Ayub 8:7

8:7 Your beginning ¹  will seem so small,

since your future will flourish. ² 

Ayub 30:14

30:14 They come in as through a wide breach;

amid the crash ³  they come rolling in. ⁴ 

Ayub 35:16

35:16 So Job opens his mouth to no purpose; ⁵ 

without knowledge he multiplies words.”

[8:7]  ¹ tn The reference to “your beginning” is a reference to Job’s former estate of wealth and peace. The reference to “latter end” is a reference to conditions still in the future. What Job had before will seem so small in comparison to what lies ahead.

[8:7]  ² tn The verb has the idea of “to grow”; here it must mean “to flourish; to grow considerably” or the like. The statement is not so much a prophecy; rather Bildad is saying that “if Job had recourse to God, then….” This will be fulfilled, of course, at the end of the book.

[30:14]  ³ tn The MT has “under the crash,” with the idea that they rush in while the stones are falling around them (which is continuing the figure of the military attack). G. R. Driver took the expression to mean in a temporal sense “at the moment of the crash” (AJSL 52 [1935/36]: 163-64). Guillaume, drawing from Arabic, has “where the gap is made.”

[30:14]  ⁴ tn The verb, the Hitpalpel of גָּלַל (galal), means “they roll themselves.” This could mean “they roll themselves under the ruins” (Dhorme), “they roll on like a storm” (Gordis), or “they roll on” as in waves of enemy attackers (see H. H. Rowley). This particular verb form is found only here (but see Amos 5:24).

[35:16]  ⁵ tn The word הֶבֶל (hevel) means “vanity; futility; to no purpose.”