Job 2:5

2:5 But extend your hand and strike his bone and his flesh, ¹  and he will no doubt ²  curse you to your face!”

Job 5:18

5:18 For ³  he ⁴  wounds, ⁵  but he also bandages;

he strikes, but his hands also heal.

Job 6:8

A Cry for Death

6:8 “Oh that ⁶  my request would be realized, ⁷ 

and that God would grant me what I long for! ⁸ 

Job 18:15

18:15 Fire resides in his tent; ⁹ 

over his residence burning sulfur is scattered.

Job 21:25

21:25 And another man ¹⁰  dies in bitterness of soul, ¹¹ 

never having tasted ¹²  anything good.

[2:5]  ¹ sn The “bones and flesh” are idiomatic for the whole person, his physical and his psychical/spiritual being (see further H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 26-28).

[2:5]  ² sn This is the same oath formula found in 1:11; see the note there.

[5:18]  ³ sn Verses 18-23 give the reasons why someone should accept the chastening of God – the hand that wounds is the same hand that heals. But, of course, the lines do not apply to Job because his suffering is not due to divine chastening.

[5:18]  ⁴ tn The addition of the independent pronoun here makes the subject emphatic, as if to say, “For it is he who makes….”

[5:18]  ⁵ tn The imperfect verbs in this verse describe the characteristic activities of God; the classification as habitual imperfect fits the idea and is to be rendered with the English present tense.

[6:8]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew expresses the desire (desiderative clause) with “who will give?” (see GKC 477 §151.d).

[6:8]  ⁷ tn The verb בּוֹא (bo’, “go”) has the sense of “to be realized; to come to pass; to be fulfilled.” The optative “Who will give [that] my request be realized?” is “O that my request would be realized.”

[6:8]  ⁸ tn The text has תִקְוָתִי (tiqvati, “hope”). There is no reason to change the text to “my desire” (as Driver and others do) if the word is interpreted metonymically – it means “what I hope for.” What Job hopes for and asks for is death.

[18:15]  ⁹ tn This line is difficult as well. The verb, again a third feminine form, says “it dwells in his tent.” But the next part (מִבְּלִי לוֹ, mibbÿli lo) means something like “things of what are not his.” The best that can be made of the MT is “There shall live in his tent they that are not his” (referring to persons and animals; see J. E. Hartley, Job [NICOT], 279). G. R. Driver and G. B. Gray (Job [ICC], 2:161) refer “that which is naught of his” to weeds and wild animals. M. Dahood suggested a reading מַבֶּל (mabbel) and a connection to Akkadian nablu, “fire” (cf. Ugaritic nbl). The interchange of m and n is not a problem, and the parallelism with the next line makes good sense (“Some Northwest Semitic words in Job,” Bib 38 [1957]: 312ff.). Others suggest an emendation to get “night-hag” or vampire. This suggestion, as well as Driver’s “mixed herbs,” are linked to the idea of exorcism. But if a change is to be made, Dahood’s is the most compelling.

[21:25]  ¹⁰ tn The expression “this (v. 23)…and this” (v. 25) means “one…the other.”

[21:25]  ¹¹ tn The text literally has “and this [man] dies in soul of bitterness.” Some simply reverse it and translate “in the bitterness of soul.” The genitive “bitterness” may be an attribute adjective, “with a bitter soul.”

[21:25]  ¹² tn Heb “eaten what is good.” It means he died without having enjoyed the good life.