30 in four stages: (1) verse 29c should be linked to verse 30; (2) the word translated man in verse 29c probably means “humanity” as a collective noun; (3) “from the snares of the people” designates those who ensnare the people and so should be as in Revised Standard Version; (4) and so the translation of verses 29c and 30 can be “And over a nation and over humanity alike, he makes king a godless man from among the seducers (those who ensnare) of the people.” As a translation model this can be improved by saying, for example, “God chooses a man from among the deceivers of the people and makes him rule over their nations” or “God chooses godless men who lead the people astray, and he makes them rulers over nations.”
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 .