Ayub 7:5-6

7:5 My body ¹  is clothed ²  with worms ³  and dirty scabs; ⁴ 

my skin is broken ⁵  and festering.

7:6 My days ⁶  are swifter ⁷  than a weaver’s shuttle ⁸ 

and they come to an end without hope. ⁹ 

Ayub 8:7

8:7 Your beginning ¹⁰  will seem so small,

since your future will flourish. ¹¹ 

Ayub 10:4

Motivations of God

10:4 “Do you have eyes of flesh, ¹² 

or do you see ¹³  as a human being sees? ¹⁴ 

Ayub 13:4

13:4 But you, however, are inventors of lies; ¹⁵ 

all of you are worthless physicians! ¹⁶ 

Ayub 16:14

16:14 He breaks through against me, time and time again; ¹⁷ 

he rushes ¹⁸  against me like a warrior.

Ayub 21:5

21:5 Look ¹⁹  at me and be appalled;

put your hands over your mouths. ²⁰ 

Ayub 29:4

29:4 just as I was in my most productive time, ²¹ 

when God’s intimate friendship ²²  was experienced in my tent,

Ayub 29:21

Job’s Reputation

29:21 “People ²³  listened to me and waited silently; ²⁴ 

they kept silent for my advice.

Ayub 30:4

30:4 By the brush ²⁵  they would gather ²⁶  herbs from the salt marshes, ²⁷ 

and the root of the broom tree was their food.

Ayub 30:27

30:27 My heart ²⁸  is in turmoil ²⁹  unceasingly; ³⁰ 

the days of my affliction confront me.

Ayub 31:8

31:8 then let me sow ³¹  and let another eat,

and let my crops ³²  be uprooted.

Ayub 31:17

31:17 If I ate my morsel of bread myself,

and did not share any of it with orphans ³³  –

Ayub 34:7

34:7 What man is like Job,

who ³⁴  drinks derision ³⁵  like water!

Ayub 36:28

36:28 which the clouds pour down

and shower on humankind abundantly.

Ayub 38:9

38:9 when I made ³⁶  the storm clouds its garment,

and thick darkness its swaddling band, ³⁷ 

[7:5]  ¹ tn Heb “my flesh.”

[7:5]  ² tn The implied comparison is vivid: the dirty scabs cover his entire body like a garment – so he is clothed with them.

[7:5]  ³ sn The word for “worms” (רִמָּה, rimmah, a collective noun), is usually connected with rotten food (Exod 16:24), or the grave (Isa 14:11). Job’s disease is a malignant ulcer of some kind that causes the rotting of the flesh. One may recall that both Antiochus Epiphanes (2 Macc 9:9) and Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:23) were devoured by such worms in their diseases.

[7:5]  ⁴ tn The text has “clods of dust.” The word גִּישׁ (gish, “dirty scabs”) is a hapax legomenon from גּוּשׁ (gush, “clod”). Driver suggests the word has a medical sense, like “pustules” (G. R. Driver, “Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 73) or “scabs” (JB, NEB, NAB, NIV). Driver thinks “clods of dust” is wrong; he repoints “dust” to make a new verb “to cover,” cognate to Arabic, and reads “my flesh is clothed with worms, and scab covers my skin.” This refers to the dirty scabs that crusted over the sores all over his body. The LXX links this with the second half of the verse: “And my body has been covered with loathsome worms, and I waste away, scraping off clods of dirt from my eruption.”

[7:5]  ⁵ tn The meaning of רָגַע (raga’) is also debated here. D. J. A. Clines (Job [WBC], 163) does not think the word can mean “cracked” because scabs show evidence of the sores healing. But E. Dhorme (Job, 100) argues that the usage of the word shows the idea of “splitting, separating, making a break,” or the like. Here then it would mean “my skin splits” and as a result festers. This need not be a reference to the scabs, but to new places. Or it could mean that the scabbing never heals, but is always splitting open.

[7:6]  ⁶ sn The first five verses described the painfulness of his malady, his life; now, in vv. 6-10 he will focus on the brevity of his life, and its extinction with death. He introduces the subject with “my days,” a metonymy for his whole life and everything done on those days. He does not mean individual days – they drag on endlessly.

[7:6]  ⁷ tn The verb קָלַל (qalal) means “to be light” (40:4), and then by extension “to be swift; to be rapid” (Jer 4:13; Hab 1:8).

[7:6]  ⁸ sn The shuttle is the part which runs through the meshes of the web. In Judg 16:14 it is a loom (see BDB 71 s.v. אֶרֶג), but here it must be the shuttle. Hezekiah uses the imagery of the weaver, the loom, and the shuttle for the brevity of life (see Isa 38:12). The LXX used, “My life is lighter than a word.”

[7:6]  ⁹ tn The text includes a wonderful wordplay on this word. The noun is תִּקְוָה (tiqvah, “hope”). But it can also have the meaning of one of its cognate nouns, קַו (qav, “thread, cord,” as in Josh 2:18,21). He is saying that his life is coming to an end for lack of thread/for lack of hope (see further E. Dhorme, Job, 101).

[8:7]  ¹⁰ tn The reference to “your beginning” is a reference to Job’s former estate of wealth and peace. The reference to “latter end” is a reference to conditions still in the future. What Job had before will seem so small in comparison to what lies ahead.

[8:7]  ¹¹ tn The verb has the idea of “to grow”; here it must mean “to flourish; to grow considerably” or the like. The statement is not so much a prophecy; rather Bildad is saying that “if Job had recourse to God, then….” This will be fulfilled, of course, at the end of the book.

[10:4]  ¹² tn Here “flesh” is the sign of humanity. The expression “eyes of flesh” means essentially “human eyes,” i.e., the outlook and vision of humans.

