A Masterly Job on Job

A Masterly Job om Job

One of the most eloquent passages in the Old Testament relates God's thunderous answer to the complaints of Job, who felt that as a morally upright man he had been unjustly afflicted with suffering and humiliation. Today, except for a few near-perfect lines, the King James Version of this passage (Job, 38-41) seems ponderous, and much of it obscure as well. Not only does the New English Bible give both an awesome grandeur and a biting sarcasm to God's words, but it also corrects for the first time several phrases long misrendered from the original Hebrew. An excerpt:

KING JAMES

Then the Lord answered Job out of

the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel By words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man:

For I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?

Declare, if thou hast understanding.

Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest?

Or who hath stretched the line upon it?

Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened?

Or who laid the cornerstone thereof?

When the morning stars sang together,

And all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Or who shut up the sea with doors,

When it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?

When I made the cloud the garment thereof,

And thick darkness a swaddling band for it,

And brake up for it my decreed place, And set bars and doors,

And said, Hitherto shall thou come, but no further:

And here shall thy proud waves be stayed?

Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days;

And caused the dayspring to know his place;

That it might take hold of the ends of the earth,

That the wicked might be shaken out of it?

It is turned as clay to the seal;

And they stand as a garment.

And from the wicked their light is withholden, And the high arm shall be broken.

Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? Or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?

Have the gates of death been opened unto thee Or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?

Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth?

Declare if thou knowest it all.

NEW ENGLISH BIBLE

Then the Lord answered Job out of the tempest:

Who is this whose ignorant words cloud my design in darkness?

Brace yourself and stand up like a man;

I will ask questions, and you shall answer.

Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations?

Tell me, if you know and understand. Who settled its dimensions? Surely you should know.

Who stretched his measuring-line over it?

On what do its supporting pillars rest?

Who set its cornerstone in place, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted aloud?

Who watched over the birth of the sea, when it burst in flood from the womb?--when I wrapped it in a blanket of cloud, and cradled it in fog.

when I established its bounds, fixing its doors and bars in place, and said Thus far you shall come and no farther, and here your surging waves shall halt.'

In all your life have you ever called up the dawn or shown the morning its place?

Have you taught it to grasp the fringes of the earth and shake the Dogstar from its place;

to bring up the horizon in relief as clay under a seal,

until all things stand out like the folds of a cloak,

when the light of the Dogstar is dimmed, and the stars of the Navigator's Line go out one by one?

Have you descended to the springs of the sea or walked in the unfathomable deep?

Have the gates of death been revealed to you?

Have you ever seen the doorkeepers of the place of darkness?

Have you comprehended the vast expanse of the world?

Come, tell me all this, if you know.

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