Ayub 4:10

4:10 There is ¹  the roaring of the lion ² 

and the growling ³  of the young lion,

but the teeth of the young lions are broken. ⁴ 

Ayub 12:24

12:24 He deprives the leaders of the earth ⁵ 

of their understanding; ⁶ 

he makes them wander

in a trackless desert waste. ⁷ 

Ayub 14:19

14:19 as water wears away stones,

and torrents ⁸  wash away the soil, ⁹ 

so you destroy man’s hope. ¹⁰ 

Ayub 38:15

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

and the arm raised in violence ¹¹  is broken. ¹² 

[4:10]  ¹ tn “There is” has been supplied to make a smoother translation out of the clauses.

[4:10]  ² sn Eliphaz takes up a new image here to make the point that the wicked are destroyed – the breaking up and scattering of a den of lions. There are several words for “lion” used in this section. D. J. A. Clines observes that it is probably impossible to distinguish them (Job [WBC], 109, 110, which records some bibliography of those who have tried to work on the etymologies and meanings). The first is אַרְיֵה (’aryeh) the generic term for “lion.” It is followed by שַׁחַל (shakhal) which, like כְּפִיר (kÿfir), is a “young lion.” Some have thought that the שַׁחַל (shakhal) is a lion-like animal, perhaps a panther or leopard. KBL takes it by metathesis from Arabic “young one.” The LXX for this verse has “the strength of the lion, and the voice of the lioness and the exulting cry of serpents are quenched.”

[4:10]  ³ tn Heb “voice.”

[4:10]  ⁴ tn The verb belongs to the subject “teeth” in this last colon; but it is used by zeugma (a figure of speech in which one word is made to refer to two or more other words, but has to be understood differently in the different contexts) of the three subjects (see H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 46-47).

[12:24]  ⁵ tn Heb “the heads of the people of the earth.”

[12:24]  ⁶ tn Heb “heart.”

[12:24]  ⁷ tn The text has בְּתֹהוּ לֹא־דָרֶךְ (bÿtohu lo’ darekh): “in waste – no way,” or “in a wasteland [where there is] no way,” thus, “trackless” (see the discussion of negative attributes using לֹא [lo’] in GKC 482 §152.u).

[14:19]  ⁸ tn Heb “the overflowings of it”; the word סְפִיחֶיהָ (sÿfikheyha) in the text is changed by just about everyone. The idea of “its overflowings” or more properly “its aftergrowths” (Lev 25:5; 2 Kgs 19:29; etc.) does not fit here at all. Budde suggested reading סְחִפָה (sÿkhifah), which is cognate to Arabic sahifeh, “torrential rain, rainstorm” – that which sweeps away” the soil. The word סָחַף (sakhaf) in Hebrew might have a wider usage than the effects of rain.

[14:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “[the] dust of [the] earth.”

[14:19]  ¹⁰ sn The meaning for Job is that death shatters all of man’s hopes for the continuation of life.

[38:15]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² 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).