Ayub 17:3

17:3 Make then my pledge ¹  with you.

Who else will put up security for me? ² 

Ayub 32:11

32:11 Look, I waited for you to speak; ³ 

I listened closely to your wise thoughts, ⁴ while you were searching for words.

Ayub 42:5

42:5 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,

but now my eye has seen you. ⁵ 

[17:3]  ¹ tn The MT has two imperatives: “Lay down, pledge me, with me.” Most commentators think that the second imperative should be a noun, and take it to say, “Lay my pledge with/beside you.” A. B. Davidson (Job, 126) suggests that the first verb means “give a pledge,” and so the two similar verbs would be emphatic: “Give a pledge, be my surety.” Other than such a change (which would involve changing the vowels) one would have to interpret similarly by seeing the imperatives as a kind of hendiadys, with the main emphasis being on the second imperative, “make a pledge.”

[17:3]  ² sn The idiom is “to strike the hand.” Here the wording is a little different, “Who is he that will strike himself into my hand?”

[32:11]  ³ tn Heb “for your words.”

[32:11]  ⁴ tn The word means “understanding.” It refers to the faculty of perception and comprehension; but it also can refer to what that produces, especially when it is in the plural (see Ps 49:4). See R. Gordis, Job, 368. Others translate it “reasonings,” “arguments,” etc.

[42:5]  ⁵ sn This statement does not imply there was a vision. He is simply saying that this experience of God was real and personal. In the past his knowledge of God was what he had heard – hearsay. This was real.