Ayub 4:7

4:7 Call to mind now: ¹ 

Who, ²  being innocent, ever perished? ³ 

And where were upright people ⁴  ever destroyed? ⁵ 

Ayub 7:8-9

7:8 The eye of him who sees me now will see me no more; ⁶ 

your eyes will look for me, but I will be gone. ⁷ 

7:9 As ⁸  a cloud is dispersed and then disappears, ⁹ 

so the one who goes down to the grave ¹⁰ 

does not come up again. ¹¹ 

Ayub 10:16

10:16 If I lift myself up, ¹² 

you hunt me as a fierce lion, ¹³ 

and again ¹⁴  you display your power ¹⁵  against me.

Ayub 12:7

Knowledge of God’s Wisdom ¹⁶ 

12:7 “But now, ask the animals and they ¹⁷  will teach you,

or the birds of the sky and they will tell you.

Ayub 13:9

13:9 Would it turn out well if he would examine ¹⁸  you?

Or as one deceives ¹⁹  a man would you deceive him?

Ayub 14:5

14:5 Since man’s days ²⁰  are determined, ²¹ 

the number of his months is under your control; ²² 

you have set his limit ²³  and he cannot pass it.

Ayub 21:33

21:33 The clods of the torrent valley ²⁴  are sweet to him;

behind him everybody follows in procession,

and before him goes a countless throng.

Ayub 22:17-18

22:17 They were saying to God, ‘Turn away from us,’

and ‘What can the Almighty do to us?’ ²⁵ 

22:18 But it was he ²⁶  who filled their houses

with good things –

yet the counsel of the wicked ²⁷ 

was far from me. ²⁸ 

Ayub 24:1

The Apparent Indifference of God

24:1 “Why are times not appointed by ²⁹  the Almighty? ³⁰ 

Why do those who know him not see his days?

Ayub 24:12-13

24:12 From the city the dying ³¹  groan,

and the wounded ³²  cry out for help,

but God charges no one with wrongdoing. ³³ 

24:13 There are those ³⁴  who rebel against the light;

they do not know its ways

and they do not stay on its paths.

Ayub 27:15

27:15 Those who survive him are buried by the plague, ³⁵ 

and their ³⁶  widows do not mourn for them.

Ayub 28:17

28:17 Neither gold nor crystal ³⁷  can be compared with it,

nor can a vase ³⁸  of gold match its worth.

Ayub 29:12

29:12 for I rescued the poor who cried out for help,

and the orphan who ³⁹  had no one to assist him;

Ayub 31:28

31:28 then this ⁴⁰  also would be iniquity to be judged, ⁴¹ 

for I would have been false ⁴²  to God above.

Ayub 32:11

32:11 Look, I waited for you to speak; ⁴³ 

I listened closely to your wise thoughts, ⁴⁴ while you were searching for words.

Ayub 35:6

35:6 If you sin, how does it affect God? ⁴⁵ 

If your transgressions are many,

what does it do to him? ⁴⁶ 

Ayub 37:12

37:12 The clouds ⁴⁷  go round in circles,

wheeling about according to his plans,

to carry out ⁴⁸  all that he commands them

over the face of the whole inhabited world.

Ayub 40:12

40:12 Look at every proud man and abase him;

crush the wicked on the spot! ⁴⁹ 

Ayub 41:5

41:5 Can you play ⁵⁰  with it, like a bird,

or tie it on a leash ⁵¹  for your girls?

Ayub 41:15

41:15 Its back ⁵²  has rows of shields,

shut up closely ⁵³  together as with a seal;

Ayub 41:31

41:31 It makes the deep boil like a cauldron

and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment, ⁵⁴ 

[4:7]  ¹ sn Eliphaz will put his thesis forward first negatively and then positively (vv. 8ff). He will argue that the suffering of the righteous is disciplinary and not for their destruction. He next will argue that it is the wicked who deserve judgment.

[4:7]  ² tn The use of the independent personal pronoun is emphatic, almost as an enclitic to emphasize interrogatives: “who indeed….” (GKC 442 §136.c).

[4:7]  ³ tn The perfect verb in this line has the nuance of the past tense to express the unique past – the uniqueness of the action is expressed with “ever” (“who has ever perished”).

[4:7]  ⁴ tn The adjective is used here substantivally. Without the article the word stresses the meaning of “uprightness.” Job will use “innocent” and “upright” together in 17:8.

[4:7]  ⁵ tn The Niphal means “to be hidden” (see the Piel in 6:10; 15:18; and 27:11); the connotation here is “destroyed” or “annihilated.”

[7:8]  ⁶ sn The meaning of the verse is that God will relent, but it will be too late. God now sees him with a hostile eye; when he looks for him, or looks upon him in friendliness, it will be too late.

[7:8]  ⁷ tn This verse is omitted in the LXX and so by several commentators. But the verb שׁוּר (shur, “turn, return”) is so characteristic of Job (10 times) that the verse seems appropriate here.

[7:9]  ⁸ tn The comparison is implied; “as” is therefore supplied in the translation.

