Ayub 2:2

2:2 And the Lord said to Satan, “Where do you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, ¹  “From roving about on the earth, and from walking back and forth across it.” ² 

Ayub 2:9

2:9 Then ³  his wife said to him, “Are you still holding firmly to your integrity? ⁴  Curse ⁵  God, and die!” ⁶ 

Ayub 9:19

9:19 If it is a matter of strength, ⁷ 

most certainly ⁸  he is the strong one!

And if it is a matter of justice,

he will say, ‘Who will summon me?’ ⁹ 

Ayub 10:18

An Appeal for Relief

10:18 “Why then did you bring me out from the womb?

I should have died ¹⁰ 

and no eye would have seen me!

Ayub 10:20

10:20 Are not my days few? ¹¹ 

Cease, ¹²  then, and leave ¹³  me alone, ¹⁴ 

that I may find a little comfort, ¹⁵ 

Ayub 12:6

12:6 But ¹⁶  the tents of robbers are peaceful,

and those who provoke God are confident ¹⁷  –

who carry their god in their hands. ¹⁸ 

Ayub 13:27

13:27 And you put my feet in the stocks ¹⁹ 

and you watch all my movements; ²⁰ 

you put marks ²¹  on the soles of my feet.

Ayub 21:17

How Often Do the Wicked Suffer?

21:17 “How often ²²  is the lamp of the wicked extinguished?

How often does their ²³  misfortune come upon them?

How often does God apportion pain ²⁴  to them ²⁵  in his anger?

Ayub 23:3

23:3 O that I knew ²⁶  where I might find him, ²⁷ 

that I could come ²⁸  to his place of residence! ²⁹ 

Ayub 27:15

27:15 Those who survive him are buried by the plague, ³⁰ 

and their ³¹  widows do not mourn for them.

Ayub 28:8

28:8 Proud beasts ³²  have not set foot on it,

and no lion has passed along it.

Ayub 31:7

31:7 If my footsteps have strayed from the way,

if my heart has gone after my eyes, ³³ 

or if anything ³⁴  has defiled my hands,

Ayub 31:34

31:34 because I was terrified ³⁵  of the great multitude, ³⁶ 

and the contempt of families terrified me,

so that I remained silent

and would not go outdoors – ³⁷ 

Ayub 33:17

33:17 to turn a person from his sin, ³⁸ 

and to cover a person’s pride. ³⁹ 

[2:2]  ¹ tn Heb “answered the Lord and said” (also in v. 4). The words “and said” here and in v. 9 have not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[2:2]  ² tn See the note on this phrase in 1:7.

[2:9]  ³ tn The versions have some information here that is interesting, albeit fanciful. The Targum calls her “Dinah.” The LXX has “when a long time had passed.” But the whole rendering of the LXX is paraphrastic: “How long will you hold out, saying, ‘Behold, I wait yet a little while, expecting the hope of my deliverance?’ for behold, your memorial is abolished from the earth, even your sons and daughters, the pangs and pains of my womb which I bore in vain with sorrows, and you yourself sit down to spend the night in the open air among the corruption of worms, and I am a wanderer and a servant from place to place and house to house, waiting for the setting sun, that I may rest from my labors and pains that now beset me, but say some word against the Lord and die.”

[2:9]  ⁴ sn See R. D. Moore, “The Integrity of Job,” CBQ 45 (1983): 17-31. The reference of Job’s wife to his “integrity” could be a precursor of the conclusion reached by Elihu in 32:2 where he charged Job with justifying himself rather than God.

[2:9]  ⁵ tn The verb is literally בָּרַךְ, (barakh, “bless”). As in the earlier uses, the meaning probably has more to do with renouncing God than of speaking a curse. The actual word may be taken as a theological euphemism for the verb קִלֵּל (qillel, “curse”). If Job’s wife had meant that he was trying to justify himself rather than God, “bless God” might be translated “speak well of God,” the resolution accepted by God in 42:7-8 following Job’s double confession of having spoken wrongly of God (40:3-5; 42:1-6).

