Ayub 1:10

1:10 Have you ¹  not made a hedge ²  around him and his household and all that he has on every side? You have blessed ³  the work of his hands, and his livestock ⁴  have increased ⁵  in the land.

Ayub 7:20

7:20 If ⁶  I have sinned – what have I done to you, ⁷ 

O watcher of men? ⁸ 

Why have you set me as your target? ⁹ 

Have I become a burden to you? ¹⁰ 

Ayub 24:14

24:14 Before daybreak ¹¹  the murderer rises up;

he kills the poor and the needy;

in the night he is ¹²  like a thief. ¹³ 

Ayub 34:33

34:33 Is it your opinion ¹⁴  that God ¹⁵  should recompense it,

because you reject this? ¹⁶ 

But you must choose, and not I,

so tell us what you know.

Ayub 41:11

41:11 (Who has confronted ¹⁷  me that I should repay? ¹⁸ 

Everything under heaven belongs to me!) ¹⁹ 

[1:10]  ¹ tn The use of the independent personal pronoun here emphasizes the subject of the verb: “Have you not put up a hedge.”

[1:10]  ² tn The verb שׂוּךְ (sukh) means “to hedge or fence up, about” something (BDB 962 s.v. I שׂוּךְ). The original idea seems to have been to surround with a wall of thorns for the purpose of protection (E. Dhorme, Job, 7). The verb is an implied comparison between making a hedge and protecting someone.

[1:10]  ³ sn Here the verb “bless” is used in one of its very common meanings. The verb means “to enrich,” often with the sense of enabling or empowering things for growth or fruitfulness. See further C. Westermann, Blessing in the Bible and the Life of the Church (OBT).

[1:10]  ⁴ tn Or “substance.” The herds of livestock may be taken by metonymy of part for whole to represent possessions or prosperity in general.

[1:10]  ⁵ tn The verb פָּרַץ (parats) means “to break through.” It has the sense of abundant increase, as in breaking out, overflowing (see also Gen 30:30 and Exod 1:12).

[7:20]  ⁶ tn The simple perfect verb can be used in a conditional sentence without a conditional particle present (see GKC 494 §159.h).

[7:20]  ⁷ sn Job is not here saying that he has sinned; rather, he is posing the hypothetical condition – if he had sinned, what would that do to God? In other words, he has not really injured God.

[7:20]  ⁸ sn In the Bible God is often described as watching over people to protect them from danger (see Deut 32:10; Ps 31:23). However, here it is a hostile sense, for God may detect sin and bring it to judgment.

[7:20]  ⁹ tn This word is a hapax legomenon from the verb פָּגָע (paga’, “meet, encounter”); it would describe what is hit or struck (as nouns of this pattern can indicate the place of the action) – the target.

[7:20]  ¹⁰ tn In the prepositional phrase עָלַי (’alay) the results of a scribal change is found (these changes were called tiqqune sopherim, “corrections of the scribes” made to avoid using improper language about God). The prepositional phrase would have been עָלֶךָ (’alekha, “to you,” as in the LXX). But it offended the Jews to think of Job’s being burdensome to God. Job’s sin could have repercussions on him, but not on God.

[24:14]  ¹¹ tn The text simply has לָאוֹר (la’or, “at light” or “at daylight”), probably meaning just at the time of dawn.

[24:14]  ¹² tn In a few cases the jussive is used without any real sense of the jussive being present (see GKC 323 §109.k).

[24:14]  ¹³ sn The point is that he is like a thief in that he works during the night, just before the daylight, when the advantage is all his and the victim is most vulnerable.

[34:33]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “is it from with you,” an idiomatic expression meaning “to suit you” or “according to your judgment.”

[34:33]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:33]  ¹⁶ tn There is no object on the verb, and the meaning is perhaps lost. The best guess is that Elihu is saying Job has rejected his teaching.

[41:11]  ¹⁷ tn The verb קָדַם (qadam) means “to come to meet; to come before; to confront” to the face.

[41:11]  ¹⁸ sn The verse seems an intrusion (and so E. Dhorme, H. H. Rowley, and many others change the pronouns to make it refer to the animal). But what the text is saying is that it is more dangerous to confront God than to confront this animal.

[41:11]  ¹⁹ tn This line also focuses on the sovereign God rather than Leviathan. H. H. Rowley, however, wants to change לִי־חוּא (li-hu’, “it [belongs] to me”) into לֹא הוּא (lo’ hu’, “there is no one”). So it would say that there is no one under the whole heaven who could challenge Leviathan and live, rather than saying it is more dangerous to challenge God to make him repay.