The Book of Job

"If Mr. Mitchell gives an eloquent account of the effects of Job's poetry in his introduction, in the translation itself he does even better: he makes those effects come alive. Writing with three insistent beats to the line, and hammering home a succession of boldly defined images, he achieves a rare degree of vehemence and concentration." — John Cross, New York Times

The Book of Job pulses with moral energy, outrage, and spiritual insight; it is nothing less than human suffering and the transcendence of it.

Now, The Book of Job has been translated into English by the eminent translator and scholar Stephen Mitchell, whose versions of Rilke, Israeli poetry, and the Tao Te Ching have been widely praised. This is the first time ever that the Hebrew verse of Job has been translated into verse in any language, ancient or modern, and the result is a triumph.

"Entralling." - George Steiner, The New Yorker

"The thoughtful reading of this astonishing translation has been for me a rare experience combining poetry and enlightment." - Erik H. Erikson

"If Mr. Mitchell gives an eloquent account of the effects of Job's poetry in his introduction, in the translation itself he does even better: he makes those effects come alive. Writing with three insistent beats to the line, and hammering home a succession of boldly defined images, he achieves a rare degree of vehemence and concentration." - John Cross, New York Times

"Where the text is intrinsically moral, criticism becomes a moral act. Stephen Mitchell's superb translation of The Book of Job is moral in just this way--it puts us on the closest terms with the Old Testament book that many commentators regard as the crucial post-Holocaust parable." - David Lehman, Newsweek