Ayub 13:18

13:18 See now, ¹  I have prepared ²  my ³  case; ⁴ 

I know that I am right. ⁵ 

Ayub 9:21

9:21 I am blameless. ⁶  I do not know myself. ⁷ 

I despise my life.

Ayub 10:2

10:2 I will say to God, ‘Do not condemn ⁸  me;

tell me ⁹  why you are contending ¹⁰  with me.’

Ayub 29:11

Job’s Benevolence

29:11 “As soon as the ear heard these things, ¹¹  it blessed me, ¹² 

and when the eye saw them, it bore witness to me,

[13:18]  ¹ tn The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) functions almost as an imperative here, calling attention to what follows: “look” (archaic: behold).

[13:18]  ² tn The verb עָרַךְ (’arakh) means “to set in order, set in array [as a battle], prepare” in the sense here of arrange and organize a lawsuit.

[13:18]  ³ tn The pronoun is added because this is what the verse means.

[13:18]  ⁴ tn The word מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat) usually means “judgment; decision.” Here it means “lawsuit” (and so a metonymy of effect gave rise to this usage; see Num 27:5; 2 Sam 15:4).

[13:18]  ⁵ tn The pronoun is emphatic before the verb: “I know that it is I who am right.” The verb means “to be right; to be righteous.” Some have translated it “vindicated,” looking at the outcome of the suit.

[9:21]  ⁶ tn Dhorme, in an effort to avoid tautology, makes this a question: “Am I blameless?” The next clause then has Job answering that he does not know. But through the last section Job has been proclaiming his innocence. The other way of interpreting these verses is to follow NIV and make all of them hypothetical (“If I were blameless, he would pronounce me guilty”) and then come to this verse with Job saying, “I am blameless.” The second clause of this verse does not fit either view very well. In vv. 20, 21, and 22 Job employs the same term for “blameless” (תָּם, tam) as in the prologue (1:1). God used it to describe Job in 1:8 and 2:3. Bildad used it in 8:20. These are the final occurrences in the book.

[9:21]  ⁷ tn The meaning of the expression “I do not know myself” seems to be, “I do not care.” NIV translates it, “I have no concern for my life.”

[9:21]  sn Job believes he is blameless and not deserving of all this suffering; he will hold fast to that claim, even if the future is uncertain, especially if that future involved a confrontation with God.

[10:2]  ⁸ tn The negated jussive is the Hiphil jussive of רָשַׁע (rasha’); its meaning then would be literally “do not declare me guilty.” The negated jussive stresses the immediacy of the request.

[10:2]  ⁹ tn The Hiphil imperative of יָדַע (yada’) would more literally be “cause me to know.” It is a plea for God to help him understand the afflictions.

[10:2]  ¹⁰ tn The verb is רִיב (riv), meaning “to dispute; to contend; to strive; to quarrel” – often in the legal sense. The precise words chosen in this verse show that the setting is legal. The imperfect verb here is progressive, expressing what is currently going on.

[29:11]  ¹¹ tn The words “these things” and “them” in the next colon are not in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[29:11]  ¹² tn The main clause is introduced by the preterite with the vav (ו) consecutive (see GKC 327 §111.h); the clause before it is therefore temporal and circumstantial to the main clause.