Ayub 9:21-22

9:21 I am blameless. ¹  I do not know myself. ² 

I despise my life.

Accusation of God’s Justice

9:22 “It is all one! ³  That is why I say, ⁴ 

‘He destroys the blameless and the guilty.’

Ayub 9:30

9:30 If I wash myself with snow water, ⁵ 

and make my hands clean with lye, ⁶ 

Ayub 12:11

12:11 Does not the ear test words,

as ⁷  the tongue ⁸  tastes food? ⁹ 

Ayub 16:21

16:21 and ¹⁰  he contends with God on behalf of man

as a man ¹¹  pleads ¹²  for his friend.

Ayub 18:21

18:21 ‘Surely such is the residence ¹³  of an evil man;

and this is the place of one who has not known God.’” ¹⁴ 

Ayub 27:2

27:2 “As surely as God lives, ¹⁵  who has denied me justice, ¹⁶ 

the Almighty, who has made my life bitter ¹⁷  –

Ayub 27:7

The Condition of the Wicked

27:7 “May my enemy be like the wicked, ¹⁸ 

my adversary ¹⁹  like the unrighteous. ²⁰ 

Ayub 27:12

27:12 If you yourselves have all seen this,

Why in the world ²¹  do you continue this meaningless talk? ²² 

Ayub 31:13

31:13 “If I have disregarded the right of my male servants

or my female servants

when they disputed ²³  with me,

Ayub 31:18

31:18 but from my youth I raised the orphan ²⁴  like a father,

and from my mother’s womb ²⁵ 

I guided the widow! ²⁶ 

Ayub 33:3

33:3 My words come from the uprightness of my heart, ²⁷ 

and my lips will utter knowledge sincerely. ²⁸ 

Ayub 33:9

33:9 ²⁹ ‘I am pure, without transgression;

I am clean ³⁰  and have no iniquity.

Ayub 38:19

38:19 “In what direction ³¹  does light reside,

and darkness, where is its place,

Ayub 40:10

40:10 Adorn yourself, then, with majesty and excellency,

and clothe yourself with glory and honor!

[9:21]  ¹ tn Dhorme, in an effort to avoid tautology, makes this a question: “Am I blameless?” The next clause then has Job answering that he does not know. But through the last section Job has been proclaiming his innocence. The other way of interpreting these verses is to follow NIV and make all of them hypothetical (“If I were blameless, he would pronounce me guilty”) and then come to this verse with Job saying, “I am blameless.” The second clause of this verse does not fit either view very well. In vv. 20, 21, and 22 Job employs the same term for “blameless” (תָּם, tam) as in the prologue (1:1). God used it to describe Job in 1:8 and 2:3. Bildad used it in 8:20. These are the final occurrences in the book.

[9:21]  ² tn The meaning of the expression “I do not know myself” seems to be, “I do not care.” NIV translates it, “I have no concern for my life.”

[9:21]  sn Job believes he is blameless and not deserving of all this suffering; he will hold fast to that claim, even if the future is uncertain, especially if that future involved a confrontation with God.

[9:22]  ³ tc The LXX omits the phrase “It is all one.” Modern scholars either omit it or transpose it for clarity.

[9:22]  sn The expression “it is one” means that God’s dealings with people is undiscriminating. The number “one” could also be taken to mean “the same” – “it is all the same.” The implication is that it does not matter if Job is good or evil, if he lives or dies. This is the conclusion of the preceding section.

[9:22]  ⁴ tn The relationships of these clauses is in some question. Some think that the poet has inverted the first two, and so they should read, “That is why I have said: ‘It is all one.’” Others would take the third clause to be what was said.

[9:30]  ⁵ tn The Syriac and Targum Job read with the Qere “with water of [בְמֵי, bÿme] snow.” The Kethib simply has “in [בְמוֹ, bÿmo] snow.” In Ps 51:9 and Isa 1:18 snow forms a simile for purification. Some protest that snow water is not necessarily clean; but if fresh melting snow is meant, then the runoff would be very clear. The image would work well here. Nevertheless, others have followed the later Hebrew meaning for שֶׁלֶג (sheleg) – “soap” (so NIV, NRSV, NLT). Even though that makes a nice parallelism, it is uncertain whether that meaning was in use at the time this text was written.

[9:30]  ⁶ tn The word בֹּר (bor, “lye, potash”) does not refer to purity (Syriac, KJV, ASV), but refers to the ingredient used to make the hands pure or clean. It has the same meaning as בֹּרִית (borit), the alkali or soda made from the ashes of certain plants.

[12:11]  ⁷ tn The ו (vav) introduces the comparison here (see 5:7; 11:12); see GKC 499 §161.a.

[12:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “the palate.”

