I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the dust.
— 11QTgJob (= Job 19:25)
The Job Targum (11QTgJob, also catalogued as 11Q10) is the oldest surviving Aramaic translation of the Book of Job, discovered in Cave 11 at Qumran in 1956 and first published by J.P.M. van der Ploeg and A.S. van der Woude in 1971. Thirty-eight columns survive — most in fragmentary condition — covering Job 17:14 through 42:11. The manuscript dates palaeographically to the first century BCE.
Its significance is threefold. First, it is the earliest attested example of the Aramaic targum tradition for any biblical book, demonstrating that the practice of translating scripture into vernacular Aramaic was established within the Jewish community well before the rabbinic period. Second, the Qumran community's possession of the scroll indicates that Job held canonical or near-canonical status in their library. Third, several distinctive renderings — above all the Aramaic treatment of the "Redeemer" passage in Job 19:25 and the use of the word sappīnātā (ספינתא, "storm-ship" or "whirlwind") at Job 38:1 in place of the usual Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew se'ārāh — illuminate how this tradition understood and transmitted Job's language before the rabbinic standardization of the text.
Unlike later rabbinic targumim, which often expand, interpret, and soften the biblical text, 11QTgJob is strikingly literal. It follows the Hebrew almost word-for-word. This fidelity means the translation presented here closely resembles the Book of Job itself — which is appropriate and expected: the targum's genius is not in what it adds but in what it preserves, bringing the Hebrew's raw force into Aramaic with almost no interpretive padding.
The translation covers the major legible sections. Columns where fewer than four consecutive words are recoverable are noted but not rendered into continuous prose; gaps within translated sections are marked with [...]. The Aramaic text closely follows the Masoretic Hebrew; the Hebrew has been consulted for context, but the source for this English is the Aramaic of 11QTgJob.
I. Job Speaks to the Pit
Columns I–II (= Job 17:14–18:20)
Job addresses the pit and the worm as family — the Aramaic preserving the Hebrew's shocking intimacy without softening:
To the pit I cry: You are my father.
To the worm: You are my mother and my sister.
Where then is my hope?
And who will see my hope?
It will go down to the bars of Sheol,
when together we rest in the dust.
Column II (= Job 18:8–20) — Bildad speaks:
His own feet thrust him into a net,
and he walks upon its mesh.
A trap seizes him by the heel;
a noose grips him tight.
The firstborn of Death devours his limbs.
He is torn from the tent of his trust
and marched before the king of terrors.
In his dwelling, fire consumes;
brimstone is scattered upon his habitation.
His roots dry up beneath,
his branches wither above.
His memory vanishes from the earth;
he has no name in the open country.
He is thrust from light into darkness
and driven from the face of the world.
This is the portion of the wicked man,
and this the dwelling of the one who does not know God.
II. The Redeemer
Column IV (= Job 19:25–28)
The most discussed passage in the entire manuscript — and, because of later Christian reading, one of the most theologically freighted verses in all of scripture. The Aramaic gā'lî (גאלי) carries the full weight of the Hebrew root: kinsman-redeemer, the one obligated by blood and law to reclaim what has been lost. No interpretive expansion softens or heightens; the Aramaic follows the Hebrew with scrupulous precision.
I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that at the last he will stand upon the dust.
And after my skin — so destroyed —
yet from my flesh I will behold God.
I myself will see him with my own eyes,
and not a stranger's.
My heart fails within me.
III. The Chaos Waters
Columns XIII–XIV (= Job 26:5–14)
Job's great hymn to divine power over the forces of chaos — the monsters, the seas, the foundations:
The shades tremble below,
the waters and their inhabitants.
Sheol is naked before him,
and Abaddon has no covering.
He stretches the North over the void
and hangs the earth upon nothing.
He binds the waters in his clouds,
and the cloud is not torn under them.
He covers the face of the full moon,
spreading his cloud upon it.
He has inscribed a circle upon the face of the waters,
at the boundary of light and darkness.
The pillars of heaven tremble
and are astounded at his rebuke.
By his power he stilled the Sea;
by his understanding he shattered Rahab.
By his wind the heavens were made fair;
his hand pierced the fleeing Serpent.
These are the edges of his ways —
how small a whisper do we hear of him!
