Ayub 5:2

5:2 For ¹  wrath kills the foolish person, ² 

and anger ³  slays the silly one.

Ayub 8:19

8:19 Indeed, this is the joy of his way, ⁴ 

and out of the earth ⁵  others spring up. ⁶ 

Ayub 9:23

9:23 If a scourge brings sudden death, ⁷ 

he mocks ⁸  at the despair ⁹  of the innocent. ¹⁰ 

Ayub 10:2

10:2 I will say to God, ‘Do not condemn ¹¹  me;

tell me ¹²  why you are contending ¹³  with me.’

Ayub 17:13

17:13 If ¹⁴  I hope for the grave to be my home,

if I spread out my bed in darkness,

Ayub 24:6

24:6 They reap fodder ¹⁵  in the field,

and glean ¹⁶  in the vineyard of the wicked.

Ayub 27:18

27:18 The house he builds is as fragile as a moth’s cocoon, ¹⁷ 

like a hut ¹⁸  that a watchman has made.

Ayub 30:31

30:31 My harp is used for ¹⁹  mourning

and my flute for the sound of weeping.

Ayub 33:13

33:13 Why do you contend against him,

that he does not answer all a person’s ²⁰  words?

Ayub 34:13

34:13 Who entrusted ²¹  to him the earth?

And who put him over ²²  the whole world?

[5:2]  ¹ tn One of the reasons that commentators transpose v. 1 is that the כִּי (ki, “for”) here seems to follow 4:21 better. If people die without wisdom, it is folly that kills them. But the verse also makes sense after 5:1. He is saying that complaining against God will not bring deliverance (v. 1), but rather, by such impatience the fool will bring greater calamity on himself.

[5:2]  ² tn The two words for “foolish person” are common in wisdom literature. The first, אֱוִיל (’evil), is the fool who is a senseless person; the פֹּתֶה (poteh) is the naive and silly person, the simpleton, the one who is easily led astray. The direct object is introduced with the preposition ל (lamed) in this verse (see GKC 366 §117.n).

[5:2]  ³ tn The two parallel nouns are similar; their related verbs are also paralleled in Deut 32:16 with the idea of “vex” and “irritate.” The first word כַּעַשׂ (ka’as) refers to the inner irritation and anger one feels, whereas the second word קִנְאָה (qin’ah) refers to the outward expression of the anger. In Job 6:2, Job will respond “O that my impatience [ka’as] were weighed….”

[8:19]  ⁴ tn This line is difficult. If the MT stands as it is, the expression must be ironic. It would be saying that the joy (all the security and prosperity) of its way (its life) is short-lived – that is the way its joy goes. Most commentators are not satisfied with this. Dhorme, for one, changes מְשׂוֹשׂ (mÿsos, “joy”) to מְסוֹס (mÿsos, “rotting”), and gets “behold him lie rotting on the path.” The sibilants can interchange this way. But Dhorme thinks the MT was written the way it was because the word was thought to be “joy,” when it should have been the other way. The word “way” then becomes an accusative of place. The suggestion is rather compelling and would certainly fit the context. The difficulty is that a root סוּס (sus, “to rot”) has to be proposed. E. Dhorme does this by drawing on Arabic sas, “to be eaten by moths or worms,” thus “worm-eaten; decaying; rotting.” Cf. NIV “its life withers away”; also NAB “there he lies rotting beside the road.”

[8:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “dust.”

[8:19]  ⁶ sn As with the tree, so with the godless man – his place will soon be taken by another.

[9:23]  ⁷ tc The LXX contains a paraphrase: “for the worthless die, but the righteous are laughed to scorn.”

[9:23]  sn The point of these verses is to show – rather boldly – that God does not distinguish between the innocent and the guilty.

[9:23]  ⁸ sn This bold anthropomorphism means that by his treatment of the despair of the innocent, God is in essence mocking them.

[9:23]  ⁹ tn The term מַסַּת (massat), a hapax legomenon, was translated “trial” in the older versions; but it is not from נָסָה (nasah, “to tempt; to test; to try”), but from מָסַס (masas, “to flow”). It is used in the Niphal to speak of the heart “melting” in suffering. So the idea behind this image is that of despair. This is the view that most interpreters adopt; it requires no change of the text whatsoever.

[9:23]  ¹⁰ sn Job uses this word to refute Eliphaz; cf. 4:7.

[10:2]  ¹¹ tn The negated jussive is the Hiphil jussive of רָשַׁע (rasha’); its meaning then would be literally “do not declare me guilty.” The negated jussive stresses the immediacy of the request.

[10:2]  ¹² tn The Hiphil imperative of יָדַע (yada’) would more literally be “cause me to know.” It is a plea for God to help him understand the afflictions.

[10:2]  ¹³ tn The verb is רִיב (riv), meaning “to dispute; to contend; to strive; to quarrel” – often in the legal sense. The precise words chosen in this verse show that the setting is legal. The imperfect verb here is progressive, expressing what is currently going on.

[17:13]  ¹⁴ tn The clause begins with אִם (’im) which here has more of the sense of “since.” E. Dhorme (Job, 253) takes a rather rare use of the word to get “Can I hope again” (see also GKC 475 §150.f for the caveat).

[24:6]  ¹⁵ tc The word בְּלִילוֹ (bÿlilo) means “his fodder.” It is unclear to what this refers. If the suffix is taken as a collective, then it can be translated “they gather/reap their fodder.” The early versions all have “they reap in a field which is not his” (taking it as בְּלִי לוֹ, bÿli lo). A conjectural emendation would change the word to בַּלַּיְלָה (ballaylah, “in the night”). But there is no reason for this.

[24:6]  ¹⁶ tn The verbs in this verse are uncertain. In the first line “reap” is used, and that would be the work of a hired man (and certainly not done at night). The meaning of this second verb is uncertain; it has been taken to mean “glean,” which would be the task of the poor.

[27:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb כָעָשׁ (kha’ash, “like a moth”), but this leaves room for clarification. Some commentators wanted to change it to “bird’s nest” or just “nest” (cf. NRSV) to make the parallelism; see Job 4:14. But the word is not found. The LXX has a double expression, “as moths, as a spider.” So several take it as the spider’s web, which is certainly unsubstantial (cf. NAB, NASB, NLT; see Job 8:14).

[27:18]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew word is the word for “booth,” as in the Feast of Booths. The word describes something that is flimsy; it is not substantial at all.

[30:31]  ¹⁹ tn The verb הָיָה (hayah, “to be”) followed by the preposition ל (lamed) means “to serve the purpose of” (see Gen 1:14ff., 17:7, etc.).

[33:13]  ²⁰ tc The MT has “all his words.” This must refer to “man” in the previous verse. But many wish to change it to “my words,” since it would be summarizing Job’s complaint to God.

[34:13]  ²¹ tn The verb פָּקַד (paqad) means “to visit; to appoint; to number.” Here it means “to entrust” for care and governing. The implication would be that there would be someone higher than God – which is what Elihu is repudiating by the rhetorical question. No one entrusted God with this.

[34:13]  ²² tn The preposition is implied from the first half of the verse.