Ayub 3:10

3:10 because it ¹  did not shut the doors ²  of my mother’s womb on me, ³ 

nor did it hide trouble ⁴  from my eyes!

Ayub 7:7

7:7 Remember ⁵  that my life is but a breath,

that ⁶  my eyes will never again ⁷  see happiness.

Ayub 21:20

21:20 Let his own eyes see his destruction; ⁸ 

let him drink of the anger of the Almighty.

Ayub 29:11

Job’s Benevolence

29:11 “As soon as the ear heard these things, ⁹  it blessed me, ¹⁰ 

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

Ayub 31:16

31:16 If I have refused to give the poor what they desired, ¹¹ 

or caused the eyes of the widow to fail,

[3:10]  ¹ tn The subject is still “that night.” Here, at the end of this first section, Job finally expresses the crime of that night – it did not hinder his birth.

[3:10]  ² sn This use of doors for the womb forms an implied comparison; the night should have hindered conception (see Gen 20:18 and 1 Sam 1:5).

[3:10]  ³ tn The Hebrew has simply “my belly [= womb].” The suffix on the noun must be objective – it was the womb of Job’s mother in which he lay before his birth. See however N. C. Habel, “The Dative Suffix in Job 33:13,” Bib 63 (1982): 258-59, who thinks it is deliberately ambiguous.

[3:10]  ⁴ tn The word עָמָל (’amal) means “work, heavy labor, agonizing labor, struggle” with the idea of fatigue and pain.

[7:7]  ⁵ sn Job is probably turning here to God, as is clear from v. 11 on. The NIV supplies the word “God” for clarification. It was God who breathed breath into man’s nostrils (Gen 2:7), and so God is called to remember that man is but a breath.

[7:7]  ⁶ tn The word “that” is supplied in the translation.

[7:7]  ⁷ tn The verb with the infinitive serves as a verbal hendiadys: “return to see” means “see again.”

[21:20]  ⁸ tc This word occurs only here. The word כִּיד (kid) was connected to Arabic kaid, “fraud, trickery,” or “warfare.” The word is emended by the commentators to other ideas, such as פִּיד (pid, “[his] calamity”). Dahood and others alter it to “cup”; Wright to “weapons.” A. F. L. Beeston argues for a meaning “condemnation” for the MT form, and so makes no change in the text (Mus 67 [1954]: 315-16). If the connection to Arabic “warfare” is sustained, or if such explanations of the existing MT can be sustained, then the text need not be emended. In any case, the sense of the line is clear.

[29:11]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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.

[31:16]  ¹¹ tn Heb “kept the poor from [their] desire.”