Ayub 22:8-9

22:8 Although you were a powerful man, ¹  owning land, ² 

an honored man ³  living on it, ⁴ 

22:9 you sent widows away empty-handed,

and the arms ⁵  of the orphans you crushed. ⁶ 

Ayub 26:2

26:2 “How you have helped ⁷  the powerless! ⁸ 

How you have saved the person who has no strength! ⁹ 

Ayub 35:9

35:9 “People ¹⁰  cry out

because of the excess of oppression; ¹¹ 

they cry out for help

because of the power ¹²  of the mighty. ¹³ 

Ayub 38:15

38:15 Then from the wicked the light is withheld,

and the arm raised in violence ¹⁴  is broken. ¹⁵ 

Ayub 40:9

40:9 Do you have an arm as powerful as God’s, ¹⁶ 

and can you thunder with a voice like his?

[22:8]  ¹ tn The idiom is “a man of arm” (= “powerful”; see Ps 10:15). This is in comparison to the next line, “man of face” (= “dignity; high rank”; see Isa 3:5).

[22:8]  ² tn Heb “and a man of arm, to whom [was] land.” The line is in contrast to the preceding one, and so the vav here introduces a concessive clause.

[22:8]  ³ tn The expression is unusual: “the one lifted up of face.” This is the “honored one,” the one to whom the dignity will be given.

[22:8]  ⁴ tn Many commentators simply delete the verse or move it elsewhere. Most take it as a general reference to Job, perhaps in apposition to the preceding verse.

[22:9]  ⁵ tn The “arms of the orphans” are their helps or rights on which they depended for support.

[22:9]  ⁶ tn The verb in the text is Pual: יְדֻכָּא (yÿdukka’, “was [were] crushed”). GKC 388 §121.b would explain “arms” as the complement of a passive imperfect. But if that is too difficult, then a change to Piel imperfect, second person, will solve the difficulty. In its favor is the parallelism, the use of the second person all throughout the section, and the reading in all the versions. The versions may have simply assumed the easier reading, however.

[26:2]  ⁷ tn The interrogative clause is used here as an exclamation, and sarcastic at that. Job is saying “you have in no way helped the powerless.” The verb uses the singular form, for Job is replying to Bildad.

[26:2]  ⁸ tn The “powerless” is expressed here by the negative before the word for “strength; power” – “him who has no power” (see GKC 482 §152.u, v).

[26:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “the arm [with] no strength.” Here too the negative expression is serving as a relative clause to modify “arm,” the symbol of strength and power, which by metonymy stands for the whole person. “Man of arm” denoted the strong in 22:8.

[35:9]  ¹⁰ tn The word “people” is supplied, because the sentence only has the masculine plural verb.

[35:9]  ¹¹ tn The final noun is an abstract plural, “oppression.” There is no reason to change it to “oppressors” to fit the early versions. The expression is literally “multitude of oppression.”

[35:9]  ¹² tn Heb “the arm,” a metaphor for strength or power.

[35:9]  ¹³ tn Or “of the many” (see HALOT 1172 s.v. I רַב 6.a).

[38:15]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the raised arm.” The words “in violence” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation to clarify the metaphor.

[38:15]  ¹⁵ sn What is active at night, the violence symbolized by the raised arm, is broken with the dawn. G. R. Driver thought the whole verse referred to stars, and that the arm is the navigator’s term for the line of stars (“Two astronomical passages in the Old Testament,” JTS 4 [1953]: 208-12).

[40:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “do you have an arm like God?” The words “as powerful as” have been supplied in the translation to clarify the metaphor.