In this verse Bildad refers to the death of Job’s children and assumes the cause of their death was their sinfulness. The destruction of Job’s family proves for Bildad the validity of the doctrine of retribution, that is, if a person sins he will be punished. This is the evidence of God’s justice. If your children have sinned against him: the form of this clause is conditional as in Revised Standard Version. However, in the present context there is very little room for doubt, and consequently Good News Translation and others make it a statement, “Your children must have sinned.” Biblia Dios Habla Hoy is even more certain: “Certainly your children sinned against God.” Sinned against him means to do what God has commanded people not to do, and is sometimes rendered “Your children have sinned by doing what God said not to do” or “… sinned by not obeying God.”

He has delivered them into the power of their transgression: into the power of their transgression translates what is literally “He sent them away in the hand of their transgression.” The idea is that they sinned, and God used their sins to punish them. It is clear that God is the one who took the initiative to punish them, and so Good News Translation has “He punished them as they deserved.” However, it may be preferable to keep the transgressions in focus as the secondary agent; for example, New English Bible “so he left them to be victims of their own iniquity”; New International Version “He gave them over to the penalty of their sin.” In some languages it is not possible for sins to serve as the primary agent in punishing people, and so we must often translate “God has punished them through the bad things they did” or “God used the evil they had done to punish them.”

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 .