Ayub 12:3

12:3 I also have understanding ¹  as well as you;

I am not inferior to you. ² 

Who does not know such things as these? ³ 

Ayub 12:7

Knowledge of God’s Wisdom ⁴ 

12:7 “But now, ask the animals and they ⁵  will teach you,

or the birds of the sky and they will tell you.

Ayub 21:14

21:14 So they say to God, ‘Turn away from us!

We do not want to ⁶  know your ways. ⁷ 

Ayub 22:18

22:18 But it was he ⁸  who filled their houses

with good things –

yet the counsel of the wicked ⁹ 

was far from me. ¹⁰ 

Ayub 38:11

38:11 when I said, ‘To here you may come ¹¹ 

and no farther, ¹² 

here your proud waves will be confined’? ¹³ 

[12:3]  ¹ tn The word is literally “heart,” meaning a mind or understanding.

[12:3]  ² tn Because this line is repeated in 13:2, many commentators delete it from this verse (as does the LXX). The Syriac translates נֹפֵל (nofel) as “little,” and the Vulgate “inferior.” Job is saying that he does not fall behind them in understanding.

[12:3]  ³ tn Heb “With whom are not such things as these?” The point is that everyone knows the things that these friends have been saying – they are commonplace.

[12:7]  ⁴ sn As J. E. Hartley (Job [NICOT], 216) observes, in this section Job argues that respected tradition “must not be accepted uncritically.”

[12:7]  ⁵ tn The singular verb is used here with the plural collective subject (see GKC 464 §145.k).

[21:14]  ⁶ tn The absence of the preposition before the complement adds greater vividness to the statement: “and knowing your ways – we do not desire.”

[21:14]  ⁷ sn Contrast Ps 25:4, which affirms that walking in God’s ways means to obey God’s will – the Torah.

[22:18]  ⁸ tn The pronoun is added for this emphasis; it has “but he” before the verb.

[22:18]  ⁹ tn See Job 10:3.

[22:18]  ¹⁰ tc The LXX has “from him,” and this is followed by several commentators. But the MT is to be retained, for Eliphaz is recalling the words of Job. Verses 17 and 18 are deleted by a number of commentators as a gloss because they have many similarities to 21:14-16. But Eliphaz is recalling what Job said, in order to say that the prosperity to which Job alluded was only the prelude to a disaster he denied (H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 156).

[38:11]  ¹¹ tn The imperfect verb receives the permission nuance here.

[38:11]  ¹² tn The text has תֹסִיף (tosif, “and you may not add”), which is often used idiomatically (as in verbal hendiadys constructions).

[38:11]  ¹³ tn The MT literally says, “here he will put on the pride of your waves.” The verb has no expressed subject and so is made a passive voice. But there has to be some object for the verb “put,” such as “limit” or “boundary”; the translations “confined; halted; stopped” all serve to paraphrase such an idea. The LXX has “broken” at this point, suggesting the verse might have been confused – but “breaking the pride” of the waves would mean controlling them. Some commentators have followed this, exchanging the verb in v. 11 with this one.