The questions of verses 17-18 assume the answer “Never!” or “No!” In 18.5 Bildad said that the light of the wicked is put out. Job now asks How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out? Job is not asking to know how many times this has happened, but is denying that it happens at all. Lamp of the wicked refers to their physical life. To have their lamp put out is to die prematurely or unexpectedly. Translators may be able to use a similar metaphor for unexpected death; for example, “Is it often that the fire in them grows cold?” If there is no figurative expression, we may express this line, for example, “Does it ever happen that they just fall dead?” or “Did you ever see such people die unexpectedly?” As a statement, “They don’t often die prematurely” or “They don’t often die before they are old.”

That their calamity comes upon them?: it is necessary to understand How often…? as applying to this line and the next. Calamity translates the same word used by Bildad in 18.12, meaning “misfortune, suffering.” He asks “Do you ever see misfortune strike them? No!”

That God distributes pains in his anger?: the Revised Standard Version footnote shows that the Hebrew has “he”; but God is clearly implied, as in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation. Revised Standard Version follows the Septuagint with distributes pains. However, the word translated pains would refer to childbirth pains from the same root meaning “give birth to.” This is hardly applicable. The same word means “ropes” and refers to the inheritance that is given after a field has been measured and divided. New International Version follows this sense “The fate God allots in his anger,” and New American Bible “The portion he allots….” Dhorme relates the noun to an identical root with a different meaning, “to destroy, ruin, to act badly,” and translates “How often does he destroy evildoers in his wrath?” and this is close to Good News Translation “Did God ever punish the wicked in his anger?” This gives a much better translation model than Revised Standard Version. This line may also be rendered, for example, “Does God ever get angry at them and make them suffer? No!” or “God never shows his anger at them and causes them to suffer.”

Job continues the questions in verse 18, but without any imagery drawn from the earlier speeches of the friends. That they are like straw before the wind: this expression finds an echo in Psalm 1.4, “but are like chaff which the wind drives away.” In verse 18 Job questions what Psalm 1 affirms. The questions in verse 18 still depend on How often…? from verse 17. Good News Translation avoids this and connects verse 18a closely to verse 17c so that God in verse 17 is the one who “blows them away.” This hardly seems necessary, since it is the ruach “wind” which carries away the straw. This may also be expressed “Does the wind ever blow them away like straw? Not at all!” “They are not like straw that the wind blows away.”

And like chaff that the storm carries away: the word translated chaff is the same as used in Psalm 1.4 and is rendered “dust” by Good News Translation. This word is never used in the Old Testament except in similes of something light that is blown away by the wind. Parallel to wind in line a is the storm here in line b. Storm translates “whirlwind,” which gives a more picturable event. In Hebrew the whirlwind “steals” the chaff away. It is the silent movement of the wind that slips in like a thief and is gone with the chaff. This line may also be rendered, for example, “and does a whirlwind pick them up and carry them off? Never!” or “no whirlwind ever slips in and carries them off.” In areas where storms are cyclones or typhoons, and whirlwinds are less known, it will probably be best to say “wind.”

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 .