Ayub 10:6

10:6 that ¹  you must search out ²  my iniquity,

and inquire about my sin,

Ayub 10:14

10:14 If I sinned, then you would watch me

and you would not acquit me of my iniquity.

Ayub 13:27

13:27 And you put my feet in the stocks ³ 

and you watch all my movements; ⁴ 

you put marks ⁵  on the soles of my feet.

Ayub 31:4

31:4 Does he not see my ways

and count all my steps?

Ayub 33:11

33:11 ⁶ He puts my feet in shackles;

he watches closely all my paths.’

Ayub 34:21

34:21 For his eyes are on the ways of an individual,

he observes all a person’s ⁷  steps.

[10:6]  ¹ tn The clause seems to go naturally with v. 4: do you have eyes of flesh…that you have to investigate? For that reason some like Duhm would delete v. 5. But v. 5 adds to the premise: are you also like a human running out of time that you must try to find out my sin?

[10:6]  ² tn The imperfect verbs in this verse are best given modal nuances. Does God have such limitations that he must make such an investigation? H. H. Rowley observes that Job implies that God has not yet found the iniquity, or extracted a confession from him (Job [NCBC], 84).

[13:27]  ³ tn The word occurs here and in Job 33:11. It could be taken as “stocks,” in which the feet were held fast; or it could be “shackles,” which allowed the prisoner to move about. The parallelism favors the latter, if the two lines are meant to be referring to the same thing.

[13:27]  ⁴ tn The word means “ways; roads; paths,” but it is used here in the sense of the “way” in which one goes about his activities.

[13:27]  ⁵ tn The verb תִּתְחַקֶּה (titkhaqqeh) is a Hitpael from the root חָקָה (khaqah, parallel to חָקַק, khaqaq). The word means “to engrave” or “to carve out.” This Hitpael would mean “to imprint something on oneself” (E. Dhorme [Job, 192] says on one’s mind, and so derives the meaning “examine.”). The object of this is the expression “on the roots of my feet,” which would refer to where the feet hit the ground. Since the passage has more to do with God’s restricting Job’s movement, the translation “you set a boundary to the soles of my feet” would be better than Dhorme’s view. The image of inscribing or putting marks on the feet is not found elsewhere. It may be, as Pope suggests, a reference to marking the slaves to make tracking them easier. The LXX has “you have penetrated to my heels.”

[33:11]  ⁶ sn See Job 13:27.

[34:21]  ⁷ tn Heb “his”; the referent (a person) has been specified in the translation for clarity.