Ayub 5:14

5:14 They meet with darkness in the daytime, ¹ 

and grope about ²  in the noontime as if it were night. ³ 

Ayub 5:24

5:24 And ⁴  you will know ⁵  that your home ⁶ 

will be secure, ⁷ 

and when you inspect ⁸  your domains,

you will not be missing ⁹  anything.

Ayub 6:19

6:19 The caravans of Tema ¹⁰  looked intently ¹¹  for these streams; ¹² 

the traveling merchants ¹³  of Sheba hoped for them.

Ayub 18:20

18:20 People of the west ¹⁴  are appalled at his fate; ¹⁵ 

people of the east are seized with horror, ¹⁶  saying, ¹⁷ 

Ayub 19:17

19:17 My breath is repulsive ¹⁸  to my wife;

I am loathsome ¹⁹  to my brothers. ²⁰ 

Ayub 19:19

19:19 All my closest friends ²¹  detest me;

and those whom ²²  I love have turned against me. ²³ 

Ayub 20:17

20:17 He will not look on the streams, ²⁴ 

the rivers, which are the torrents ²⁵ 

of honey and butter. ²⁶ 

Ayub 22:13

22:13 But you have said, ‘What does God know?

Does he judge through such deep darkness? ²⁷ 

Ayub 28:23

28:23 God understands the way to it,

and he alone knows its place.

[5:14]  ¹ sn God so confuses the crafty that they are unable to fulfill their plans – it is as if they encounter darkness in broad daylight. This is like the Syrians in 2 Kgs 6:18-23.

[5:14]  ² tn The verb מָשַׁשׁ (mashash) expresses the idea of groping about in the darkness. This is part of the fulfillment of Deut 28:29, which says, “and you shall grope at noonday as the blind grope in darkness.” This image is also in Isa 59:10.

[5:14]  ³ sn The verse provides a picture of the frustration and bewilderment in the crafty who cannot accomplish their ends because God thwarts them.

[5:24]  ⁴ sn Verses 19-23 described the immunity from evil and trouble that Job would enjoy – if he were restored to peace with God. Now, v. 24 describes the safety and peace of the homestead and his possessions if he were right with God.

[5:24]  ⁵ tn The verb is again the perfect, but in sequence to the previous structure so that it is rendered as a future. This would be the case if Job were right with God.

[5:24]  ⁶ tn Heb “tent.”

[5:24]  ⁷ tn The word שָׁלוֹם (shalom) means “peace; safety; security; wholeness.” The same use appears in 1 Sam 25:6; 2 Sam 20:9.

[5:24]  ⁸ tn The verb is פָּקַד (paqad, “to visit”). The idea here is “to gather together; to look over; to investigate,” or possibly even “to number” as it is used in the book of Numbers. The verb is the perfect with the vav consecutive; it may be subordinated to the imperfect verb that follows to form a temporal clause.

[5:24]  ⁹ tn The verb is usually rendered “to sin”; but in this context the more specific primary meaning of “to miss the mark” or “to fail to find something.” Neither Job’s tent nor his possessions will be lost.

[6:19]  ¹⁰ sn Tema is the area of the oasis SE of the head of the Gulf of Aqaba; Sheba is in South Arabia. In Job 1:15 the Sabeans were raiders; here they are traveling merchants.

[6:19]  ¹¹ tn The verb נָבַט (navat) means “to gaze intently”; the looking is more intentional, more of a close scrutiny. It forms a fine parallel to the idea of “hope” in the second part. The NIV translates the second verb קִוּוּ (qivvu) as “look in hope.” In the previous verbs the imperfect form was used, expressing what generally happens (so the English present tense was used). Here the verb usage changes to the perfect form. It seems that Job is narrating a typical incident now – they looked, but were disappointed.

[6:19]  ¹² tn The words “for these streams” are supplied from context to complete the thought and make the connection with the preceding context.

[6:19]  ¹³ tn In Ps 68:24 this word has the meaning of “processions”; here that procession is of traveling merchants forming convoys or caravans.