[12:11]  ⁹ tn The final preposition with its suffix is to be understood as a pleonastic dativus ethicus and not translated (see GKC 439 §135.i).

[12:11]  sn In the rest of the chapter Job turns his attention away from creation to the wisdom of ancient men. In Job 13:1 when Job looks back to this part, he refers to both the eye and the ear. In vv. 13-25 Job refers to many catastrophes which he could not have seen, but must have heard about.

[16:21]  ¹⁰ tn E. Dhorme (Job, 240) alters this slightly to read “Would that” or “Ah! if only.”

[16:21]  ¹¹ tn This is the simple translation of the expression “son of man” in Job. But some commentators wish to change the word בֵּן (ben, “son”) to בֵּין (ben, “between”). It would then be “[as] between a man and [for] his friend.” Even though a few mss have this reading, it is to be rejected. But see J. Barr, “Some Notes on ‘ben’ in Classical Hebrew,” JSS 23 (1978): 1-22.

[16:21]  ¹² tn The verb is supplied from the parallel clause.

[18:21]  ¹³ tn The term is in the plural, “the tabernacles”; it should be taken as a plural of local extension (see GKC 397 §124.b).

[18:21]  ¹⁴ tn The word “place” is in construct; the clause following it replaces the genitive: “this is the place of – he has not known God.”

[27:2]  ¹⁵ tn The expression חַי־אֵל (khay-’el) is the oath formula: “as God lives.” In other words, the speaker is staking God’s life on the credibility of the words. It is like saying, “As truly as God is alive.”

[27:2]  ¹⁶ tn “My judgment” would here, as before, be “my right.” God has taken this away by afflicting Job unjustly (A. B. Davidson, Job, 187).

[27:2]  ¹⁷ tn The verb הֵמַר (hemar) is the Hiphil perfect from מָרַר (marar, “to be bitter”) and hence, “to make bitter.” The object of the verb is “my soul,” which is better translated as “me” or “my life.”

[27:7]  ¹⁸ sn Of course, he means like his enemy when he is judged, not when he is thriving in prosperity and luxury.

[27:7]  ¹⁹ tn The form is the Hitpolel participle from קוּם (qum): “those who are rising up against me,” or “my adversary.”

[27:7]  ²⁰ tc The LXX made a free paraphrase: “No, but let my enemies be as the overthrow of the ungodly, and they that rise up against me as the destruction of transgressors.”

[27:12]  ²¹ tn The interrogative uses the demonstrative pronoun in its emphatic position: “Why in the world…?” (IBHS 312-13 §17.4.3c).

[27:12]  ²² tn The text has the noun “vain thing; breath; vapor,” and then a denominative verb from the same root: “to become vain with a vain thing,” or “to do in vain a vain thing.” This is an example of the internal object, or a cognate accusative (see GKC 367 §117.q). The LXX has “you all know that you are adding vanity to vanity.”

[31:13]  ²³ tn This construction is an adverbial clause using the temporal preposition, the infinitive from רִיב (riv, “contend”), and the suffix which is the subjective genitive.

[31:18]  ²⁴ tn Heb “he grew up with me.” Several commentators have decided to change the pronoun to “I,” and make it causative.

[31:18]  ²⁵ tn The expression “from my mother’s womb” is obviously hyperbolic. It is a way of saying “all his life.”

[31:18]  ²⁶ tn Heb “I guided her,” referring to the widow mentioned in v. 16.

[33:3]  ²⁷ tc This expression is unusual; R. Gordis (Job, 371) says it can be translated, “the purity of my heart [is reflected] in my words,” but that is far-fetched and awkward. So there have been suggestions for emending יֹשֶׁר (yosher, “uprightness”). Kissane’s makes the most sense if a change is desired: “shall reveal” (an Arabic sense of yasher), although Holscher interpreted “shall affirm” (yasher, with a Syriac sense). Dhorme has “my heart will repeat” (יָשׁוּר, yashur), but this is doubtful. If Kissane’s view is taken, it would say, “my heart will reveal my words.” Some commentators would join “and knowledge” to this colon, and read “words of knowledge” – but that requires even more emendations.

[33:3]  ²⁸ tn More literally, “and the knowledge of my lips they will speak purely.”

[33:9]  ²⁹ sn See Job 9:21; 10:7; 23:7; 27:4; ch. 31.

[33:9]  ³⁰ tn The word is a hapax legomenon; hap is from חָפַף (khafaf). It is used in New Hebrew in expressions like “to wash” the head. Cognates in Syriac and Akkadian support the meaning “to wash; to clean.”

[38:19]  ³¹ tn The interrogative with דֶרֶךְ (derekh) means “in what road” or “in what direction.”