Ayub 3:22

3:22 who rejoice ¹  even to jubilation, ² 

and are exultant ³  when ⁴  they find the grave? ⁵ 

Ayub 4:4

4:4 Your words have supported ⁶  those

who stumbled, ⁷ 

and you have strengthened the knees

that gave way. ⁸ 

Ayub 6:16

6:16 They ⁹  are dark ¹⁰  because of ice;

snow is piled ¹¹  up over them. ¹² 

Ayub 7:10

7:10 He returns no more to his house,

nor does his place of residence ¹³  know him ¹⁴  any more.

Ayub 7:17

Insignificance of Humans

7:17 “What is mankind ¹⁵  that you make so much of them, ¹⁶ 

and that you pay attention ¹⁷  to them?

Ayub 14:22

14:22 Only his flesh has pain for himself, ¹⁸ 

and he mourns for himself.” ¹⁹ 

Ayub 15:13

15:13 when you turn your rage ²⁰  against God

and allow such words to escape ²¹  from your mouth?

Ayub 27:21

27:21 The east wind carries him away, and he is gone;

it sweeps him out of his place.

Ayub 30:18

30:18 With great power God ²²  grasps my clothing; ²³ 

he binds me like the collar ²⁴  of my tunic.

Ayub 36:29

36:29 Who can understand the spreading of the clouds,

the thunderings of his pavilion? ²⁵ 

[3:22]  ¹ tn Here too the form is the participle in apposition “to him who is in misery” in v. 20. It continues the description of those who are destitute and would be delighted to die.

[3:22]  ² tn The Syriac has “and gather themselves together,” possibly reading גִּיל (gil, “rejoicing”) as גַּל (gal, “heap”). Some have tried to emend the text to make the word mean “heap” or “mound,” as in a funerary mound. While one could argue for a heap of stones as a funerary mound, the passage has already spoken of digging a grave, which would be quite different. And while such a change would make a neater parallelism in the verse, there is no reason to force such; the idea of “jubilation” fits the tenor of the whole verse easily enough and there is no reason to change it. A similar expression is found in Hos 9:1, which says, “rejoice not, O Israel, with jubilation.” Here the idea then is that these sufferers would rejoice “to the point of jubilation” at death.

[3:22]  ³ tn This sentence also parallels an imperfect verb with the substantival participle of the first colon. It is translated as an English present tense.

[3:22]  ⁴ tn The particle could be “when” or “because” in this verse.

[3:22]  ⁵ sn The expression “when they find a grave” means when they finally die. The verse describes the relief and rest that the sufferer will obtain when the long-awaited death is reached.

[4:4]  ⁶ tn Both verbs in this line are imperfects, and probably carry the same nuance as the last verb in v. 3, namely, either customary imperfect or preterite. The customary has the aspect of stressing that this was what Job used to do.

[4:4]  ⁷ tn The form is the singular active participle, interpreted here collectively. The verb is used of knees that give way (Isa 35:3; Ps 109:24).

[4:4]  ⁸ tn The expression is often translated as “feeble knees,” but it literally says “the bowing [or “tottering”] knees.” The figure is one who may be under a heavy load whose knees begin to shake and buckle (see also Heb 12:12).

[4:4]  sn Job had been successful at helping others not be crushed by the weight of trouble and misfortune. It is easier to help others than to preserve a proper perspective when one’s self is afflicted (E. Dhorme, Job, 44).

[6:16]  ⁹ tn The article on the participle joins this statement to the preceding noun; it can have the sense of “they” or “which.” The parallel sense then can be continued with a finite verb (see GKC 404 §126.b).

[6:16]  ¹⁰ tn The participle הַקֹּדְרים (haqqodÿrim), often rendered “which are black,” would better be translated “dark,” for it refers to the turbid waters filled with melting ice or melting snow, or to the frozen surface of the water, but not waters that are muddied. The versions failed to note that this referred to the waters introduced in v. 15.

[6:16]  ¹¹ tn The verb יִתְעַלֶּם (yit’allem) has been translated “is hid” or “hides itself.” But this does not work easily in the sentence with the preposition “upon them.” Torczyner suggested “pile up” from an Aramaic root עֲלַם (’alam), and E. Dhorme (Job, 87) defends it without changing the text, contending that the form we have was chosen for alliterative value with the prepositional phrase before it.

[6:16]  ¹² tn The LXX paraphrases the whole verse: “They who used to reverence me now come against me like snow or congealed ice.”

[7:10]  ¹³ tn M. Dahood suggests the meaning is the same as “his abode” (“Hebrew-Ugaritic Lexicography V,” Bib 48 [1967]: 421-38).

[7:10]  ¹⁴ tn The verb means “to recognize” by seeing. “His place,” the place where he was living, is the subject of the verb. This personification is intended simply to say that the place where he lived will not have him any more. The line is very similar to Ps 103:16b – when the wind blows the flower away, its place knows it no more.

[7:17]  ¹⁵ tn The verse is a rhetorical question; it is intended to mean that man is too little for God to be making so much over him in all this.

[7:17]  ¹⁶ tn The Piel verb is a factitive meaning “to magnify.” The English word “magnify” might not be the best translation here, for God, according to Job, is focusing inordinately on him. It means to magnify in thought, appreciate, think highly of. God, Job argues, is making too much of mankind by devoting so much bad attention on them.

[7:17]  ¹⁷ tn The expression “set your heart on” means “concentrate your mind on” or “pay attention to.”

[14:22]  ¹⁸ tn The prepositional phrases using עָלָיו (’alayv, “for him[self]”) express the object of the suffering. It is for himself that the dead man “grieves.” So this has to be joined with אַךְ (’akh), yielding “only for himself.” Then, “flesh” and “soul/person” form the parallelism for the subjects of the verbs.

[14:22]  ¹⁹ sn In this verse Job is expressing the common view of life beyond death, namely, that in Sheol there is no contact with the living, only separation, but in Sheol there is a conscious awareness of the dreary existence.

[15:13]  ²⁰ tn The Hebrew is רוּחֶךָ (rukhekha, “your spirit” or “your breath”). But the fact that this is turned “against God,” means that it must be given a derived meaning, or a meaning that is metonymical. It is used in the Bible in the sense of anger – what the spirit vents (see Judg 8:3; Prov 16:32; and Job 4:9 with “blast”).

[15:13]  ²¹ tn The verb is a Hiphil perfect of yasa’, “to go out, proceed, issue forth.”

[30:18]  ²² tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[30:18]  ²³ tc This whole verse is difficult. The first problem is that this verb in the MT means “is disguised [or disfigured],” indicating that Job’s clothes hang loose on him. But many take the view that the verb is a phonetic variant of חָבַשׁ (khavash, “to bind; to seize”) and that the Hitpael form is a conflation of the third and second person because of the interchange between them in the passage (R. Gordis, Job, 335). The commentaries list a number of conjectural emendations, but the image in the verse is probably that God seizes Job by the garment and throws him down.

[30:18]  ²⁴ tn The phrase “like the collar” is difficult, primarily because their tunics did not have collars. A translation of “neck” would suit better. Some change the preposition to בּ (bet), getting a translation “by the neck of my tunic.”

[36:29]  ²⁵ tn Heb “his booth.”