Job 17:12

These men ¹  change ²  night into day; they say, ³  ‘The light is near in the face of darkness.’ ⁴ 

These men turn night into day; in the face of darkness they say, ‘Light is near.’

"They make night into day, saying, ‘The light is near,’ in the presence of darkness.

They say that night is day and day is night; how they pervert the truth!

My hope that night would turn into day, my hope that dawn was about to break.

They are changing night into day; they say, The light is near the dark.

They make night into day; ‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’

They change the night into day; ‘The light is near,’ they say , in the face of darkness.

These men ¹  change ²  night into day; they say, ³  ‘The light is near in the face of darkness.’ ⁴ 

¹ tn The verse simply has the plural, “they change.” But since this verse seems to be a description of his friends, a clarification of the referent in the translation is helpful.

² tn The same verb שִׂים (sim, “set”) is used this way in Isa 5:20: “…who change darkness into light.”

³ tn The rest of the verse makes better sense if it is interpreted as what his friends say.

⁴ tn This expression is open to alternative translations: (1) It could mean that they say in the face of darkness, “Light is near.” (2) It could also mean “The light is near the darkness” or “The light is nearer than the darkness.”