Ayub 7:14

7:14 then you scare me ¹  with dreams

and terrify ²  me with ³  visions,

Ayub 19:22

19:22 Why do you pursue me like God does? ⁴ 

Will you never be satiated with my flesh? ⁵ 

Ayub 30:16

Job’s Despondency

30:16 “And now my soul pours itself out within me; ⁶ 

days of suffering take hold of me.

Ayub 31:9

31:9 If my heart has been enticed by a woman,

and I have lain in wait at my neighbor’s door, ⁷ 

[7:14]  ¹ tn The Piel of חָתַת (khatat) occurs only here and in Jer 51:56 (where it is doubtful). The meaning is clearly “startle, scare.” The perfect verb with the ו (vav) is fitting in the apodosis of the conditional sentence.

[7:14]  sn Here Job is boldly saying that it is God who is behind the horrible dreams that he is having at night.

[7:14]  ² tn The Piel of בָּעַת (ba’at, “terrify”) is one of the characteristic words in the book of Job; it occurs in 3:5; 9:34; 13:11, 21; 15:24; 18:11; and 33:7.

[7:14]  ³ tn The prepositions בּ (bet) and מִן (min) interchange here; they express the instrument of causality. See N. Sarna, “The Interchange of the Prepositions bet and min in Biblical Hebrew,” JBL 78 (1959): 310-16. Emphasis on the instruments of terror in this verse is highlighted by the use of chiasm in which the prepositional phrases comprise the central elements (ab//b’a’). Verse 18 contains another example.

[19:22]  ⁴ sn Strahan comments, “The whole tragedy of the book is packed into these extraordinary words.”

[19:22]  ⁵ sn The idiom of eating the pieces of someone means “slander” in Aramaic (see Dan 3:8), Arabic and Akkadian.

[30:16]  ⁶ tn This line can either mean that Job is wasting away (i.e., his life is being poured out), or it can mean that he is grieving. The second half of the verse gives the subordinate clause of condition for this.

[31:9]  ⁷ tn Gordis notes that the word פֶּתַח (petakh, “door”) has sexual connotations in rabbinic literature, based on Prov 7:6ff. (see b. Ketubbot 9b). See also the use in Song 4:12 using a synonym.