Ayub 5:22

5:22 You will laugh at destruction and famine ¹ 

and need not ²  be afraid of the beasts of the earth.

Ayub 5:25

5:25 You will also know that your children ³  will be numerous,

and your descendants ⁴  like the grass of the earth.

Ayub 15:19

15:19 to whom alone the land was given

when no foreigner passed among them. ⁵ 

Ayub 22:8

22:8 Although you were a powerful man, ⁶  owning land, ⁷ 

an honored man ⁸  living on it, ⁹ 

Ayub 37:3

37:3 Under the whole heaven he lets it go,

even his lightning to the far corners ¹⁰  of the earth.

[5:22]  ¹ tc The repetition of “destruction” and “famine” here has prompted some scholars to delete the whole verse. Others try to emend the text. The LXX renders them as “the unrighteous and the lawless.” But there is no difficulty in having the repetition of the words as found in the MT.

[5:22]  tn The word for “famine” is an Aramaic word found again in 30:3. The book of Job has a number of Aramaisms that are used to form an alternative parallel expression (see notes on “witness” in 16:19).

[5:22]  ² tn The negated jussive is used here to express the conviction that something cannot or should not happen (GKC 322 §109.e).

[5:25]  ³ tn Heb “your seed.”

[5:25]  ⁴ tn The word means “your shoots” and is parallel to “your seed” in the first colon. It refers here (as in Isa 34:1 and 42:5) to the produce of the earth. Some commentators suggest that Eliphaz seems to have forgotten or was insensitive to Job’s loss of his children; H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 57) says his conventional theology is untouched by human feeling.

[15:19]  ⁵ sn Eliphaz probably thinks that Edom was the proverbial home of wisdom, and so the reference here would be to his own people. If, as many interpret, the biblical writer is using these accounts to put Yahwistic ideas into the discussion, then the reference would be to Canaan at the time of the fathers. At any rate, the tradition of wisdom to Eliphaz has not been polluted by foreigners, but has retained its pure and moral nature from antiquity.

[22:8]  ⁶ tn The idiom is “a man of arm” (= “powerful”; see Ps 10:15). This is in comparison to the next line, “man of face” (= “dignity; high rank”; see Isa 3:5).

[22:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “and a man of arm, to whom [was] land.” The line is in contrast to the preceding one, and so the vav here introduces a concessive clause.

[22:8]  ⁸ tn The expression is unusual: “the one lifted up of face.” This is the “honored one,” the one to whom the dignity will be given.

[22:8]  ⁹ tn Many commentators simply delete the verse or move it elsewhere. Most take it as a general reference to Job, perhaps in apposition to the preceding verse.

[37:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “wings,” and then figuratively for the extremities of garments, of land, etc.