Ayub 19:7

Job’s Abandonment and Affliction

19:7 “If ¹  I cry out, ²  ‘Violence!’ ³ 

I receive no answer; ⁴ 

I cry for help,

but there is no justice.

Ayub 24:12

24:12 From the city the dying ⁵  groan,

and the wounded ⁶  cry out for help,

but God charges no one with wrongdoing. ⁷ 

Ayub 36:5

36:5 Indeed, God is mighty; and he does not despise people, ⁸ 

he ⁹  is mighty, and firm ¹⁰  in his intent. ¹¹ 

[19:7]  ¹ tn The particle is used here as in 9:11 (see GKC 497 §159.w).

[19:7]  ² tc The LXX has “I laugh at reproach.”

[19:7]  ³ tn The same idea is expressed in Jer 20:8 and Hab 1:2. The cry is a cry for help, that he has been wronged, that there is no justice.

[19:7]  ⁴ tn The Niphal is simply “I am not answered.” See Prov 21:13b.

[24:12]  ⁵ tc The MT as pointed reads “from the city of men they groan.” Most commentators change one vowel in מְתִים (mÿtim) to get מֵתִים (metim) to get the active participle, “the dying.” This certainly fits the parallelism better, although sense could be made out of the MT.

[24:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “the souls of the wounded,” which here refers to the wounded themselves.

[24:12]  ⁷ tc The MT has the noun תִּפְלָה (tiflah) which means “folly; tastelessness” (cf. 1:22). The verb, which normally means “to place; to put,” would then be rendered “to impute; to charge.” This is certainly a workable translation in the context. Many commentators have emended the text, changing the noun to תְּפִלָּה (tÿfillah, “prayer”), and so then also the verb יָשִׂים (yasim, here “charges”) to יִשְׁמַע (yishma’, “hears”). It reads: “But God does not hear the prayer” – referring to the groans.

[36:5]  ⁸ tn The object “people” is not in the Hebrew text but is implied.

[36:5]  ⁹ tn The text simply repeats “mighty.”

[36:5]  ¹⁰ tn The last two words are simply כֹּחַ לֵב (koakh lev, “strong in heart”), meaning something like “strong; firm in his decisions.”

[36:5]  ¹¹ tc There are several problems in this verse: the repetition of “mighty,” the lack of an object for “despise,” and the meaning of “strength of heart.” Many commentators reduce the verse to a single line, reading something like “Lo, God does not reject the pure in heart” (Kissane). Dhorme and Pope follow Nichols with: “Lo, God is mighty in strength, and rejects not the pure in heart.” This reading moved “mighty” to the first line and took the second to be בַּר (bar, “pure”).