Ayub 22:23

22:23 If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up; ¹ 

if you remove wicked behavior far from your tent,

Ayub 23:3

23:3 O that I knew ²  where I might find him, ³ 

that I could come ⁴  to his place of residence! ⁵ 

Ayub 34:32

34:32 Teach me what I cannot see. ⁶ 

If I have done evil, I will do so no more.’

Ayub 36:11

36:11 If they obey and serve him,

they live out their days in prosperity

and their years in pleasantness. ⁷ 

[22:23]  ¹ tc The MT has “you will be built up” (תִּבָּנֶה, tibbaneh). But the LXX has “humble yourself” (reading תְּעַנֶּה [tÿ’anneh] apparently). Many commentators read this; Dahood has “you will be healed.”

[23:3]  ² tn The optative here is again expressed with the verbal clause, “who will give [that] I knew….”

[23:3]  ³ tn The form in Hebrew is וְאֶמְצָאֵהוּ (vÿ’emtsa’ehu), simply “and I will find him.” But in the optative clause this verb is subordinated to the preceding verb: “O that I knew where [and] I might find him.” It is not unusual to have the perfect verb followed by the imperfect in such coordinate clauses (see GKC 386 §120.e). This could also be translated making the second verb a complementary infinitive: “knew how to find him.”

[23:3]  sn H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 159) quotes Strahan without reference: “It is the chief distinction between Job and his friends that he desires to meet God and they do not.”

[23:3]  ⁴ tn This verb also depends on מִי־יִתֵּן (mi-yitten, “who will give”) of the first part, forming an additional clause in the wish formula.

[23:3]  ⁵ tn Or “his place of judgment.” The word is from כּוּן (kun, “to prepare; to arrange”) in the Polel and the Hiphil conjugations. The noun refers to a prepared place, a throne, a seat, or a sanctuary. A. B. Davidson (Job, 169) and others take the word to mean “judgment seat” or “tribunal” in this context.

[34:32]  ⁶ tn Heb “what I do not see,” more specifically, “apart from [that which] I see.”

[36:11]  ⁷ tc Some commentators delete this last line for metrical considerations. But there is no textual evidence for the deletion; it is simply the attempt by some to make the meter rigid.