They of the west are appalled at his day: some translators have understood this line (and the next line) as referring to time, because the Hebrew says “Those after him and those before him.” King James Version translates “They that come after … as they that went before.” Gordis suggests “later generations … earlier generations.” However, the author is speaking about the fate of the wicked person, and people who lived before him in time could not know of his fate, nor could future generations know, since the wicked man is cut off without any future. A better interpretation is that Bildad is speaking about the wicked man’s contemporaries. Bildad and Job’s space orientation would come from facing the rising sun. The east would then be “before,” and the west would be the direction which was “behind” or “after.” He therefore divides people into two directions, those in the east and those in the west. Good News Translation “from east to west” is more idiomatic for English than Revised Standard Version. Appalled translates a word meaning “stupefied.” It is used in Jeremiah 4.9, where Good News Translation translates it “shocked.” His day refers to the day of the ruin or death of the wicked person, his fate, the time when he receives his just reward. For him it is a day of doom and destruction.

And horror seizes them of the east: there is no intended difference in the reactions of the people in the east from those in the west. The two lines have essentially the same meaning, and together they cover all people everywhere. In some languages it is necessary to express verse 20 differently; for example, “Everyone who lives where the sun goes down and those who live where the sun rises will be shocked to learn what a bad end he suffered” or “All the people upriver and those downriver will be amazed at his ruin and death.”

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 .