complete verse (Job 37:15)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 37:15:

  • Kupsabiny: “Do you know what God is doing,
    so that the sky/heaven can flash and become light?” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Do you know how God put the clouds under His authority
    and how he causes the lightning to flash?” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “Do you (sing.) know how God controls the clouds and how he causes- the lightning -to-flash?” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “When it becomes daylight, the wicked do not have the darkness that they like;
    in the daylight they no longer are able to raise up their arms, ready to hurt people.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Honorary "rare" construct denoting God (“make them flash”)

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Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.

One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the usage of an honorific construction where the morpheme rare (られ) is affixed on the verb as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. This is particularly done with verbs that have God as the agent to show a deep sense of reverence. Here, hiramekase-rare-ru (ひらめかせられる) or “make them flash” is used.

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

Translation commentary on Job 37:15

This subdivision contains a number of rhetorical questions that translators may need to recast in some other form according to the style of the receptor language.

Do you know how God lays his command upon them…? anticipates the kind of questions which God will put to Job in the following chapters. The Hebrew text has “Do you know how God placed on them?” Both Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation supply command translationally. Them refers back to the clouds in verse 11. New International Version makes this line clear with “Do you know how God controls the clouds?” This line may also be expressed, for example, “Do you know how God orders the clouds to move?” or “Do you know how God makes the clouds obey him?”

And causes the lightning of his cloud to shine: lightning translates the Hebrew for “light,” as in 36.32; 37.3. Shine suggests a continuous glow which is not suitable when speaking of lightning. “Makes lightning flash from the clouds” (Good News Translation) is far better.

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 .