[18:20]  ¹⁴ tn The word אַחֲרֹנִים (’akharonim) means “those [men] coming after.” And the next word, קַדְמֹנִים (qadmonim), means “those [men] coming before.” Some commentators have tried to see here references to people who lived before and people who lived after, but that does not explain their being appalled at the fate of the wicked. So the normal way this is taken is in connection to the geography, notably the seas – “the hinder sea” refers to the Mediterranean, the West, and “the front sea” refers to the Dead Sea (Zech 14:8), namely, the East. The versions understood this as temporal: “the last groaned for him, and wonder seized the first” (LXX).

[18:20]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “his day.”

[18:20]  ¹⁶ tn The expression has “they seize horror.” The RSV renders this “horror seizes them.” The same idiom is found in Job 21:6: “laid hold on shuddering.” The idiom would solve the grammatical problem, and not change the meaning greatly; but it would change the parallelism.

[18:20]  ¹⁷ tn The word “saying” is supplied in the translation to mark and introduce the following as a quotation of these people who are seized with horror. The alternative is to take v. 21 as Bildad’s own summary statement (cf. G. R. Driver and G. B. Gray, Job [ICC], 2:162; J. E. Hartley, Job [NICOT], 280).

[19:17]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew appears to have “my breath is strange to my wife.” This would be the meaning if the verb was from זוּר (zur, “to turn aside; to be a stranger”). But it should be connected to זִיר (zir), cognate to Assyrian zaru, “to feel repugnance toward.” Here it is used in the intransitive sense, “to be repulsive.” L. A. Snijders, following Driver, doubts the existence of this second root, and retains “strange” (“The Meaning of zar in the Old Testament,” OTS 10 [1964]: 1-154).

[19:17]  ¹⁹ tn The normal meaning here would be based on the root חָנַן (khanan, “to be gracious”). And so we have versions reading “although I entreated” or “my supplication.” But it seems more likely it is to be connected to another root meaning “to be offensive; to be loathsome.” For the discussion of the connection to the Arabic, see E. Dhorme, Job, 278.

[19:17]  ²⁰ tn The text has “the sons of my belly [= body].” This would normally mean “my sons.” But they are all dead. And there is no suggestion that Job had other sons. The word “my belly” will have to be understood as “my womb,” i.e., the womb I came from. Instead of “brothers,” the sense could be “siblings” (both brothers and sisters; G. R. Driver and G. B. Gray, Job [ICC], 2:168).

[19:19]  ²¹ tn Heb “men of my confidence,” or “men of my council,” i.e., intimate friends, confidants.

[19:19]  ²² tn The pronoun זֶה (zeh) functions here in the place of a nominative (see GKC 447 §138.h).

[19:19]  ²³ tn T. Penar translates this “turn away from me” (“Job 19,19 in the Light of Ben Sira 6,11,” Bib 48 [1967]: 293-95).

[20:17]  ²⁴ tn The word פְּלַגּוֹת (pÿlaggot) simply means “streams” or “channels.” Because the word is used elsewhere for “streams of oil” (cf. 29:6), and that makes a good parallelism here, some supply “oil” (cf. NAB, NLT). But the second colon of the verse is probably in apposition to the first. The verb “see” followed by the preposition bet, “to look on; to look over,” means “to enjoy as a possession,” an activity of the victor.

[20:17]  ²⁵ tn The construct nouns here have caused a certain amount of revision. It says “rivers of, torrents of.” The first has been emended by Klostermann to יִצְהָר (yitshar, “oil”) and connected to the first colon. Older editors argued for a נָהָר (nahar) that meant “oil” but that was not convincing. On the other hand, there is support for having more than one construct together serving as apposition (see GKC 422 §130.e). If the word “streams” in the last colon is a construct, that would mean three of them; but that one need not be construct. The reading would be “He will not see the streams, [that is] the rivers [which are] the torrents of honey and butter.” It is unusual, but workable.

[20:17]  ²⁶ sn This word is often translated “curds.” It is curdled milk, possibly a type of butter.

[22:13]  ²⁷ sn Eliphaz is giving to Job the thoughts and words of the pagans, for they say, “How does God know, and is there knowledge in the Most High?” (see Ps 73:11; 94:11).