Why do you, like God, pursue me?: in 13.25 Job asked God “Wilt thou frighten a driven leaf and pursue dry chaff?” The verb translated pursue is not meant in the sense of follow or chase, but “to afflict, persecute, punish, cause to suffer.”

Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?: satisfied translates a word meaning “being satiated or filled up”; that is, eating so much that you become weary of it. So Job is accusing his friends of acting like human flesh eaters that cannot get enough. However, since they are not literally eating his flesh, the expression must be taken figuratively. Tur-Sinai says the expression “to be sated with another’s flesh” derives from the practice of sexual abuse carried out on captives of war and other helpless victims. Psalm 27.2b, which literally says “eat up my flesh,” is translated by Revised Standard Version “uttering slanders against me.” Translators are divided between those who keep the literal expression, as Revised Standard Version, and those who translate the figurative meaning as “attack, torment, slander, malign.” For clarity it is better to translate the figure. Verse 22 may be rendered, for example, “Why do you make me suffer as God does? Why do you keep on attacking me?” or “God has punished me; why do you do the same? Do you have to go on saying evil things about me?”

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 .