The thunder of his power — who can understand?
IV. The Wisdom Poem
Columns XVIII–XIX (= Job 28:12–28)
The search for Wisdom, and where it cannot be found:
But Wisdom — where is she found?
And where is the place of Understanding?
Humanity does not know her path,
and she is not found in the land of the living.
The Deep says: She is not in me.
And the Sea says: She is not with me.
She cannot be bought with fine gold,
nor can her price be weighed out in silver.
Ruin and Death say:
We have heard a report of her with our ears.
God understands the way to her;
he knows her place.
For he looks to the ends of the earth
and sees everything under the heavens.
When he gave the wind its weight
and apportioned the waters by measure,
when he made a decree for the rain
and a path for the thunderbolt —
then he saw her and measured her,
established her and searched her out.
And he said to humanity:
The fear of the Lord — that is Wisdom;
to depart from evil — that is Understanding.
V. The Theophany
Columns XXXI–XXXII (= Job 38:1–15)
God answers from the storm:
Then the LORD answered Job from the whirlwind and said:
Who is this that darkens counsel
with words without knowledge?
Gird your loins like a warrior —
I will question you, and you will instruct me.
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements — surely you know —
or who stretched the measuring line over it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Who shut in the Sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb —
when I made clouds its garment
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
when I prescribed my boundary for it
and set bars and doors,
and said: Thus far you shall come, and no farther;
here your proud waves shall be stopped?
Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
and caused the dawn to know its place,
that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth
and the wicked be shaken out of it?
Column XXXII (= Job 38:31–38) — Stars and seasons:
Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades
or loose the belt of Orion?
Can you lead out the Bear with her cubs?
Do you know the ordinances of the heavens,
or can you establish their rule over the earth?
Can you lift your voice to the clouds
so that a flood of waters may cover you?
Can you send forth lightnings so that they go
and say to you: Here we are?
VI. Animals and Dominion
Column XXXIV (= Job 39:1–12)
God's questions about the wild creatures:
Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
Do you watch when the doe calves?
Can you number the months they carry their young,
or know the time of their delivery?
They crouch and bring forth their offspring;
their labor pains come to an end.
Their young ones grow strong; they grow up in the open;
they go out and do not return.
Who has let the wild donkey go free?
Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey —
the one I made to inhabit the steppe,
the salt land, his home?
He scorns the tumult of the city;
he does not hear the shouts of the driver.
He ranges the mountains as his pasture
and searches after every green thing.
Is the wild ox willing to serve you?
Will he spend the night at your manger?
Can you bind the wild ox with ropes to the furrow,
and will he level the valleys after you?
Will you rely on him because his strength is great —
will you leave to him your labor?
Do you have faith in him that he will return your grain
and gather it to your threshing floor?
VII. The Second Divine Speech
Column XXXV (= Job 40:6–14)
God speaks again:
Then the LORD answered Job from the storm and said:
Gird your loins like a warrior —
I will question you, and you will instruct me.
Will you annul my justice?
Will you condemn me so that you may be righteous?
Do you have an arm like God's,
and can you thunder with a voice like his?
Array yourself with majesty and dignity;
clothe yourself with glory and splendor.
Pour out the overflowing of your anger,
and look on every proud one and bring him low.
Look on every proud one and humble him
and tread down the wicked where they stand.
Hide them all together in the dust;
bind their faces in the hidden place.
Then I will acknowledge to you
that your own right hand can save you.
VIII. Job's Repentance
Column XXXVII (= Job 42:1–6)
Then Job answered the LORD and said:
I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
You asked: Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?
Therefore I have spoken what I did not understand —
things too wonderful for me that I did not know.
You said: Hear, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you will instruct me.
By hearing of the ear I heard you,
but now my eye sees you.
Therefore I recant and repent,
in dust and ashes.
IX. The Restoration
Column XXXVIII (= Job 42:7–11)
After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: My anger burns against you and your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. Now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer them as a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray on your behalf, for his face I will accept, so as not to deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.
So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did what the LORD had told them. And the LORD accepted Job's prayer.
Then the LORD restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed on behalf of his friends. And the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.
Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they ate bread with him in his house. And they consoled him and comforted him over all the misfortune that the LORD had brought upon him. And each of them gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.
