Ayub 7:2

7:2 Like a servant ¹  longing for the evening shadow, ² 

and like a hired man looking ³  for his wages, ⁴ 

Ayub 24:12

24:12 From the city the dying ⁵  groan,

and the wounded ⁶  cry out for help,

but God charges no one with wrongdoing. ⁷ 

Ayub 31:39

31:39 if I have eaten its produce without paying, ⁸ 

or caused the death ⁹  of its owners, ¹⁰ 

[7:2]  ¹ tn This term עֶבֶד (’eved) is the servant or the slave. He is compelled to work through the day, in the heat; but he longs for evening, when he can rest from the slavery.

[7:2]  ² tn The expression יִשְׁאַף־צֵל (yish’af tsel, “longing for the evening shadow”) could also be taken as a relative clause (without the relative pronoun): “as a servant [who] longs for the evening shadow” (see GKC 487 §155.g). In either case, the expressions in v. 2 emphasize the point of the comparison, which will be summed up in v. 3.

[7:2]  ³ tn The two verbs in this verse stress the eager expectation and waiting. The first, שָׁאַף (sha’af), means “to long for; to desire”; and the second, קָוָה (qavah), has the idea of “to hope for; to look for; to wait.” The words would give the sense that the servant or hired man had the longing on his mind all day.

[7:2]  ⁴ tn The word פֹּעַל (po’al) means “work.” But here the word should be taken as a metonymy, meaning the pay for the work that he has done (compare Jer 22:13).

[24:12]  ⁵ tc The MT as pointed reads “from the city of men they groan.” Most commentators change one vowel in מְתִים (mÿtim) to get מֵתִים (metim) to get the active participle, “the dying.” This certainly fits the parallelism better, although sense could be made out of the MT.

[24:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “the souls of the wounded,” which here refers to the wounded themselves.

[24:12]  ⁷ tc The MT has the noun תִּפְלָה (tiflah) which means “folly; tastelessness” (cf. 1:22). The verb, which normally means “to place; to put,” would then be rendered “to impute; to charge.” This is certainly a workable translation in the context. Many commentators have emended the text, changing the noun to תְּפִלָּה (tÿfillah, “prayer”), and so then also the verb יָשִׂים (yasim, here “charges”) to יִשְׁמַע (yishma’, “hears”). It reads: “But God does not hear the prayer” – referring to the groans.

[31:39]  ⁸ tn Heb “without silver.”

[31:39]  ⁹ tc The versions have the verb “grieved” here. The Hebrew verb means “to breathe,” but the form is Hiphil. This verb in that stem could mean something of a contemptuous gesture, like “sniff” in Mal 1:13. But with נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) in Job 11:20 it means “to cause death,” i.e., “to cause to breathe out; to expire.” This is likely the meaning here, although it is possible that it only meant “to cause suffering” to the people.

[31:39]  ¹⁰ tn There is some debate over the meaning of בְּעָלֶיהָ (bÿ’aleyha), usually translated “its owners.” Dahood, following others (although without their emendations), thought it referred to “laborers” (see M. Dahood, Bib 41 [1960]: 303; idem, Bib 43 [1962]: 362).