Ayub 16:8

16:8 You have seized me, ¹ 

and it ²  has become a witness;

my leanness ³  has risen up against me

and testifies against me.

Ayub 20:23

20:23 “While he is ⁴  filling his belly,

God ⁵  sends his burning anger ⁶  against him,

and rains down his blows upon him. ⁷ 

Ayub 23:14

23:14 For he fulfills his decree against me, ⁸ 

and many such things are his plans. ⁹ 

Ayub 37:6

37:6 For to the snow he says, ‘Fall ¹⁰  to earth,’

and to the torrential rains, ¹¹  ‘Pour down.’ ¹² 

[16:8]  ¹ tn The verb is קָמַט (qamat) which is used only here and in 22:16; it means “to seize; to grasp.” By God’s seizing him, Job means his afflictions.

[16:8]  ² tn The subject is “my calamity.”

[16:8]  ³ tn The verb is used in Ps 109:24 to mean “to be lean”; and so “leanness” is accepted here for the noun by most. Otherwise the word is “lie, deceit.” Accordingly, some take it here as “my slanderer” or “my liar” (gives evidence against me).

[20:23]  ⁴ tn D. J. A. Clines observes that to do justice to the three jussives in the verse, one would have to translate “May it be, to fill his belly to the full, that God should send…and rain” (Job [WBC], 477). The jussive form of the verb at the beginning of the verse could also simply introduce a protasis of a conditional clause (see GKC 323 §109.h, i). This would mean, “if he [God] is about to fill his [the wicked’s] belly to the full, he will send….” The NIV reads “when he has filled his belly.” These fit better, because the context is talking about the wicked in his evil pursuit being cut down.

[20:23]  ⁵ tn “God” is understood as the subject of the judgment.

[20:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “the anger of his wrath.”

[20:23]  ⁷ tn Heb “rain down upon him, on his flesh.” Dhorme changes עָלֵימוֹ (’alemo, “upon him”) to “his arrows”; he translates the line as “he rains his arrows upon his flesh.” The word בִּלְחוּמוֹ (bilkhumo,“his flesh”) has been given a wide variety of translations: “as his food,” “on his flesh,” “upon him, his anger,” or “missiles or weapons of war.”

[23:14]  ⁸ tn The text has “my decree,” which means “the decree [plan] for/against me.” The suffix is objective, equivalent to a dative of disadvantage. The Syriac and the Vulgate actually have “his decree.” R. Gordis (Job, 262) suggests taking it in the same sense as in Job 14:5: “my limit.”.

[23:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “and many such [things] are with him.”

[23:14]  sn The text is saying that many similar situations are under God’s rule of the world – his plans are infinite.

[37:6]  ¹⁰ tn The verb actually means “be” (found here in the Aramaic form). The verb “to be” can mean “to happen, to fall, to come about.”

[37:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and [to the] shower of rain and shower of rains, be strong.” Many think the repetition grew up by variant readings; several Hebrew mss delete the second pair, and so many editors do. But the repetition may have served to stress the idea that the rains were heavy.

[37:6]  ¹² tn Heb “Be strong.”