[7:9]  ⁹ tn The two verbs כָּלַה (kalah) and הָלַךְ (halakh) mean “to come to an end” and “to go” respectively. The picture is of the cloud that breaks up, comes to an end, is dispersed so that it is no longer a cloud; it then fades away or vanishes. This line forms a good simile for the situation of a man who comes to his end and disappears.

[7:9]  ¹⁰ tn The noun שְׁאוֹל (shÿ’ol) can mean “the grave,” “death,” or “Sheol” – the realm of departed spirits. In Job this is a land from which there is no return (10:21 and here). It is a place of darkness and gloom (10:21-22), a place where the dead lie hidden (14:13); as a place appointed for all no matter what their standing on earth might have been (30:23). In each case the precise meaning has to be determined. Here the grave makes the most sense, for Job is simply talking about death.

[7:9]  ¹¹ sn It is not correct to try to draw theological implications from this statement or the preceding verse (Rashi said Job was denying the resurrection). Job is simply stating that when people die they are gone – they do not return to this present life on earth. Most commentators and theologians believe that theological knowledge was very limited at such an early stage, so they would not think it possible for Job to have bodily resurrection in view. (See notes on ch. 14 and 19:25-27.)

[10:16]  ¹² tn The MT has the 3rd person of the verb, “and he lifts himself up.” One might assume that the subject is “my head” – but that is rather far removed from the verb. It appears that Job is talking about himself in some way. Some commentators simply emend the text to make it first person. This has the support of Targum Job, which would be expected since it would be interpreting the passage in its context (see D. M. Stec, “The Targum Rendering of WYG’H in Job X 16,” VT 34 [1984]: 367-8). Pope and Gordis make the word adjectival, modifying the subject: “proudly you hunt me,” but support is lacking. E. Dhorme thinks the line should be parallel to the two preceding it, and so suggests יָגֵּעַ (yagea’, “exhausted”) for יִגְאֶה (yig’eh, “lift up”). The contextual argument is that Job has said that he cannot raise his head, but if he were to do so, God would hunt him down. God could be taken as the subject of the verb if the text is using enallage (shifting of grammatical persons within a discourse) for dramatic effect. Perhaps the initial 3rd person was intended with respect within a legal context of witnesses and a complaint, but was switched to 2nd person for direct accusation.

[10:16]  ¹³ sn There is some ambiguity here: Job could be the lion being hunted by God, or God could be hunting Job like a lion hunts its prey. The point of the line is clear in either case.

[10:16]  ¹⁴ tn The text uses two verbs without a coordinating conjunction: “then you return, you display your power.” This should be explained as a verbal hendiadys, the first verb serving adverbially in the clause (see further GKC 386-87 §120.g).

[10:16]  ¹⁵ tn The form is the Hitpael of פָּלָא (pala’, “to be wonderful; to be surpassing; to be extraordinary”). Here in this stem it has the sense of “make oneself admirable, surpassing” or “render oneself powerful, glorious.” The text is ironic; the word that described God’s marvelous creation of Job is here used to describe God’s awesome destruction of Job.

[12:7]  ¹⁶ sn As J. E. Hartley (Job [NICOT], 216) observes, in this section Job argues that respected tradition “must not be accepted uncritically.”

[12:7]  ¹⁷ tn The singular verb is used here with the plural collective subject (see GKC 464 §145.k).

[13:9]  ¹⁸ tn The verb חָפַר (khafar) means “to search out, investigate, examine.” In the conditional clause the imperfect verb expresses the hypothetical case.

[13:9]  ¹⁹ tn Both the infinitive and the imperfect of תָּלַל (talal, “deceive, mock”) retain the ה (he) (GKC 148 §53.q). But for the alternate form, see F. C. Fensham, “The Stem HTL in Hebrew,” VT 9 (1959): 310-11. The infinitive is used here in an adverbial sense after the preposition.

[14:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “his days.”

[14:5]  ²¹ tn The passive participle is from חָרַץ (kharats), which means “determined.” The word literally means “cut” (Lev 22:22, “mutilated”). E. Dhorme, (Job, 197) takes it to mean “engraved” as on stone; from a custom of inscribing decrees on tablets of stone he derives the meaning here of “decreed.” This, he argues, is parallel to the way חָקַק (khaqaq, “engrave”) is used. The word חֹק (khoq) is an “ordinance” or “statute”; the idea is connected to the verb “to engrave.” The LXX has “if his life should be but one day on the earth, and his months are numbered by him, you have appointed him for a time and he shall by no means exceed it.”

[14:5]  ²² tn Heb “[is] with you.” This clearly means under God’s control.

[14:5]  ²³ tn The word חֹק (khoq) has the meanings of “decree, decision, and limit” (cf. Job 28:26; 38:10).

[14:5]  sn Job is saying that God foreordains the number of the days of man. He foreknows the number of the months. He fixes the limit of human life which cannot be passed.

[21:33]  ²⁴ tn The clods are those that are used to make a mound over the body. And, for a burial in the valley, see Deut 34:6. The verse here sees him as participating in his funeral and enjoying it. Nothing seems to go wrong with the wicked.

