Ayub 12:3

12:3 I also have understanding ¹  as well as you;

I am not inferior to you. ² 

Who does not know such things as these? ³ 

Ayub 15:7

15:7 “Were you the first man ever born?

Were you brought forth before the hills?

Ayub 21:1

Job’s Reply to Zophar ⁴ 

21:1 Then Job answered:

Ayub 38:25

38:25 Who carves out a channel for the heavy rains,

and a path for the rumble of thunder,

Ayub 41:10

41:10 Is it not fierce ⁵  when it is awakened?

Who is he, then, who can stand before it? ⁶ 

[12:3]  ¹ tn The word is literally “heart,” meaning a mind or understanding.

[12:3]  ² tn Because this line is repeated in 13:2, many commentators delete it from this verse (as does the LXX). The Syriac translates נֹפֵל (nofel) as “little,” and the Vulgate “inferior.” Job is saying that he does not fall behind them in understanding.

[12:3]  ³ tn Heb “With whom are not such things as these?” The point is that everyone knows the things that these friends have been saying – they are commonplace.

[21:1]  ⁴ sn In this chapter Job actually answers the ideas of all three of his friends. Here Job finds the flaw in their argument – he can point to wicked people who prosper. But whereas in the last speech, when he looked on his suffering from the perspective of his innocence, he found great faith and hope, in this chapter when he surveys the divine government of the world, he sinks to despair. The speech can be divided into five parts: he appeals for a hearing (2-6), he points out the prosperity of the wicked (7-16), he wonders exactly when the godless suffer (17-22), he shows how death levels everything (23-26), and he reveals how experience contradicts his friends’ argument (27-34).

[41:10]  ⁵ sn The description is of the animal, not the hunter (or fisherman). Leviathan is so fierce that no one can take him on alone.

[41:10]  ⁶ tc MT has “before me” and can best be rendered as “Who then is he that can stand before me?” (ESV, NASB, NIV, NLT, NJPS). The following verse (11) favors the MT since both express the lesson to be learned from Leviathan: If a man cannot stand up to Leviathan, how can he stand up to its creator? The translation above has chosen to read the text as “before him” (cf. NRSV, NJB).