Once the plant is uprooted, it is forgotten, and such is the implied fate of the wicked. If he is destroyed from his place is literally “If one destroys him.” Destroyed translates the Hebrew “swallow” and is used also in 7.19; 20.15, 18 with the same meaning. His place, like “his garden” in verse 16, means the place where he is rooted. This line, which is an “if” clause, is rendered by Good News Translation as a command. It is not clear to whom this command should be addressed. New English Bible has “Then someone uproots it from its place.”

Then it will deny him: the subject of deny is his place in the first line. Deny has the sense of “disown” and is used also in 31.28 (Revised Standard Version “been false to”). Psalm 103.16 says “and its place knows it no more.” I have never seen you: in poetic terms the garden itself speaks these words, which is a way of saying that the plant disappears without a trace, and the wicked man will do the same. If the poetic image of the garden disowning the uprooted plant and speaking is not possible, the translator may have to follow something along the lines of Good News Translation, “No one will ever know they were there” or “Everyone will say that there never was anything there.”

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 .