[22:17]  ²⁵ tn The form in the text is “to them.” The LXX and the Syriac versions have “to us.”

[22:18]  ²⁶ tn The pronoun is added for this emphasis; it has “but he” before the verb.

[22:18]  ²⁷ tn See Job 10:3.

[22:18]  ²⁸ tc The LXX has “from him,” and this is followed by several commentators. But the MT is to be retained, for Eliphaz is recalling the words of Job. Verses 17 and 18 are deleted by a number of commentators as a gloss because they have many similarities to 21:14-16. But Eliphaz is recalling what Job said, in order to say that the prosperity to which Job alluded was only the prelude to a disaster he denied (H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 156).

[24:1]  ²⁹ tn The preposition מִן (min) is used to express the cause (see GKC 389 §121.f).

[24:1]  ³⁰ tc The LXX reads “Why are times hidden from the Almighty?” as if to say that God is not interested in the events on the earth. The MT reading is saying that God fails to set the times for judgment and vindication and makes good sense as it stands.

[24:12]  ³¹ tc The MT as pointed reads “from the city of men they groan.” Most commentators change one vowel in מְתִים (mÿtim) to get מֵתִים (metim) to get the active participle, “the dying.” This certainly fits the parallelism better, although sense could be made out of the MT.

[24:12]  ³² tn Heb “the souls of the wounded,” which here refers to the wounded themselves.

[24:12]  ³³ tc The MT has the noun תִּפְלָה (tiflah) which means “folly; tastelessness” (cf. 1:22). The verb, which normally means “to place; to put,” would then be rendered “to impute; to charge.” This is certainly a workable translation in the context. Many commentators have emended the text, changing the noun to תְּפִלָּה (tÿfillah, “prayer”), and so then also the verb יָשִׂים (yasim, here “charges”) to יִשְׁמַע (yishma’, “hears”). It reads: “But God does not hear the prayer” – referring to the groans.

[24:13]  ³⁴ tn Heb “They are among those who.”

[27:15]  ³⁵ tn The text says “will be buried in/by death.” A number of passages in the Bible use “death” to mean the plague that kills (see Jer 15:2; Isa 28:3; and BDB 89 s.v. בְּ 2.a). In this sense it is like the English expression for the plague, “the Black Death.”

[27:15]  ³⁶ tc The LXX has “their widows” to match the plural, and most commentators harmonize in the same way.

[28:17]  ³⁷ tn The word is from זָכַךְ (zakhakh, “clear”). It describes a transparent substance, and so “glass” is an appropriate translation. In the ancient world it was precious and so expensive.

[28:17]  ³⁸ tc The MT has “vase”; but the versions have a plural here, suggesting jewels of gold.

[29:12]  ³⁹ tn The negative introduces a clause that serves as a negative attribute; literally the following clause says, “and had no helper” (see GKC 482 §152.u).

[31:28]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “it.”

[31:28]  ⁴¹ tn See v. 11 for the construction. In Deut 17:2ff. false worship of heavenly bodies is a capital offense. In this passage, Job is talking about just a momentary glance at the sun or moon and the brief lapse into a pagan thought. But it is still sin.

[31:28]  ⁴² tn The verb כָּחַשׁ (kakhash) in the Piel means “to deny.” The root meaning is “to deceive; to disappoint; to grow lean.” Here it means that he would have failed or proven unfaithful because his act would have been a denial of God.

[32:11]  ⁴³ tn Heb “for your words.”

[32:11]  ⁴⁴ 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.

[35:6]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “him” (also in v. 7); the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[35:6]  ⁴⁶ tn See Job 7:20.

[37:12]  ⁴⁷ tn The words “the clouds” are supplied from v. 11; the sentence itself actually starts: “and it goes round,” referring to the cloud.

[37:12]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “that it may do.”

[40:12]  ⁴⁹ tn The expression translated “on the spot” is the prepositional phrase תַּחְתָּם (takhtam, “under them”). “Under them” means in their place. But it can also mean “where someone stands, on the spot” (see Exod 16:29; Jos 6:5; Judg 7:21, etc.).

[41:5]  ⁵⁰ tn The Hebrew verb is שָׂחַק (sakhaq, “to sport; to trifle; to play,” Ps 104:26).

[41:5]  ⁵¹ tn The idea may include putting Leviathan on a leash. D. W. Thomas suggested on the basis of an Arabic cognate that it could be rendered “tie him with a string like a young sparrow” (VT 14 [1964]: 114ff.).

[41:15]  ⁵² tc The MT has גַּאֲוָה (ga’avah, “his pride”), but the LXX, Aquila, and the Vulgate all read גַּוּוֹ (gavvo, “his back”). Almost all the modern English versions follow the variant reading, speaking about “his [or its] back.”

[41:15]  ⁵³ tn Instead of צָר (tsar, “closely”) the LXX has צֹר (tsor, “stone”) to say that the seal was rock hard.

[41:31]  ⁵⁴ sn The idea is either that the sea is stirred up like the foam from beating the ingredients together, or it is the musk-smell that is the point of comparison.