[2:9]  sn The church fathers were quick to see here again the role of the wife in the temptation – she acts as the intermediary between Satan and Job, pressing the cause for him. However, Job’s wife has been demonized falsely. Job did not say that she was a foolish woman, only that she was speaking like one of them (2:10). Also, Job did not exclude her from sharing in his suffering (“should we receive”). He evidently recognized that her words were the result of her personal loss and pain as well as the desire to see her husband’s suffering ended. When God gave instructions for the restoration of Job’s friends because of their foolish words (42:7-9), no mention is made of any need for Job’s wife to be restored.

[2:9]  ⁶ tn The imperative with the conjunction in this expression serves to express the certainty that will follow as the result or consequence of the previous imperative (GKC 324-25 §110.f).

[9:19]  ⁷ tn The MT has only “if of strength.”

[9:19]  ⁸ tn “Most certainly” translates the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh).

[9:19]  ⁹ tn The question could be taken as “who will summon me?” (see Jer 49:19 and 50:44). This does not make immediate sense. Some have simply changed the suffix to “who will summon him.” If the MT is retained, then supplying something like “he will say” could make the last clause fit the whole passage. Another option is to take it as “Who will reveal it to me?” – i.e., Job could be questioning his friends’ qualifications for being God’s emissaries to bring God’s charges against him (cf. KJV, NKJV; and see 10:2 where Job uses the same verb in the Hiphil to request that God reveal what his sin has been that has led to his suffering).

[9:19]  sn Job is saying that whether it is a trial of strength or an appeal to justice, he is unable to go against God.

[10:18]  ¹⁰ tn The two imperfect verbs in this section are used to stress regrets for something which did not happen (see GKC 317 §107.n).

[10:20]  ¹¹ tn Heb “are not my days few; cease/let it cease….” The versions have “the days of my life” (reading יְמֵי חֶלְדִי [yÿme kheldi] instead of יָמַי וַחֲדָל [yamay vakhadal]). Many commentators and the RSV, NAB, and NRSV accept this reading. The Kethib is an imperfect or jussive, “let it cease/ it will cease.” The Qere is more intelligible for some interpreters – “cease” (as in 7:16). For a discussion of the readings, see D. W. Thomas, “Some Observations on the Hebrew Root hadal,” VTSup 4 [1057]: 14). But the text is not impossible as it stands.

[10:20]  ¹² tn Taking the form as the imperative with the ו (vav), the sentence follows the direct address to God (as in v. 18 as well as 7:16). This requires less changes. See the preceding note regarding the plausibility of the jussive. The point of the verse is clear in either reading – his life is short, and he wants the suffering to stop.

[10:20]  ¹³ tn In the different suggestions for the line, the י (yod) of this word is believed to belong to the preceding word making “my life.” That would here leave an imperative rather than an imperfect. But if the Qere is read, then it would be an imperative anyway, and there would be no reason for the change.

[10:20]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “put from me,” an expression found nowhere else. The Qere has a ו (vav) and not a י (yod), forming an imperative rather than an imperfect. H. H. Rowley suggests that there is an ellipsis here, “hand” needing to be supplied. Job wanted God to take his hand away from him. That is plausible, but difficult.

[10:20]  ¹⁵ tn The verb בָּלַג (balag) in the Hiphil means “to have cheer [or joy]” (see 7:27; Ps 39:14). The cohortative following the imperatives shows the purpose or result – “in order that.”

[12:6]  ¹⁶ tn The verse gives the other side of the coin now, the fact that the wicked prosper.

[12:6]  ¹⁷ tn The plural is used to suggest the supreme degree of arrogant confidence (E. Dhorme, Job, 171).

[12:6]  ¹⁸ sn The line is perhaps best understood as describing one who thinks he is invested with the power of God.

[13:27]  ¹⁹ 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]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ 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.”

[21:17]  ²² tn The interrogative “How often” occurs only with the first colon; it is supplied for smoother reading in the next two.

