Ayub 10:15

10:15 If I am guilty, ¹  woe ²  to me,

and if I am innocent, I cannot lift my head; ³ 

I am full of shame, ⁴ 

and satiated with my affliction. ⁵ 

Ayub 12:4

12:4 I am ⁶  a laughingstock ⁷  to my friends, ⁸ 

I, who called on God and whom he answered ⁹  –

a righteous and blameless ¹⁰  man

is a laughingstock!

Ayub 14:13

The Possibility of Another Life

14:13 “O that ¹¹  you would hide me in Sheol, ¹² 

and conceal me till your anger has passed! ¹³ 

O that you would set me a time ¹⁴ 

and then remember me! ¹⁵ 

Ayub 16:12

16:12 I was in peace, and he has shattered me. ¹⁶ 

He has seized me by the neck and crushed me. ¹⁷ 

He has made me his target;

Ayub 24:22

24:22 But God ¹⁸  drags off the mighty by his power;

when God ¹⁹  rises up against him, he has no faith in his life. ²⁰ 

Ayub 24:24

24:24 They are exalted for a little while,

and then they are gone, ²¹ 

they are brought low ²²  like all others,

and gathered in, ²³ 

and like a head of grain they are cut off.’ ²⁴ 

Ayub 32:2

32:2 Then Elihu son of Barakel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, became very angry. ²⁵  He was angry ²⁶  with Job for justifying ²⁷  himself rather than God. ²⁸ 

Ayub 34:20

34:20 In a moment they die, in the middle of the night, ²⁹ 

people ³⁰  are shaken ³¹  and they pass away.

The mighty are removed effortlessly. ³² 

Ayub 35:14

35:14 How much less, then,

when you say that you do not perceive him,

that the case is before him

and you are waiting for him! ³³ 

Ayub 42:9-10

42:9 So they went, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, and did just as the Lord had told them; and the Lord had respect for Job. ³⁴ 

42:10 So the Lord ³⁵  restored what Job had lost ³⁶  after he prayed for his friends, ³⁷  and the Lord doubled ³⁸  all that had belonged to Job.

[10:15]  ¹ sn The verbs “guilty” and “innocent” are actually the verbs “I am wicked,” and “I am righteous.”

[10:15]  ² tn The exclamation occurs only here and in Mic 7:1.

[10:15]  ³ sn The action of lifting up the head is a symbol of pride and honor and self-respect (Judg 8:28) – like “hold your head high.” In 11:15 the one who is at peace with God lifts his head (face).

[10:15]  ⁴ tn The expression שְׂבַע קָלוֹן (sÿva’ qalon) may be translated “full of shame.” The expression literally means “sated of ignominy” (or contempt [קַלַל, qalal]).

[10:15]  ⁵ tn The last clause is difficult to fit into the verse. It translates easily enough: “and see my affliction.” Many commentators follow the suggestion of Geiger to read רְוֶה (rÿveh, “watered with”) instead of רְאֵה (rÿ’eh, “see”). This could then be interpreted adjectivally and parallel to the preceding line: “steeped/saturated with affliction.” This would also delete the final yod as dittography (E. Dhorme, Job, 152). But D. J. A. Clines notes more recent interpretations that suggest the form in the text is an orthographic variant of raweh meaning “satiated.” This makes any emendation unnecessary (and in fact that idea of “steeped” was not helpful any way because it indicated imbibing rather than soaking). The NIV renders it “and drowned in my affliction” although footnoting the other possibility from the MT, “aware of my affliction” (assuming the form could be adjectival). The LXX omits the last line.

[12:4]  ⁶ tn Some are troubled by the disharmony with “I am” and “to his friend.” Even though the difficulty is not insurmountable, some have emended the text. Some simply changed the verb to “he is,” which was not very compelling. C. D. Isbell argued that אֶהְיֶה (’ehyeh, “I am”) is an orthographic variant of יִהְיֶה (yihyeh, “he will”) – “a person who does not know these things would be a laughingstock” (JANESCU 37 [1978]: 227-36). G. R. Driver suggests the meaning of the MT is something like “(One that is) a mockery to his friend I am to be.”

[12:4]  ⁷ tn The word simply means “laughter”; but it can also mean the object of laughter (see Jer 20:7). The LXX jumps from one “laughter” to the next, eliminating everything in between, presumably due to haplography.

[12:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “his friend.” A number of English versions (e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT) take this collectively, “to my friends.”

[12:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “one calling to God and he answered him.” H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 92) contends that because Job has been saying that God is not answering him, these words must be part of the derisive words of his friends.

[12:4]  ¹⁰ tn The two words, צַדִּיק תָּמִים (tsadiq tamim), could be understood as a hendiadys (= “blamelessly just”) following W. G. E. Watson (Classical Hebrew Poetry, 327).

[14:13]  ¹¹ tn The optative mood is introduced here again with מִי יִתֵּן (mi yitten), literally, “who will give?”

[14:13]  sn After arguing that man will die without hope, Job expresses his desire that there be a resurrection, and what that would mean. The ancients all knew that death did not bring existence to an end; rather, they passed into another place, but they continued to exist. Job thinks that death would at least give him some respite from the wrath of God; but this wrath would eventually be appeased, and then God would remember the one he had hidden in Sheol just as he remembered Noah. Once that happened, it would be possible that Job might live again.

[14:13]  ¹² sn Sheol in the Bible refers to the place where the dead go. But it can have different categories of meaning: death in general, the grave, or the realm of the departed spirits [hell]. A. Heidel shows that in the Bible when hell is in view the righteous are not there – it is the realm of the departed spirits of the wicked. When the righteous go to Sheol, the meaning is usually the grave or death. See chapter 3 in A. Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and the Old Testament Parallels.

