Different chapter verse numbering in Job 40 between Masoretic and other texts

Question

Can someone explain how there came to be different chapter/verse numberings in Chapter 40 of the book of Job? MT 40:25 becomes 41:1 in many other Bibles.

Thanks!

Answer 1

it is hard for me to provide you with a full explanation of why because I simply do not know this subject, but being challenged by the same question, I found some extensive material, that addresses it.

Here are a few related quotes from Textual Variants in the Book of Job: Bible textual variants analysed:

6. Details on the textual variants in Job:
   
   a. “Differences due to factors in translation. Many differences between the resultant translation and original source text are due to the task of translation and do not constitute real textual variants. … The Book of Job is a star example. The earliest Greek translation of Job is about one-sixth shorter than the Hebrew text of MT. For nearly a hundred years the consensus was that the Greek translator had used a different parent text, and some thought that the MT was derivative and secondary to the Hebrew base of the Septuagint. Yet painstaking comparison of our Greek and Hebrew texts clearly showed that the differences were due to a functional equivalence approach to translation in which many of the long, windy speeches were made more manageable for a Hellenistic readership. Consider, for example, Job 20:2-4. … Six lines from MT have been condensed by the O(ld) G(reek) Translator of Job into three.” (The Text of the Old Testament, Peter J. Gentry, Journal Of The Evangelical Theological Society, 52/1, p38, March 2009)
   
   e. “The Greek version (LXX) of Job generally follows the Masoretic Text (MT), but in some places there are significant differences. Most notable is the fact that LXX is some 400 lines shorter than MT. While it is possible that LXX had a different Hebrew text than MT as its basis, it is more likely that the Greek translators intentionally abridged certain parts of the book. This seems especially so in the speeches of Elihu (chs. 32–37) where many of the lines omitted in LXX are duplications and repetitions in the Hebrew.” (College Press NIV, Job, S. M. Hooks, p 21, 2006 AD)

Conclusion:
The variants in the book of Job date to before 200 BC and are the result of the initial translating of the book from Hebrew into Greek. Job is 400 lines shorter in the LXX because the translators sought to simplify the Oriental poetic style text into a “Cole’s Notes” dynamic equivalent for a target Greek audience. Much of the reduction was the removal of reparative and redundant sentences. The extra words of in 2:9 of Job’s wife that are found in the Septuagint but not in the Masoretic may be original or may come from an imaginative Hebrew scribe (possibly Ezra) unsatisfied with the brevity of her comments. The concluding gloss after 42:17 is clearly scholastic foot notes never intended to be viewed as scripture the same way Christians view the Bible maps, comments and notes throughout their “Study Bible”. None of the variants change any Bible doctrine. The 400 lines of missing text do not change the story and the additional words of Job’s wife can be easily inferred and provide nothing new.