Mazmur 30:2-3

30:2 O Lord my God,

I cried out to you and you healed me. ¹ 

30:3 O Lord, you pulled me ²  up from Sheol;

you rescued me from among those descending into the grave. ³ 

Mazmur 103:3-4

103:3 He is the one who forgives all your sins,

who heals all your diseases, ⁴ 

103:4 who delivers ⁵  your life from the Pit, ⁶ 

who crowns you with his loyal love and compassion,

Mazmur 147:3

147:3 He heals ⁷  the brokenhearted,

and bandages their wounds.

Bilangan 21:8-9

21:8 The Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous snake and set it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks ⁸  at it, he will live.” 21:9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it on a pole, so that if a snake had bitten someone, when he looked at the bronze snake he lived. ⁹ 

Ayub 33:23-26

33:23 If there is an angel beside him,

one mediator ¹⁰  out of a thousand,

to tell a person what constitutes his uprightness; ¹¹ 

33:24 and if ¹²  God ¹³  is gracious to him and says,

‘Spare ¹⁴  him from going down

to the place of corruption,

I have found a ransom for him,’ ¹⁵ 

33:25 then his flesh is restored ¹⁶  like a youth’s;

he returns to the days of his youthful vigor. ¹⁷ 

33:26 He entreats God, and God ¹⁸  delights in him,

he sees God’s face ¹⁹  with rejoicing,

and God ²⁰  restores to him his righteousness. ²¹ 

[30:2]  ¹ sn You healed me. Apparently the psalmist was plagued by a serious illness that threatened his life. See Ps 41.

[30:3]  ² tn Or “my life.”

[30:3]  ³ tn Heb “you kept me alive from those descending into the pit.” The Hebrew noun בוֹר (bor, “pit, cistern”) is sometimes used of the grave and/or the realm of the dead. The translation follows the consonantal Hebrew text (Kethib); the marginal reading (Qere) has, “you kept me alive so that I did not go down into the pit.”

[103:3]  ⁴ tn This relatively rare noun refers to deadly diseases (see Deut 29:22; Jer 14:18; 16:4; 2 Chr 21:19).

[103:4]  ⁵ tn Or “redeems.”

[103:4]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew term שַׁחַת (shakhat, “pit”) is often used as a title for Sheol (see Pss 16:10; 30:9; 49:9; 55:24.

[147:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “the one who heals.”

[21:8]  ⁸ tn The word order is slightly different in Hebrew: “and it shall be anyone who is bitten when he looks at it he shall live.”

[21:9]  ⁹ sn The image of the snake was to be a symbol of the curse that the Israelites were experiencing; by lifting the snake up on a pole Moses was indicating that the curse would be drawn away from the people – if they looked to it, which was a sign of faith. This symbol was later stored in the temple, until it became an object of worship and had to be removed (2 Kgs 18:4). Jesus, of course, alluded to it and used it as an illustration of his own mission. He would become the curse, and be lifted up, so that people who looked by faith to him would live (John 3:14). For further material, see D. J. Wiseman, “Flying Serpents,” TynBul 23 (1972): 108-10; and K. R. Joines, “The Bronze Serpent in the Israelite Cult,” JBL 87 (1968): 245-56.

[33:23]  ¹⁰ sn The verse is describing the way God can preserve someone from dying by sending a messenger (translated here as “angel”), who could be human or angelic. This messenger will interpret/mediate God’s will. By “one … out of a thousand” Elihu could have meant either that one of the thousands of messengers at God’s disposal might be sent or that the messenger would be unique (see Eccl 7:28; and cp. Job 9:3).

[33:23]  ¹¹ tn This is a smoother reading. The MT has “to tell to a man his uprightness,” to reveal what is right for him. The LXX translated this word “duty”; the choice is adopted by some commentaries. However, that is too far from the text, which indicates that the angel/messenger is to call the person to uprightness.

[33:24]  ¹² tn This verse seems to continue the protasis begun in the last verse, with the apodosis coming in the next verse.

[33:24]  ¹³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[33:24]  ¹⁴ tc The verb is either taken as an anomalous form of פָּדַע (pada’, “to rescue; to redeem,” or “to exempt him”), or it is emended to some similar word, like פָּרַע (para’, “to let loose,” so Wright).

[33:24]  ¹⁵ sn This verse and v. 28 should be compared with Ps 49:7-9, 15 (8-10, 16 HT) where the same basic vocabulary and concepts are employed.

[33:25]  ¹⁶ tc The word רֻטֲפַשׁ (rutafash) is found nowhere else. One suggestion is that it should be יִרְטַב (yirtav, “to become fresh”), connected to רָטַב (ratav, “to be well watered [or moist]”). It is also possible that it was a combination of רָטַב (ratav, “to be well watered”) and טָפַשׁ (tafash, “to grow fat”). But these are all guesses in the commentaries.

[33:25]  ¹⁷ tn The word describes the period when the man is healthy and vigorous, ripe for what life brings his way.

[33:26]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[33:26]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “his face”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[33:26]  sn This is usually taken to mean that as a worshiper this individual comes into the presence of the Lord in prayer, and in the sanctuary he sees God’s face, i.e., he sees the evidence of God’s presence.

[33:26]  ²⁰ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[33:26]  ²¹ tc Many commentators think this line is superfluous and so delete it. The RSV changed the verb to “he recounts,” making the idea that the man publishes the news of his victory or salvation (taking “righteousness” as a metonymy of cause).