Ayub 7:7

7:7 Remember ¹  that my life is but a breath,

that ²  my eyes will never again ³  see happiness.

Ayub 21:20

21:20 Let his own eyes see his destruction; ⁴ 

let him drink of the anger of the Almighty.

Ayub 21:25

21:25 And another man ⁵  dies in bitterness of soul, ⁶ 

never having tasted ⁷  anything good.

Ayub 26:3

26:3 How you have advised the one without wisdom,

and abundantly ⁸  revealed your insight!

Ayub 29:2

29:2 “O that I could be ⁹  as ¹⁰  I was

in the months now gone, ¹¹ 

in the days ¹²  when God watched ¹³  over me,

Ayub 34:36

34:36 But ¹⁴  Job will be tested to the end,

because his answers are like those of wicked men.

Ayub 35:8

35:8 Your wickedness affects only ¹⁵  a person like yourself,

and your righteousness only other people. ¹⁶ 

Ayub 39:18

39:18 But as soon as she springs up, ¹⁷ 

she laughs at the horse and its rider.

[7:7]  ¹ sn Job is probably turning here to God, as is clear from v. 11 on. The NIV supplies the word “God” for clarification. It was God who breathed breath into man’s nostrils (Gen 2:7), and so God is called to remember that man is but a breath.

[7:7]  ² tn The word “that” is supplied in the translation.

[7:7]  ³ tn The verb with the infinitive serves as a verbal hendiadys: “return to see” means “see again.”

[21:20]  ⁴ tc This word occurs only here. The word כִּיד (kid) was connected to Arabic kaid, “fraud, trickery,” or “warfare.” The word is emended by the commentators to other ideas, such as פִּיד (pid, “[his] calamity”). Dahood and others alter it to “cup”; Wright to “weapons.” A. F. L. Beeston argues for a meaning “condemnation” for the MT form, and so makes no change in the text (Mus 67 [1954]: 315-16). If the connection to Arabic “warfare” is sustained, or if such explanations of the existing MT can be sustained, then the text need not be emended. In any case, the sense of the line is clear.

[21:25]  ⁵ tn The expression “this (v. 23)…and this” (v. 25) means “one…the other.”

[21:25]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Heb “eaten what is good.” It means he died without having enjoyed the good life.

[26:3]  ⁸ tc The phrase לָרֹב (larov) means “to abundance” or “in a large quantity.” It is also used ironically like all these expressions. This makes very good sense, but some wish to see a closer parallel and so offer emendations. Reiske and Kissane thought “to the tender” for the word. But the timid are not the same as the ignorant and unwise. So Graetz supplied “to the boorish” by reading לְבָעַר (lÿba’ar). G. R. Driver did the same with less of a change: לַבּוֹר (labbor; HTR 29 [1936]: 172).

[29:2]  ⁹ tn The optative is here expressed with מִי־יִתְּנֵנִי (mi-yittÿneni, “who will give me”), meaning, “O that I [could be]…” (see GKC 477 §151.b).

[29:2]  ¹⁰ tn The preposition כּ (kaf) is used here in an expression describing the state desired, especially in the former time (see GKC 376 §118.u).

[29:2]  ¹¹ tn The expression is literally “months of before [or of old; or past].” The word קֶדֶם (qedem) is intended here to be temporal and not spatial; it means days that preceded the present.

[29:2]  ¹² tn The construct state (“days of”) governs the independent sentence that follows (see GKC 422 §130.d): “as the days of […] God used to watch over me.”

[29:2]  ¹³ tn The imperfect verb here has a customary nuance – “when God would watch over me” (back then), or “when God used to watch over me.”

[34:36]  ¹⁴ tc The MT reads אָבִי (’avi, “my father”), which makes no sense. Some follow the KJV and emend the word to make a verb “I desire” or use the noun “my desire of it.” Others follow an Arabic word meaning “entreat, I pray” (cf. ESV, “Would that Job were tried”). The LXX and the Syriac versions have “but” and “surely” respectively. Since this is the only ms support, albeit weak, it may be the best choice. In this sense Elihu would be saying that because of Job’s attitude God will continue to test him.

[35:8]  ¹⁵ tn The phrase “affects only” is supplied in the translation of this nominal sentence.

[35:8]  sn According to Strahan, “Elihu exalts God’s greatness at the cost of His grace, His transcendence at the expense of His immanence. He sets up a material instead of a spiritual stand of profit and loss. He does not realize that God does gain what He desires most by the goodness of men, and loses what He most loves by their evil.”

[35:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and to [or for] a son of man, your righteousness.”

[39:18]  ¹⁷ tn The colon poses a slight problem here. The literal meaning of the Hebrew verb translated “springs up” (i.e., “lifts herself on high”) might suggest flight. But some of the proposals involve a reading about readying herself to run.