[10:4]  ¹³ sn The verb translated “see” could also include the figurative category of perceive as well. The answer to Job’s question is found in 1 Sam 16:7: “The Lord sees not as a man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

[10:4]  ¹⁴ sn In this verse Job asks whether or not God is liable to making mistakes or errors of judgment. He wonders if God has no more insight than his friends have. Of course, the questions are rhetorical, for he knows otherwise. But his point is that God seems to be making a big mistake here.

[13:4]  ¹⁵ tn The טֹפְלֵי־שָׁקֶר (tofÿle shaqer) are “plasterers of lies” (Ps 119:69). The verb means “to coat, smear, plaster.” The idea is that of imputing something that is not true. Job is saying that his friends are inventors of lies. The LXX was influenced by the next line and came up with “false physicians.”

[13:4]  ¹⁶ tn The literal rendering of the construct would be “healers of worthlessness.” Ewald and Dillmann translated it “patchers” based on a meaning in Arabic and Ethiopic; this would give the idea “botchers.” But it makes equally good sense to take “healers” as the meaning, for Job’s friends came to minister comfort and restoration to him – but they failed. See P. Humbert, “Maladie et medicine dans l’AT,” RHPR 44 (1964): 1-29.

[16:14]  ¹⁷ tn The word פָּרַץ (parats) means “to make a breach” in a wall (Isa 5:5; Ps 80:13). It is used figuratively in the birth and naming of Peres in Gen 38:29. Here the image is now of a military attack that breaks through a wall. The text uses the cognate accusative, and then with the addition of עַל־פְּנֵי (’al-pÿne, “in addition”) it repeats the cognate noun. A smooth translation that reflects the three words is difficult. E. Dhorme (Job, 237) has “he batters me down, breach upon breach.”

[16:14]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “runs.”

[21:5]  ¹⁹ tn The verb פְּנוּ (pÿnu) is from the verb “to turn,” related to the word for “face.” In calling for them to turn toward him, he is calling for them to look at him. But here it may be more in the sense of their attention rather than just a looking at him.

[21:5]  ²⁰ tn The idiom is “put a hand over a mouth,” the natural gesture for keeping silent and listening (cf. Job 29:9; 40:4; Mic 7:16).

[29:4]  ²¹ tn Heb “in the days of my ripeness.” The word חֹרֶף (khoref) denotes the time when the harvest is gathered in because the fruit is ripe. Since this is the autumn, many translate that way here – but “autumn” has a different connotation now. The text is pointing to a time when the righteous reaps what he has sown, and can enjoy the benefits. The translation “most productive time” seems to capture the point better than “autumn” or even “prime.”

[29:4]  ²² tc The word סוֹד (sod) in this verse is an infinitive construct, prefixed with the temporal preposition and followed by a subjective genitive. It forms a temporal clause. There is some disagreement about the form and its meaning. The confusion in the versions shows that they were paraphrasing to get the general sense. In the Bible the derived noun (from יָסַד, yasad) means (a) a circle of close friends; (b) intimacy. Others follow the LXX and the Syriac with a meaning of “protect,” based on a change from ד (dalet) to כּ (kaf), and assuming the root was סָכַךְ (sakhakh). This would mean, “when God protected my tent” (cf. NAB). D. W. Thomas tries to justify this meaning without changing the text (“The Interpretation of BSOÝD in Job 29:4,” JBL 65 [1946]: 63-66).

[29:21]  ²³ tn “People” is supplied; the verb is plural.

[29:21]  ²⁴ tc The last verb of the first half, “wait, hope,” and the first verb in the second colon, “be silent,” are usually reversed by the commentators (see G. R. Driver, “Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 86). But if “wait” has the idea of being silent as they wait for him to speak, then the second line would say they were silent for the reason of his advice. The reading of the MT is not impossible.

[30:4]  ²⁵ tn Or “the leaves of bushes” (ESV), a possibility dating back to Saadia and discussed by G. R. Driver and G. B. Gray (Job [ICC], 2:209) in their philological notes.

[30:4]  ²⁶ tn Here too the form is the participle with the article.

[30:4]  ²⁷ tn Heb “gather mallow,” a plant which grows in salt marshes.

[30:27]  ²⁸ tn Heb “my loins,” “my bowels” (archaic), “my innermost being.” The latter option is reflected in the translation; some translations take the inner turmoil to be literal (NIV: “The churning inside me never stops”).

[30:27]  ²⁹ tn Heb “boils.”

[30:27]  ³⁰ tn The last clause reads “and they [it] are not quiet” or “do not cease.” The clause then serves adverbially for the sentence – “unceasingly.”

[31:8]  ³¹ tn The cohortative is often found in the apodosis of the conditional clause (see GKC 320 §108.f).

[31:8]  ³² tn The word means “what sprouts up” (from יָצָא [yatsa’] with the sense of “sprout forth”). It could refer metaphorically to children (and so Kissane and Pope), as well as in its literal sense of crops. The latter fits here perfectly.

[31:17]  ³³ tn Heb “and an orphan did not eat from it.”

[34:7]  ³⁴ tn Heb “he drinks,” but coming after the question this clause may be subordinated.

[34:7]  ³⁵ tn The scorn or derision mentioned here is not against Job, but against God. Job scorns God so much, he must love it. So to reflect this idea, Gordis has translated it “blasphemy” (cf. NAB).

[38:9]  ³⁶ tn The temporal clause here uses the infinitive from שִׂים (sim, “to place; to put; to make”). It underscores the sovereign placing of things.

[38:9]  ³⁷ tn This noun is found only here. The verb is in Ezek 16:4, and a related noun is in Ezek 30:21.