[21:17]  ²³ tn The pronominal suffix is objective; it re-enforces the object of the preposition, “upon them.” The verb in the clause is בּוֹא (bo’) followed by עַל (’al), “come upon [or against],” may be interpreted as meaning attack or strike.

[21:17]  ²⁴ tn חֲבָלִים (khavalim) can mean “ropes” or “cords,” but that would not go with the verb “apportion” in this line. The meaning of “pangs (as in “birth-pangs”) seems to fit best here. The wider meaning would be “physical agony.”

[21:17]  ²⁵ tn The phrase “to them” is understood and thus is supplied in the translation for clarification.

[23:3]  ²⁶ tn The optative here is again expressed with the verbal clause, “who will give [that] I knew….”

[23:3]  ²⁷ tn The form in Hebrew is וְאֶמְצָאֵהוּ (vÿ’emtsa’ehu), simply “and I will find him.” But in the optative clause this verb is subordinated to the preceding verb: “O that I knew where [and] I might find him.” It is not unusual to have the perfect verb followed by the imperfect in such coordinate clauses (see GKC 386 §120.e). This could also be translated making the second verb a complementary infinitive: “knew how to find him.”

[23:3]  sn H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 159) quotes Strahan without reference: “It is the chief distinction between Job and his friends that he desires to meet God and they do not.”

[23:3]  ²⁸ tn This verb also depends on מִי־יִתֵּן (mi-yitten, “who will give”) of the first part, forming an additional clause in the wish formula.

[23:3]  ²⁹ tn Or “his place of judgment.” The word is from כּוּן (kun, “to prepare; to arrange”) in the Polel and the Hiphil conjugations. The noun refers to a prepared place, a throne, a seat, or a sanctuary. A. B. Davidson (Job, 169) and others take the word to mean “judgment seat” or “tribunal” in this context.

[27:15]  ³⁰ tn The text says “will be buried in/by death.” A number of passages in the Bible use “death” to mean the plague that kills (see Jer 15:2; Isa 28:3; and BDB 89 s.v. בְּ 2.a). In this sense it is like the English expression for the plague, “the Black Death.”

[27:15]  ³¹ tc The LXX has “their widows” to match the plural, and most commentators harmonize in the same way.

[28:8]  ³² tn Heb “the sons of pride.” In Job 41:26 the expression refers to carnivorous wild beasts.

[31:7]  ³³ sn The meaning is “been led by what my eyes see.”

[31:7]  ³⁴ tc The word מֻאוּם (mu’um) could be taken in one of two ways. One reading is to represent מוּם (mum, “blemish,” see the Masorah); the other is for מְאוּמָה (mÿ’umah, “anything,” see the versions and the Kethib). Either reading fits the passage.

[31:34]  ³⁵ tn Here too the verb will be the customary imperfect – it explains what he continually did in past time.

[31:34]  ³⁶ tn Heb “the great multitude.” But some commentators take רַבָּה (rabbah) adverbially: “greatly” (see RSV).

[31:34]  ³⁷ sn There is no clear apodosis for all these clauses. Some commentators transfer the verses around to make them fit the constructions. But the better view is that there is no apodosis – that Job broke off here, feeling it was useless to go further. Now he will address God and not men. But in vv. 38-40b he does return to a self-imprecation. However, there is not sufficient reason to start rearranging all the verses.

[33:17]  ³⁸ tc The MT simply has מַעֲשֶׂה (ma’aseh, “deed”). The LXX has “from his iniquity” which would have been מֵעַוְלָה (me’avlah). The two letters may have dropped out by haplography. The MT is workable, but would have to mean “[evil] deeds.”

[33:17]  ³⁹ tc Here too the sense of the MT is difficult to recover. Some translations took it to mean that God hides pride from man. Many commentators changed יְכַסֶּה (yÿkhasseh, “covers”) to יְכַסֵּחַ (yÿkhasseakh, “he cuts away”), or יְכַלֶּה (yÿkhalleh, “he puts an end to”). The various emendations are not all that convincing.