Job 16 — Hebrew and Greek compared
Disparate in this chapter: 16:6
Each card keeps the independently rendered source readings above their shared comparison and reception notes. The badge records the source’s governing classification; disparate readings are marked in red. Each reading retains its original reference.
Chapter 16
Job’s wounds and his witness in heaven
Source chapters: [BHS16] Hebrew; [LXX16] Greek.
Verse 16:1 Same
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:1 Job answered and said:
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:1 Then Job replied:
Classification & Notes
Same. Text: Both introduce Job’s answer.
Verse 16:2 Same
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:2 “I have heard many such things;
you are all comforters of trouble.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:2 “I have heard many such things;
you are all comforters of evils.
Classification & Notes
Same. Text: Both expose the harmful effect of the supposed consolation.
Verse 16:3 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:3 Is there an end to windy words?
What provokes you to answer?
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:3 What then? Is there any order in words of wind?
What will trouble you, that you answer?
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew an end differs from Greek an order or arrangement. The marked second Greek question is retained.
Verse 16:4 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:4 I too could speak like you, if your life were in place of mine.
I could string words together against you
and shake my head at you.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:4 I too will speak as you do, if your life were put in place of mine.
Then I will leap upon you with words
and shake my head against you.
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Greek leaping upon differs from Hebrew assembling words; both imagine reversed roles.
Verse 16:5 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:5 I would strengthen you with my mouth,
and the movement of my lips would bring relief.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:5 May there be strength in my mouth;
I will not spare the movement of my lips.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew lips restrain pain or bring relief, with an implied object; Greek speaker refuses to spare lip movement. The negative is retained in Greek.
Verse 16:6 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:6 If I speak, my pain is not held back;
if I cease, what leaves me?
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:6 For if I speak, I will not feel pain from the wound;
and if I remain silent, how will I be wounded any less?
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Greek explicitly says speaking will not hurt through the wound; Hebrew says speaking does not lessen pain. The common futility of silence does not erase the first-clause difference.
Verse 16:7 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:7 But now He has worn me out;
You have devastated all my company.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:7 But now He has made me exhausted, foolish, and decayed,
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek describes Job himself with three terms instead of Hebrew the destruction of his whole company. The changes of person follow the sources.
Verse 16:8 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:8 You have shriveled me, and it has become a witness;
my gauntness rises against me and answers to my face.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:8 and You seized me; it became a testimony.
My falsehood rose up within me
and answered against my face.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek falsehood differs from Hebrew gauntness. The witness image is retained without interpreting physical suffering as actual proof of guilt.
Verse 16:9 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:9 His anger tears me and bears a grudge against me;
He gnashes His teeth at me.
My adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:9 Dealing in anger, He cast me down
and gnashed His teeth at me;
the arrows of His raiders fell upon me.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek introduces raiders’ arrows where Hebrew has the adversary’s sharpened eyes. The hostile divine description follows Job’s complaint, with the final Hebrew adversary not definitively identified.
Verse 16:10 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:10 They gape at me with their mouths;
in reproach they strike my cheeks;
together they mass themselves against me.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:10 He sprang upon me with points of eyes;
He struck my jaw with a sharp point,
and together they rushed down upon me.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek begins with a singular attacker and piercing eyes, then changes to plural; Hebrew is plural throughout. The strange eye-point image is kept rather than flattened into an ordinary look.
Verse 16:11 Same
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:11 God hands me over to the unjust
and throws me into the hands of the wicked.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:11 For the Lord handed me into an unjust person’s hands
and cast me upon the ungodly.
Classification & Notes
Same. Text: Both explicitly name God as handing Job over to wrongdoers.
Verse 16:12 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:12 I was at ease, and He shattered me;
He seized me by the back of the neck and broke me to pieces,
and set me up as His target.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:12 While I was at peace, He scattered me;
He took me by the hair and tore me apart,
and set me up like a target.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek hair differs from Hebrew the nape; the violent target image agrees.
Verse 16:13 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:13 His archers surround me;
He splits my kidneys without pity
and pours my gall onto the earth.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:13 They surrounded me with spears,
striking my kidneys without sparing;
they poured my gall onto the earth.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek keeps plural attackers throughout and names spears; Hebrew moves from archers to a singular divine attacker.
Verse 16:14 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:14 He breaches me, breach upon breach;
He runs at me like a warrior.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:14 They cast me down, fall upon fall;
in their strength they ran against me.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek plural attackers and repeated falls differ from Hebrew singular warrior and repeated breaches.
Verse 16:15 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:15 I sewed sackcloth upon my skin
and thrust my horn into the dust.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:15 I sewed sackcloth upon my hide,
and my strength was extinguished in earth.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek strength is explicit rather than Hebrew horn; Hebrew’s act differs from Greek passive extinguishing.
Verse 16:16 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:16 My face is reddened with weeping,
and death’s shadow is upon my eyelids,
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:16 My belly is burned up from weeping,
and a shadow lies upon my eyelids.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek belly differs from Hebrew face, and Greek does not add death to shadow.
Verse 16:17 Same
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:17 although there is no violence in my hands
and my prayer is pure.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:17 Yet there was nothing unjust in my hands,
and my prayer is pure.
Classification & Notes
Same. Text: Both assert the purity of action and prayer.
Verse 16:18 Same
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:18 Earth, do not cover my blood,
and let my cry find no resting place!
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:18 Earth, do not cover the blood of my flesh,
and let there be no place for my cry!
Classification & Notes
Same. Text: The appeal that suffering not disappear unheard agrees; Greek adds of my flesh.
Verse 16:19 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:19 Even now, look, my witness is in heaven,
and the one who testifies for me is on high.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:19 Even now, look, my witness is in the heavens,
and the one who knows with me is in the highest places.
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Greek synistor emphasizes shared knowledge. Neither source explicitly identifies the witness here; later theological identities belong in attributed reception.
Verse 16:20 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:20 My friends are my mockers;
my eye pours tears toward God.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:20 May my supplication reach the Lord,
and may my eye drip tears before Him.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek prayer reaching God replaces Hebrew the friends as mockers. Hebrew melitsai is provisionally mockers; advocates is another lexical possibility.
Verse 16:21 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:21 Let him argue a man’s case with God,
and a son of man’s case with his friend,
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:21 May there be a hearing for a man before the Lord,
and may a son of man plead for his neighbor.
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Both have a compressed legal parallel. Hebrew’s unexpressed he is provisionally the heavenly witness; Greek’s final clause is elliptical, with plead supplied for intelligible English. The witness and precise agency remain open.
Verse 16:22 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
16:22 for a few numbered years will come,
and I will go on a path from which I will not return.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
16:22 The numbered years have come,
and I will travel a way on which I will not return.
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Greek presents the years as arrived; Hebrew anticipates them. Both point to the irreversible way.