I often begin a course or lecture on the biblical book of Job with a well-known quip: in the book of Psalms there is no connection between one chapter and the next; in the book of Proverbs there is no connection between one verse and the next; in the book of Job there is no connection between one word and the next. Although there is not a little whimsy in the last assertion, there inheres in it a certain grain of truth. The Hebrew of Job, with its eccentric idiom and often inscrutable text, poses an extraordinary challenge to the scholar of difficult language, the philologist, the lover of words.
For over a half a century I have been honing my skills as an interpreter of biblical and other ancient Semitic languages and literatures, publishing academic studies and brief commentary on the book of Job. With the publication of this annotated translation, I share with the reader a fresh reading of the text, drawing on decades of research and close study. My understanding often differs from current translations and commentaries on some of the larger questions and on many details. Although this translation is far from a full commentary, in the accompanying notes I seek, on the one hand, to explicate certain expressions and images and, on the other, to justify the philological choices and suggestions I have made. I have attempted to find an explanation for every word, phrase, and syntactic construction. With all due modesty, I believe this is more than most other translators can claim. Such work requires tremendous patience and effort. The most fundamental principle I have learned and adopted from my best teachers is that ancient texts at one time made good sense. My foremost aim in writing this translation is to make good sense of the text of Job, with all the limitations that are entailed. I have tried to achieve this goal while at the same time trying to reproduce in some form many of the poetic tropes that characterize the work.
My interest in the issues of the book of Job harks back to my freshman year in college, when I was caught up in the problem of evil—how can a good God allow innocent suffering?—during a course on the philosophy of religion. My fascination with the linguistic and poetic intricacies of the Hebrew text of Job began with an intense and in-depth yearlong course on that book at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York with Professor H. L. Ginsberg, of blessed memory, who sought to work out every philological and interpretative problem in this most difficult of biblical texts. Ginsberg’s class notes, some of which I could fully understand only years later, formed the foundation of my own investigations into Job. When a small fire broke out on the roof of my house some time ago, the first possession I took pains to remove was my notebook containing Ginsberg’s insights and the many annotations I had added since taking his class in 1972–73. Several of what I regard as my best contributions to the interpretation of the language and discourse of Job I owe to Professor Ginsberg’s genius.
Having taught the book of Job in one form or another for over four decades and having presented papers and lectures on Job at numerous conferences and in other academic venues, I am very beholden to many students and colleagues, who have provided me with ideas, feedback, and materials. I can hardly remember, much less thank, them all. I would nevertheless like to express special appreciation to Professors Michael V. Fox, Ellen van Wolde, Konrad Schmid, Leong Seow, Carol Newsom, Marc Z. Brettler, Adele Berlin, Steven Weitzman, Alexander Rofé, Peter Machinist, Mordecai A. Friedman, Noam Mizrahi, Scott Jones, Ken Brown, André Lemaire; and to Dr. Uri Melammed, Dr. Takayoshi Oshima, Dr. Jeremy Pfeffer, and Dr. Nissim Amzalleg. My research on Job has enjoyed support from the Abbell Research Fund of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Beit Shalom Japan, the Herzl Institute, and Bar-Ilan University. I have benefited from the research assistance of several former doctoral students and, especially in connection with Job, from Dr. Dominick Hernandez and Dr. Adi Marili. My student Kristina Toshkina has afforded me the benefit of her expertise in Arabic. For some technical assistance I am grateful to Ben Bokser.
My endeavors in biblical translation have been inspired by the exemplary work of Professor Everett Fox, the preeminent translator of Biblical Hebrew prose. For several years I assisted Everett as a first reader and consultant; I hope he will appreciate that some of his method and sensitivity has rubbed off on me for the better. I am grateful, too, to Professor Mark J. Mirsky, who in 1990 commissioned and published in Fiction magazine my translation of the book of Esther. His constant encouragement has meant much.
I am extremely grateful to Yale University Press for accepting my proposal to publish a new and different translation of Job. It was Professor Ivan G. Marcus who, having heard a series of lectures he arranged for me at Yale in 2008, brought my project to the attention of Jonathan Brent, at that time the editorial director. Since then it has been Jennifer Banks who has shown interest, encouragement, and exceeding patience in awaiting and receiving my manuscript. I thank her and her assistant, Heather Gold, as well as the production editor, Susan Laity, for seeing this book through the press. Lawrence Kenney has been a wonderful copyeditor. I am also grateful to the readers to whom the Press assigned my manuscript for their very helpful observations.
My wish is that this new translation will make a difference in the way the inspired and inspiring book of Job is read. In short, the work is not mainly about what you thought it was; it is more subversive than you imagined; and it ends in a manner that glorifies the best in human values.