Ayub 40:13

40:13 Hide them in the dust ¹  together,

imprison ²  them ³  in the grave. ⁴ 

Ayub 14:9

14:9 at the scent ⁵  of water it will flourish ⁶ 

and put forth ⁷  shoots like a new plant.

Ayub 31:8

31:8 then let me sow ⁸  and let another eat,

and let my crops ⁹  be uprooted.

Ayub 31:39

31:39 if I have eaten its produce without paying, ¹⁰ 

or caused the death ¹¹  of its owners, ¹² 

Ayub 4:8

4:8 Even as I have seen, ¹³  those who plow ¹⁴  iniquity ¹⁵ 

and those who sow trouble reap the same. ¹⁶ 

Ayub 29:6

29:6 when my steps ¹⁷  were bathed ¹⁸  with butter ¹⁹ 

and the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil! ²⁰ 

Ayub 31:12

31:12 For it is a fire that devours even to Destruction, ²¹ 

and it would uproot ²²  all my harvest.

Ayub 40:21-22

40:21 Under the lotus trees it lies,

in the secrecy of the reeds and the marsh.

40:22 The lotus trees conceal it in their ²³  shadow;

the poplars by the stream conceal it.

Ayub 8:11

8:11 Can the papyrus plant grow tall ²⁴  where there is no marsh?

Can reeds flourish ²⁵  without water?

Ayub 19:10

19:10 He tears me down ²⁶  on every side until I perish; ²⁷ 

he uproots ²⁸  my hope ²⁹  like one uproots ³⁰  a tree.

[40:13]  ¹ tn The word “dust” can mean “ground” here, or more likely, “grave.”

[40:13]  ² tn The verb חָבַשׁ (khavash) means “to bind.” In Arabic the word means “to bind” in the sense of “to imprison,” and that fits here.

[40:13]  ³ tn Heb “their faces.”

[40:13]  ⁴ tn The word is “secret place,” the place where he is to hide them, i.e., the grave. The text uses the word “secret place” as a metonymy for the grave.

[14:9]  ⁵ tn The personification adds to the comparison with people – the tree is credited with the sense of smell to detect the water.

[14:9]  ⁶ tn The sense of “flourish” for this verb is found in Ps 92:12,13[13,14], and Prov 14:11. It makes an appropriate parallel with “bring forth boughs” in the second half.

[14:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “and will make.”

[31:8]  ⁸ tn The cohortative is often found in the apodosis of the conditional clause (see GKC 320 §108.f).

[31:8]  ⁹ tn The word means “what sprouts up” (from יָצָא [yatsa’] with the sense of “sprout forth”). It could refer metaphorically to children (and so Kissane and Pope), as well as in its literal sense of crops. The latter fits here perfectly.

[31:39]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “without silver.”

[31:39]  ¹¹ tc The versions have the verb “grieved” here. The Hebrew verb means “to breathe,” but the form is Hiphil. This verb in that stem could mean something of a contemptuous gesture, like “sniff” in Mal 1:13. But with נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) in Job 11:20 it means “to cause death,” i.e., “to cause to breathe out; to expire.” This is likely the meaning here, although it is possible that it only meant “to cause suffering” to the people.

[31:39]  ¹² tn There is some debate over the meaning of בְּעָלֶיהָ (bÿ’aleyha), usually translated “its owners.” Dahood, following others (although without their emendations), thought it referred to “laborers” (see M. Dahood, Bib 41 [1960]: 303; idem, Bib 43 [1962]: 362).

[4:8]  ¹³ tn The perfect verb here represents the indefinite past. It has no specific sighting in mind, but refers to each time he has seen the wicked do this.

[4:8]  ¹⁴ sn The figure is an implied metaphor. Plowing suggests the idea of deliberately preparing (or cultivating) life for evil. This describes those who are fundamentally wicked.

[4:8]  ¹⁵ tn The LXX renders this with a plural “barren places.”

[4:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “reap it.”

[29:6]  ¹⁷ tn The word is a hapax legomenon, but the meaning is clear enough. It refers to the walking, the steps, or even the paths where one walks. It is figurative of his course of life.

[29:6]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew word means “to wash; to bathe”; here it is the infinitive construct in a temporal clause, “my steps” being the genitive: “in the washing of my steps in butter.”

[29:6]  ¹⁹ tn Again, as in Job 21:17, “curds.”

[29:6]  ²⁰ tn The MT reads literally, “and the rock was poured out [passive participle] for me as streams of oil.” There are some who delete the word “rock” to shorten the line because it seems out of place. But olive trees thrive in rocky soil, and the oil presses are cut into the rock; it is possible that by metonymy all this is intended here (H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 186).

[31:12]  ²¹ tn Heb “to Abaddon.”

[31:12]  ²² tn The verb means “to root out,” but this does not fit the parallelism with fire. Wright changed two letters and the vowels in the verb to get the root צָרַף (tsaraf, “to burn”). The NRSV has “burn to the root.”

[40:22]  ²³ tn The suffix is singular, but must refer to the trees’ shade.

[8:11]  ²⁴ sn H. H. Rowley observes the use of the words for plants that grow in Egypt and suspects that Bildad either knew Egypt or knew that much wisdom came from Egypt. The first word refers to papyrus, which grows to a height of six feet (so the verb means “to grow tall; to grow high”). The second word refers to the reed grass that grows on the banks of the river (see Gen 41:2, 18).

[8:11]  ²⁵ tn The two verbs, גָּאָה (ga’ah) and שָׂגָה (sagah), have almost the same meanings of “flourish, grow, become tall.”

[19:10]  ²⁶ tn The metaphors are changed now to a demolished building and an uprooted tree. The verb is נָתַץ (natats, “to demolish”). Since it is Job himself who is the object, the meaning cannot be “demolish” (as of a house so that an inhabitant has to leave), but more of the attack or the battering.

[19:10]  ²⁷ tn The text has הָלַךְ (halakh, “to leave”). But in view of Job 14:20, “perish” or “depart” would be a better meaning here.

[19:10]  ²⁸ tn The verb נָסַע (nasa’) means “to travel” generally, but specifically it means “to pull up the tent pegs and move.” The Hiphil here means “uproot.” It is used of a vine in Ps 80:9. The idea here does not contradict Job 14:7, for there the tree still had roots and so could grow.

[19:10]  ²⁹ tn The NEB has “my tent rope,” but that seems too contrived here. It is absurd to pull up a tent-rope like a tree.

[19:10]  ³⁰ tn Heb “like a tree.” The words “one uproots” are supplied in the translation for clarity.