Job and the Golden Earring (Job 42:11)
Our Sunday School lesson this morning focused on the end of the Book of Job, chs. 38-42. While preparing to teach the lesson, I rabbit-trailed my study when I got to Job 42:11.
When I read in the Holman Christian Standard Bible that each of Job's friend's and family gave him a qesitah, I had no idea what that meant. I've read through Job many times, but only started using the HCSB this year. A footnote said that "the value of the currency is unknown" and gave cross references to Gen 33:19 and Josh 24:32. After some quick checking, I found out that no one else seems to know the worth of a qesitah either, but most translations of the Bible do not transliterate it. Rather it's described as "one piece of money" (NASB), "a piece of silver" (NIV/TNIV/NET), "a piece of money" (KJV/NRSV/ESV), "a gift of money" (NLT), "some money" (GNT), and oddly enough, "a sheep" (REB). To me the use of the transliterated qesitah doesn't do anything to enhance understanding of the text and is probably too literal of a translation. One of the other options is probably better (with the exception of "sheep").
The other part of the verse that caught my attention concerned the second gift from Job's friends: a gold earring. I didn't remember Job receiving an earring in my previous studies of the book either. In fact, most contemporary translations simply say that Job received a gold "ring" from his family and friends (NASB, NIV, TNIV, ESV, NRSV, NET, NLT, GNT, REB). Yet, interestingly, the King James Version agrees with the HCSB by also using the word "earring." In consulting the Hebrew, I found that "earring" in the HCSB is from נֶזֶם/nezem. Both the Brown-Drivers-Briggs and the Koehler-Baumgartner Hebrew lexicons suggest that נֶזֶם/nezem refers to either a nose ring for a woman or an earring for either a man or a woman. No mention of a ring for the finger.
But while the translations that simply render the word as "ring" couldn't be considered inaccurate, is it fair to say that when most English readers see the word "ring" in this verse, they think of Job receiving rings for his fingers? My hunch is they do. That makes you wonder why translations after the KJV, especially ones in the last three or four decades would render נֶזֶם/nezem simply as "ring."
No, I don't have a pierced ear myself (and don't ever plan to), but I have to wonder if recent translations haven't tried to gloss over Job's pierced ear. What do you think?