complete verse (Job 19:18)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 19:18:

  • Kupsabiny: “Also the children have despised me
    when I stand up to walk around, they laugh at me.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “I am scorned even by the youngest children.
    When they see me they jeer at me.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “Even the little children despise me. When they see me, they laugh-at me.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “Even young children despise me;
    when I stand up to talk to them, they laugh at me.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 19:18

Even young children despise me: Even translates an expression that calls attention to the extent in which everyone has abandoned Job. Young children translates a word found only here and in 21.11, and which is correctly translated as Revised Standard Version has it. These young children are old enough to understand how to ridicule and to employ the words and gestures this may have involved. Despise translates a verb also meaning “to scorn, ridicule, make fun of.” This line may also be rendered, for example, “Even young children make fun of me” or “Even the children laugh at me.”

When Job struggles to his feet these children jeer or laugh at him. When I rise they talk against me: when I rise refers to Job’s getting to his feet to stand and move about. Talk against is the literal Hebrew, but the preposition represented by against when following the word talk takes on the meaning of “scoff, ridicule.” These children are not using conversation to discuss Job negatively; they are in all likelihood depicted as using words, sounds, and gestures to make fun of, deride, laugh at Job. The line may also be expressed “when I get up to go, they make fun of me” or “when I stand up….”

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 .