Translating an Extraordinary Trope:
A Note on Job 34,11
Published in Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (2009, Vol. 121, Issue 2)
Citation Information
Article: Translating an Extraordinary Trope: A Note on Job 34,11
Author: Bent Christiansen, MTh
Journal: Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (ZAW), 121. Bd., S. 273–275 (2009)
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter / DOI: 10.1515/ZAW.2009.017
Translation Thesis
"For He repays a man for his work,
And as a man finds his path, so He makes the path to find the man."
Summary of Exegesis & Rhetorical Analysis
More easily perceived in biblical Hebrew grammar than English, the thrust of the trope of Job 34:11 is difficult to deconstruct. The subject of both cola in 34:11 is "God," understood from verse 10. In the first colon, whether the work of a man (pōʿal ʾādām) is good or bad, God will repay it (yěšallēm-lô); that is, good for good or evil for evil.
The literal reading of the second colon is, "According to the path of a man (kě-ʾōraḥ ʾîš), He causes him/it to find him/it (yamṣiʾennû)." Analyzing the poetic structure and grammatical features of this verse, the note explores the thematic parallelism and the progression of thought.
The article argues that this trope poetically conveys how a person's moral choices and chosen path are mirrored in the divine response: as a person actively pursues a specific direction ("finding a path"), God sovereignly causes that path to "find" the person in return, sealing their moral fate and rendering the direct consequences of their character. Job 34:11 thus employs advanced literary and rhetorical structures common to Semitic poetry to convey deep theological truths about human moral accountability and the precision of divine justice.
Related Publications
- A Linguistic Analysis of the Biblical Hebrew Particle נָא → Published in Vetus Testamentum (2009)
- The Sound of Scripture → Did God providentially preserve the Greek reading tradition?