complete verse (Job 13:1)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 13:1:

  • Kupsabiny: “I have seen all these things with my eyes
    and I have heard it myself with my ears and know it.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Truly, all these things I have seen with my own eyes.
    I have understood it, having heard it with my own ears. ” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “‘I saw and heard all that you (plur.) said, and I understood this.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “Then Eliphaz replied to Job:” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 13:1-2

Lo, my eye has seen all of this: Lo translates the common Hebrew particle hen translated as “Behold” in 8.19, 20, and gives emphasis to the following word, which in Hebrew is all this. Good News Translation provides this emphasis for English by beginning the sentence with “Everything you say”; New English Bible has “All this I have seen….” All this may refer to the way God’s wisdom is shown in nature and society in chapter 12 (so Habel and Dhorme). Good News Translation takes all this to refer to what Job’s friends have said, but it seems best to understand it as referring to what Job has just been saying, and many translations understand all this in this way. My eye has seen: in 12.25 Job spoke of leaders that “grope in the dark without light.” In contrast to these Job claims that he has light and is able to see. In Hebrew usage the eye and ear are expressions for knowing and understanding. This is Job’s claim to wisdom. He has seen and heard personally, and not depended on the traditions of others.

My ear has heard and understood it: in 12.11 Job asks “Does not the ear try words?” The parallelism of my eye has seen in line a and my ear has heard in line b has been restructured in Good News Translation so that no mention is made of seeing in either line. This is because Good News Translation assumes all this to mean the words spoken by Job’s friends, and reinforces this interpretation by combining verses 1 and 2. If the translator interprets all this in line a to refer to what Job has been saying, then the translation will follow Revised Standard Version, or say, for example, “All that I have said I have seen with my own eyes, and heard with my own ears, and understood it.”

What you know, I also know: the images of eye and ear from verse 1 are here replaced by the verb know. Zophar asked Job in 11.7 “Can you find out the deep things of God?” To him God is beyond human knowing, but Job is not impressed with Zophar’s argument. This line may also be expressed, for example, “I know everything you know” or “Whatever you know I know too.” The next line, I am not inferior to you, is repeated exactly from 12.3b.

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 .