Hakim-hakim 10:15

10:15 But the Israelites said to the Lord, “We have sinned. You do to us as you see fit, ¹  but deliver us today!” ² 

Ayub 1:21

1:21 He said, “Naked ³  I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return there. ⁴  The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. ⁵  May the name of the Lord ⁶  be blessed!”

Mazmur 39:10

39:10 Please stop wounding me! ⁷ 

You have almost beaten me to death! ⁸ 

[10:15]  ¹ tn Heb “according to all whatever is good in your eyes.”

[10:15]  ² sn You do to us as you see fit, but deliver us today. The request seems contradictory, but it can be explained in one of two ways. They may be asking for relief from their enemies and direct discipline from God’s hand. Or they may mean, “In the future you can do whatever you like to us, but give us relief from what we’re suffering right now.”

[1:21]  ³ tn The adjective “naked” is functioning here as an adverbial accusative of state, explicative of the state of the subject. While it does include the literal sense of nakedness at birth, Job is also using it symbolically to mean “without possessions.”

[1:21]  ⁴ sn While the first half of the couplet is to be taken literally as referring to his coming into this life, this second part must be interpreted only generally to refer to his departure from this life. It is parallel to 1 Tim 6:7, “For we have brought nothing into this world and so we cannot take a single thing out either.”

[1:21]  ⁵ tn The two verbs are simple perfects. (1) They can be given the nuance of gnomic imperfect, expressing what the sovereign God always does. This is the approach taken in the present translation. Alternatively (2) they could be referring specifically to Job’s own experience: “Yahweh gave [definite past, referring to his coming into this good life] and Yahweh has taken away” [present perfect, referring to his great losses]. Many English versions follow the second alternative.

[1:21]  ⁶ sn Some commentators are troubled by the appearance of the word “Yahweh” on the lips of Job, assuming that the narrator inserted his own name for God into the story-telling. Such thinking is based on the assumption that Yahweh was only a national god of Israel, unknown to anyone else in the ancient world. But here is a clear indication that a non-Israelite, Job, knew and believed in Yahweh.

[39:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “remove from upon me your wound.”

[39:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “from the hostility of your hand I have come to an end.”