Ayub 7:8

7:8 The eye of him who sees me now will see me no more; ¹ 

your eyes will look for me, but I will be gone. ² 

Ayub 13:20

13:20 Only in two things spare me, ³  O God, ⁴ 

and then I will not hide from your face:

Ayub 16:8

16:8 You have seized me, ⁵ 

and it ⁶  has become a witness;

my leanness ⁷  has risen up against me

and testifies against me.

Ayub 40:15

The Description of Behemoth ⁸ 

40:15 “Look now at Behemoth, ⁹  which I made as ¹⁰  I made you;

it eats grass like the ox.

[7:8]  ¹ sn The meaning of the verse is that God will relent, but it will be too late. God now sees him with a hostile eye; when he looks for him, or looks upon him in friendliness, it will be too late.

[7:8]  ² tn This verse is omitted in the LXX and so by several commentators. But the verb שׁוּר (shur, “turn, return”) is so characteristic of Job (10 times) that the verse seems appropriate here.

[13:20]  ³ tn The line reads “do not do two things.”

[13:20]  ⁴ tn “God” is supplied to the verse, for the address is now to him. Job wishes to enter into dispute with God, but he first appeals that God not take advantage of him with his awesome power.

[16:8]  ⁵ tn The verb is קָמַט (qamat) which is used only here and in 22:16; it means “to seize; to grasp.” By God’s seizing him, Job means his afflictions.

[16:8]  ⁶ tn The subject is “my calamity.”

[16:8]  ⁷ tn The verb is used in Ps 109:24 to mean “to be lean”; and so “leanness” is accepted here for the noun by most. Otherwise the word is “lie, deceit.” Accordingly, some take it here as “my slanderer” or “my liar” (gives evidence against me).

[40:15]  ⁸ sn The next ten verses are devoted to a portrayal of Behemoth (the name means “beast” in Hebrew). It does not fit any of the present material very well, and so many think the section is a later addition. Its style is more like that of a textbook. Moreover, if the animal is a real animal (the usual suggestion is the hippopotamus), then the location of such an animal is Egypt and not Palestine. Some have identified these creatures Behemoth and Leviathan as mythological creatures (Gunkel, Pope). Others point out that these creatures could have been dinosaurs (P. J. Maarten, NIDOTTE, 2:780; H. M. Morris, The Remarkable Record of Job, 115-22). Most would say they are real animals, but probably mythologized by the pagans. So the pagan reader would receive an additional impact from this point about God’s sovereignty over all nature.

[40:15]  ⁹ sn By form the word is the feminine plural of the Hebrew word for “beast.” Here it is an abstract word – a title.

[40:15]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “with you.” The meaning could be temporal (“when I made you”) – perhaps a reference to the sixth day of creation (Gen 1:24).