Ayub 11:16

11:16 For you ¹  will forget your trouble; ² 

you will remember it

like water that ³  has flowed away.

Ayub 20:17

20:17 He will not look on the streams, ⁴ 

the rivers, which are the torrents ⁵ 

of honey and butter. ⁶ 

Ayub 27:20

27:20 Terrors overwhelm him like a flood; ⁷ 

at night a whirlwind carries him off.

[11:16]  ¹ tn For a second time (see v. 13) Zophar employs the emphatic personal pronoun. Could he be providing a gentle reminder that Job might have forgotten the sin that has brought this trouble? After all, there will come a time when Job will not remember this time of trial.

[11:16]  ² sn It is interesting to note in the book that the resolution of Job’s trouble did not come in the way that Zophar prescribed it.

[11:16]  ³ tn The perfect verb forms an abbreviated relative clause (without the pronoun) modifying “water.”

[20:17]  ⁴ tn The word פְּלַגּוֹת (pÿlaggot) simply means “streams” or “channels.” Because the word is used elsewhere for “streams of oil” (cf. 29:6), and that makes a good parallelism here, some supply “oil” (cf. NAB, NLT). But the second colon of the verse is probably in apposition to the first. The verb “see” followed by the preposition bet, “to look on; to look over,” means “to enjoy as a possession,” an activity of the victor.

[20:17]  ⁵ tn The construct nouns here have caused a certain amount of revision. It says “rivers of, torrents of.” The first has been emended by Klostermann to יִצְהָר (yitshar, “oil”) and connected to the first colon. Older editors argued for a נָהָר (nahar) that meant “oil” but that was not convincing. On the other hand, there is support for having more than one construct together serving as apposition (see GKC 422 §130.e). If the word “streams” in the last colon is a construct, that would mean three of them; but that one need not be construct. The reading would be “He will not see the streams, [that is] the rivers [which are] the torrents of honey and butter.” It is unusual, but workable.

[20:17]  ⁶ sn This word is often translated “curds.” It is curdled milk, possibly a type of butter.

[27:20]  ⁷ tn Many commentators want a word parallel to “in the night.” And so we are offered בַּיּוֹם (bayyom, “in the day”) for כַמַּיִם (khammayim, “like waters”) as well as a number of others. But “waters” sometimes stand for major calamities, and so may be retained here. Besides, not all parallel structures are synonymous.