Ayub 6:7

6:7 I ¹  have refused ²  to touch such things; ³ 

they are like loathsome food to me. ⁴ 

Ayub 8:13

8:13 Such is the destiny ⁵  of all who forget God;

the hope of the godless ⁶  perishes,

Ayub 12:25

12:25 They grope about in darkness ⁷  without light;

he makes them stagger ⁸  like drunkards.

Ayub 15:24

15:24 Distress and anguish ⁹  terrify him;

they prevail against him

like a king ready to launch an attack, ¹⁰ 

Ayub 19:24

19:24 that with an iron chisel and with lead ¹¹ 

they were engraved in a rock forever!

Ayub 31:3

31:3 Is it not misfortune for the unjust,

and disaster for those who work iniquity?

[6:7]  ¹ tn The traditional rendering of נַפְשִׁי (nafshi) is “my soul.” But since נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) means the whole person, body and soul, it is best to translate it with its suffix simply as an emphatic pronoun.

[6:7]  ² tn For the explanation of the perfect verb with its completed action in the past and its remaining effects, see GKC 311 §106.g.

[6:7]  ³ tn The phrase “such things” is not in the Hebrew text but has been supplied.

[6:7]  ⁴ tn The second colon of the verse is difficult. The word דְּוֵי (dÿve) means “sickness of” and yields a meaning “like the sickness of my food.” This could take the derived sense of דָּוָה (davah) and mean “impure” or “corrupt” food. The LXX has “for I loathe my food as the smell of a lion” and so some commentators emend “they” (which has no clear antecedent) to mean “I loathe it [like the sickness of my food].” Others have more freely emended the text to “my palate loathes my food” (McNeile) or “my bowels resound with suffering” (I. Eitan, “An unknown meaning of RAHAMIÝM,” JBL 53 [1934]: 271). Pope has “they are putrid as my flesh [= my meat].” D. J. A. Clines (Job [WBC], 159) prefers the suggestion in BHS, “it [my soul] loathes them as my food.” E. Dhorme (Job, 80) repoints the second word of the colon to get כְּבֹדִי (kÿvodi, “my glory”): “my heart [glory] loathes/is sickened by my bread.”

[8:13]  ⁵ tn The word אָרְחוֹת (’orkhot) means “ways” or “paths” in the sense of tracks of destiny or fate. The word דֶּרֶךְ (derekh, “way, road, path”) is used in a similar way (Isa 40:27; Ps 37:5). However, many commentators emend the text to read אַחֲרִית (’akharit, “end”) in harmony with the LXX. But Prov 1:19 (if not emended as well) confirms the primary meaning here without changing the text (see D. J. A. Clines, Job [WBC], 199).

[8:13]  ⁶ tn The word חָנֵף (khanef) is often translated “hypocrite.” But the root verb means “to be profane,” and this would be done by idolatry or bloodshed. It describes an irreligious person, a godless person. In Dan 11:32 the word seems to mean “make someone pagan.” The word in this verse is parallel to “those who forget God.”

[12:25]  ⁷ tn The word is an adverbial accusative.

[12:25]  ⁸ tn The verb is the same that was in v. 24, “He makes them [the leaders still] wander” (the Hiphil of תָּעָה, ta’ah). But in this passage some commentators emend the text to a Niphal of the verb and put it in the plural, to get the reading “they reel to and fro.” But even if the verse closes the chapter and there is no further need for a word of divine causation, the Hiphil sense works well here – causing people to wander like a drunken man would be the same as making them stagger.

[15:24]  ⁹ tn If “day and darkness” are added to this line, then this verse is made into a tri-colon – the main reason for transferring it away from the last verse. But the newly proposed reading follows the LXX structure precisely, as if that were the approved construction. The Hebrew of MT has “distress and anguish terrify him.”

[15:24]  ¹⁰ tn This last colon is deleted by some, moved to v. 26 by others, and the NEB puts it in brackets. The last word (translated here as “launch an attack”) occurs only here. HALOT 472 s.v. כִּידוֹר links it to an Arabic root kadara, “to rush down,” as with a bird of prey. J. Reider defines it as “perturbation” from the same root (“Etymological Studies in Biblical Hebrew,” VT 2 [1952]: 127).

[19:24]  ¹¹ sn There is some question concerning the use of the lead. It surely cannot be a second description of the tool, for a lead tool would be of no use in chiseling words into a rock. It was Rashi’s idea, followed by Dillmann and Duhm, that lead was run into the cut-out letters. The suggestion that they wrote on lead tablets does not seem to fit the verse (cf. NIV). See further A. Baker, “The Strange Case of Job’s Chisel,” CBQ 31 (1969): 370-79.