Verse 2 is identical to 1.7. If the Job story was originally an oral story, these repetitive units would give listeners the opportunity to pick up slight changes that signal the direction in which the plot is going to move from that point. The same is true for the attentive reader.

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 .