Ayub 13:2

13:2 What you know, ¹  I ²  know also;

I am not inferior ³  to you!

Ayub 13:4

13:4 But you, however, are inventors of lies; ⁴ 

all of you are worthless physicians! ⁵ 

Ayub 38:2

38:2 “Who is this ⁶  who darkens counsel ⁷ 

with words without knowledge?

Ayub 40:3

40:3 Then Job answered the Lord:

[13:2]  ¹ tn Heb “Like your knowledge”; in other words Job is saying that his knowledge is like their knowledge.

[13:2]  ² tn The pronoun makes the subject emphatic and stresses the contrast: “I know – I also.”

[13:2]  ³ tn The verb “fall” is used here as it was in Job 4:13 to express becoming lower than someone, i.e., inferior.

[13:4]  ⁴ tn The טֹפְלֵי־שָׁקֶר (tofÿle shaqer) are “plasterers of lies” (Ps 119:69). The verb means “to coat, smear, plaster.” The idea is that of imputing something that is not true. Job is saying that his friends are inventors of lies. The LXX was influenced by the next line and came up with “false physicians.”

[13:4]  ⁵ tn The literal rendering of the construct would be “healers of worthlessness.” Ewald and Dillmann translated it “patchers” based on a meaning in Arabic and Ethiopic; this would give the idea “botchers.” But it makes equally good sense to take “healers” as the meaning, for Job’s friends came to minister comfort and restoration to him – but they failed. See P. Humbert, “Maladie et medicine dans l’AT,” RHPR 44 (1964): 1-29.

[38:2]  ⁶ tn The demonstrative pronoun is used here to emphasize the interrogative pronoun (see GKC 442 §136.c).

[38:2]  ⁷ sn The referent of “counsel” here is not the debate between Job and the friends, but the purposes of God (see Ps 33:10; Prov 19:21; Isa 19:17). Dhorme translates it “Providence.”