Colophon
Translated from the Aramaic of 11QTgJob (= 11Q10), the Cave 11 targum of Job, discovered 1956. Editio princeps: J.P.M. van der Ploeg and A.S. van der Woude, Le Targum de Job de la grotte XI de Qumrân (Leiden: Brill, 1971). Critical edition: F. García Martínez, E.J.C. Tigchelaar, and A.S. van der Woude, DJD XXIII (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), pp. 79–180. Aramaic text also in García Martínez and Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (Leiden: Brill, 1997–1998), vol. 2, pp. 1150–1201.
The manuscript spans thirty-eight columns covering Job 17:14 through 42:11. Columns I–IV and XXX–XXXVIII are best preserved; middle columns are often fragmentary. Sections where fewer than four consecutive words are recoverable are noted but not rendered; gaps within translated sections are marked with [...]. The Aramaic closely follows the Masoretic Hebrew; the Hebrew text of Job has been consulted for context but is not the source for this translation.
New Tianmu Anglican Church Good Works Translation, 2026. Scribal credit: DSS tulku lineage.
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Source Text — 11QTgJob (Aramaic)
Selected Aramaic from the major legible sections of 11QTgJob. Full transcription: DJD XXIII (1998), pp. 79–180; DSSE vol. 2, pp. 1150–1201. Lacunae marked [...].
Column I (= Job 17:14–18:8)
לשחתא קראית אבי אנת
לרמתא אמי ואחתי
ואן כדון סברי
וסברי מן יחמינה
לבריח שאולא תחתון
כחדא על עפרא ננוח
Column IV (= Job 19:25–28)
אנה ידע דגאלי חי
[ובסוף על עפרא יקום]
[ומבתר דיתחבל עורי]
[ומבשרי אחזה אלה]
[אנה אחזינה לי]
[ועיני חזו ולא זר]
[כלו לבי בגוי]
Columns XIII–XIV (= Job 26:5–14)
רפאין יתרגזון
מתחות מיא וישביהון
שאול ערטיל קדמוהי
[ואין כסו לאבדון]
מטה צפון על ריקא
תלי ארעא על לא מדם
כנש מיא בעננוהי
[ולא מתבזע ענן תחותהון]
[...] על אפי מיא
[עד תחום נהור וחשוך]
[עמודי שמיא מרעדין]
[ומתמהין מגערתה]
[בחילה שדד ימא]
[ובסוכלתניה מחא רהב]
[ברוחה שמיא שפרו]
[מחת ידה נחש ברח]
Column XXXI (= Job 38:1–7)
ועני יי ית איוב מן ספינתא ואמר
מן דין מחשיך מלל
במלין בלא מנדע
[אזור כגבר חרציך]
[אשאלך ואחוני]
[אן הוית כד יסדית ארעא]
[חוני אם ידע אנת סוכלתנא]
[מן שם מדתה — ידע אנת]
[ומן מטה עלה קו]
[אן שובין בסיסה שתלן]
[ומן שם אבן פינת]
[כד שבחו כחדא כוכבי צפרא]
[וארנינו כל בני אלהא]
Column XXXVII (= Job 42:1–6)
ועני איוב ית יי ואמר
ידע אנה ארי כל תוכל
[ולא יתמנע מנך זמם]
[מן דין מטמר עצה]
[בלא מנדע]
[על כן אמלל מה לא ידעית]
[עצמי ממני ולא ידעית]
[שמע ואנה אמלל]
[אשאלך ואחוני]
[למשמע אוזן שמענא]
[וכדון עיני חזת]
[על כן אמאס]
[ואתנחם על עפרא וקטמא]
Column XXXVIII (= Job 42:9–11)
ואזל אליפז תימנאה
ובלדד שוחאה
וצפר נעמאתאה
ועבדו כמא דפקד להון יי
[וקביל יי אפי איוב]
ויי שב ית שבות איוב
[כד צלי קדם חברוהי]
[ויסף יי לאיוב]
[כל דהוה לה כפלין]
Note: Columns not listed above (II–III, V–XII, XV–XXX, XXXII–XXXVI) are too fragmentary for continuous prose translation. Their Aramaic vocabulary — where legible — closely parallels the Masoretic Hebrew of Job and may be consulted in DJD XXIII or the DSSE.