Job’s Repentance

In a 1976 article in Vetus Testamentum, Dale Patrick says that Job 42:6 is usually translated wrong. The most straightforward translation of the “repentance” is actually a statement that he plans to cease his complaint and mourning. He would translate the verse: “Therefore I repudiate and repent of dust and ashes.” Patrick explains: “God has changed Job’s lament into praise, and this last bistich expresses Job’s intention of abandoning the posture of mourning.”