[14:13]  ¹³ tn The construction used here is the preposition followed by the infinitive construct followed by the subjective genitive, forming an adverbial clause of time.

[14:13]  ¹⁴ tn This is the same word used in v. 5 for “limit.”

[14:13]  ¹⁵ tn The verb זָכַר (zakhar) means more than simply “to remember.” In many cases, including this one, it means “to act on what is remembered,” i.e., deliver or rescue (see Gen 8:1, “and God remembered Noah”). In this sense, a prayer “remember me” is a prayer for God to act upon his covenant promises.

[16:12]  ¹⁶ tn The verb פָּרַר (parar) means “to shake.” In the Hiphil it means “to break; to shatter” (5:12; 15:4). The Pilpel means “to break in pieces,” and in the Poel in Jer 23:29 “to smash up.” So Job was living at ease, and God shattered his life.

[16:12]  ¹⁷ tn Here is another Pilpel, now from פָּצַץ (patsats) with a similar meaning to the other verb. It means “to dash into pieces” and even scatter the pieces. The LXX translates this line, “he took me by the hair of the head and plucked it out.”

[24:22]  ¹⁸ tn God has to be the subject of this clause. None is stated in the Hebrew text, but “God” has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[24:22]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity. See the note on the word “life” at the end of the line.

[24:22]  ²⁰ tn This line has been given a number of interpretations due to its cryptic form. The verb יָקוּם (yaqum) means “he rises up.” It probably is meant to have God as the subject, and be subordinated as a temporal clause to what follows. The words “against him” are not in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied in the translation to specify the object and indicate that “rise up” is meant in a hostile sense. The following verb וְלֹא־יַאֲמִין (vÿlo’-ya’amin), by its very meaning of “and he does not believe,” cannot have God as the subject, but must refer to the wicked.

[24:24]  ²¹ tn The Hebrew throughout this section (vv. 18-24) interchanges the singular and the plural. Here again we have “they are exalted…but he is not.” The verse is clear nonetheless: the wicked rise high, and then suddenly they are gone.

[24:24]  ²² tn The verb is the Hophal of the rare verb מָכַךְ (makhakh), which seems to mean “to bend; to collapse.” The text would read “they are made to collapse like all others.” There is no reason here to change “like others” just because the MT is banal. But many do, following the LXX with “like mallows.” The LXX was making a translation according to sense. R. Gordis (Job, 271) prefers “like grass.”

[24:24]  ²³ tn The verb קָפַץ (qafats) actually means “to shut in,” which does not provide exactly the idea of being gathered, not directly at least. But a change to קָטַף (qataf, “pluck”) while attractive, is not necessary.

[24:24]  ²⁴ sn This marks the end of the disputed section, taken here to be a quotation by Job of their sentiments.

[32:2]  ²⁵ tn The verse begins with וַיִּחַר אַף (vayyikhar ’af, “and the anger became hot”), meaning Elihu became very angry.

[32:2]  ²⁶ tn The second comment about Elihu’s anger comes right before the statement of its cause. Now the perfect verb is used: “he was angry.”

[32:2]  ²⁷ tn The explanation is the causal clause עַל־צַדְּקוֹ נַפְשׁוֹ (’al-tsaddÿqo nafsho, “because he justified himself”). It is the preposition with the Piel infinitive construct with a suffixed subjective genitive.

[32:2]  ²⁸ tc The LXX and Latin versions soften the expression slightly by saying “before God.”

[34:20]  ²⁹ tn Dhorme transposes “in the middle of the night” with “they pass away” to get a smoother reading. But the MT emphasizes the suddenness by putting both temporal ideas first. E. F. Sutcliffe leaves the order as it stands in the text, but adds a verb “they expire” after “in the middle of the night” (“Notes on Job, textual and exegetical,” Bib 30 [1949]: 79ff.).

[34:20]  ³⁰ tn R. Gordis (Job, 389) thinks “people” here mean the people who count, the upper class.

[34:20]  ³¹ tn The verb means “to be violently agitated.” There is no problem with the word in this context, but commentators have made suggestions for improving the idea. The proposal that has the most to commend it, if one were inclined to choose a new word, is the change to יִגְוָעוּ (yigva’u, “they expire”; so Ball, Holscher, Fohrer, and others).

[34:20]  ³² tn Heb “not by hand.” This means without having to use force.

[35:14]  ³³ sn The point is that if God does not listen to those who do not turn to him, how much less likely is he to turn to one who complains against him.

[42:9]  ³⁴ tn The expression “had respect for Job” means God answered his prayer.

[42:10]  ³⁵ tn The paragraph begins with the disjunctive vav, “Now as for the Lord, he….”

[42:10]  ³⁶ sn The expression here is interesting: “he returned the captivity of Job,” a clause used elsewhere in the Bible of Israel (see e.g., Ps 126). Here it must mean “the fortunes of Job,” i.e., what he had lost. There is a good deal of literature on this; for example, see R. Borger, “Zu sub sb(i)t,” ZAW 25 (1954): 315-16; and E. Baumann, ZAW 6 (1929): 17ff.

[42:10]  ³⁷ tn This is a temporal clause, using the infinitive construct with the subject genitive suffix. By this it seems that this act of Job was also something of a prerequisite for restoration – to pray for them.

[42:10]  ³⁸ tn The construction uses the verb “and he added” with the word “repeat” (or “twice”).