Ayub 10:19

10:19 I should have been as though I had never existed; ¹ 

I should have been carried

right from the womb to the grave!

Ayub 24:3

24:3 They drive away the orphan’s donkey;

they take the widow’s ox as a pledge.

Ayub 30:23

30:23 I know that you are bringing ²  me to death,

to the meeting place for all the living.

Ayub 39:12

39:12 Can you count on ³  it to bring in ⁴  your grain, ⁵ 

and gather the grain ⁶  to your threshing floor? ⁷ 

Ayub 5:26

5:26 You will come to your grave in a full age, ⁸ 

As stacks of grain are harvested in their season.

Ayub 18:14

18:14 He is dragged from the security of his tent, ⁹ 

and marched off ¹⁰  to the king ¹¹  of terrors.

Ayub 12:19

12:19 He leads priests away stripped ¹² 

and overthrows ¹³  the potentates. ¹⁴ 

Ayub 21:32

21:32 And when he is carried to the tombs,

and watch is kept ¹⁵  over the funeral mound, ¹⁶ 

Ayub 38:20

38:20 that you may take them to their borders

and perceive the pathways to their homes? ¹⁷ 

Ayub 12:17

12:17 He ¹⁸  leads ¹⁹  counselors away stripped ²⁰ 

and makes judges ²¹  into fools. ²² 

Ayub 28:11

28:11 He has searched ²³  the sources ²⁴  of the rivers

and what was hidden he has brought into the light.

Ayub 14:3

14:3 Do you fix your eye ²⁵  on such a one? ²⁶ 

And do you bring me ²⁷  before you for judgment?

Ayub 35:6

35:6 If you sin, how does it affect God? ²⁸ 

If your transgressions are many,

what does it do to him? ²⁹ 

Ayub 15:12

15:12 Why ³⁰  has your heart carried you away, ³¹ 

and why do your eyes flash, ³² 

Ayub 20:16

20:16 He sucks the poison ³³  of serpents; ³⁴ 

the fangs ³⁵  of a viper ³⁶  kill him.

Ayub 27:21

27:21 The east wind carries him away, and he is gone;

it sweeps him out of his place.

Ayub 33:22

33:22 He ³⁷  draws near to the place of corruption,

and his life to the messengers of death. ³⁸ 

Ayub 36:27

36:27 He draws up drops of water;

they distill ³⁹  the rain into its mist, ⁴⁰ 

Ayub 37:9

37:9 A tempest blows out from its chamber,

icy cold from the driving winds. ⁴¹ 

Ayub 1:21

1:21 He said, “Naked ⁴²  I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return there. ⁴³  The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. ⁴⁴  May the name of the Lord ⁴⁵  be blessed!”

Ayub 11:10

11:10 If he comes by ⁴⁶  and confines ⁴⁷  you ⁴⁸ 

and convenes a court, ⁴⁹ 

then who can prevent ⁵⁰  him?

Ayub 12:22

12:22 He reveals the deep things of darkness,

and brings deep shadows ⁵¹  into the light.

Ayub 20:14

20:14 his food is turned sour ⁵²  in his stomach; ⁵³ 

it becomes the venom of serpents ⁵⁴  within him.

Ayub 20:20

20:20 For he knows no satisfaction in his appetite; ⁵⁵ 

he does not let anything he desires ⁵⁶  escape. ⁵⁷ 

Ayub 22:4

22:4 Is it because of your piety ⁵⁸  that he rebukes you

and goes to judgment with you? ⁵⁹ 

Ayub 38:32

38:32 Can you lead out

the constellations ⁶⁰  in their seasons,

or guide the Bear with its cubs? ⁶¹ 

Ayub 40:24

40:24 Can anyone catch it by its eyes, ⁶² 

or pierce its nose with a snare? ⁶³ 

Ayub 12:6

12:6 But ⁶⁴  the tents of robbers are peaceful,

and those who provoke God are confident ⁶⁵  –

who carry their god in their hands. ⁶⁶ 

Ayub 21:30

21:30 that the evil man is spared

from the day of his misfortune,

that he is delivered ⁶⁷ 

from the day of God’s wrath?

Ayub 37:19

37:19 Tell us what we should ⁶⁸  say to him.

We cannot prepare a case ⁶⁹ 

because of the darkness.

Ayub 1:18

1:18 While this one was still speaking another messenger arrived and said, “Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house,

Ayub 36:16

36:16 And surely, he drew you ⁷⁰  from the mouth of distress,

to a wide place, unrestricted, ⁷¹ 

and to the comfort ⁷²  of your table

filled with rich food. ⁷³ 

Ayub 42:11

42:11 So they came to him, all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they dined ⁷⁴  with him in his house. They comforted him and consoled him for all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver ⁷⁵  and a gold ring. ⁷⁶ 

[10:19]  ¹ sn This means “If only I had never come into existence.”

[30:23]  ² tn The imperfect verb would be a progressive imperfect, it is future, but it is also already underway.

[39:12]  ³ tn The word is normally translated “believe” in the Bible. The idea is that of considering something dependable and acting on it. The idea of reliability is found also in the Niphal stem usages.

[39:12]  ⁴ tc There is a textual problem here: יָשׁוּב (yashuv) is the Kethib, meaning “[that] he will return”; יָשִׁיב (yashiv) is the Qere, meaning “that he will bring in.” This is the preferred reading, since the object follows it. For commentators who think the line too unbalanced for this, the object is moved to the second colon, and the reading “returns” is taken for the first. But the MT is perfectly clear as it stands.

[39:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “your seed”; this must be interpreted figuratively for what the seed produces.

[39:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “gather it”; the referent (the grain) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[39:12]  ⁷ tn Simply, the MT has “and your threshing floor gather.” The “threshing floor” has to be an adverbial accusative of place.

[5:26]  ⁸ tn The word translated “in a full age” has been given an array of meanings: “health; integrity”; “like a new blade of corn”; “in your strength [or vigor].” The numerical value of the letters in the word בְכֶלָח (bÿkhelakh, “in old age”) was 2, 20, 30, and 8, or 60. This led some of the commentators to say that at 60 one would enter the ripe old age (E. Dhorme, Job, 73).

[18:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “from his tent, his security.” The apposition serves to modify the tent as his security.

[18:14]  ¹⁰ tn The verb is the Hiphil of צָעַד (tsa’ad, “to lead away”). The problem is that the form is either a third feminine (Rashi thought it was referring to Job’s wife) or the second person. There is a good deal of debate over the possibility of the prefix t- being a variant for the third masculine form. The evidence in Ugaritic and Akkadian is mixed, stronger for the plural than the singular. Gesenius has some samples where the third feminine form might also be used for the passive if there is no expressed subject (see GKC 459 §144.b), but the evidence is not strong. The simplest choices are to change the prefix to a י (yod), or argue that the ת (tav) can be masculine, or follow Gesenius.

[18:14]  ¹¹ sn This is a reference to death, the king of all terrors. Other identifications are made in the commentaries: Mot, the Ugaritic god of death; Nergal of the Babylonians; Molech of the Canaanites, the one to whom people sent emissaries.

[12:19]  ¹² tn Except for “priests,” the phraseology is identical to v. 17a.

[12:19]  ¹³ tn The verb has to be defined by its context: it can mean “falsify” (Exod 23:8), “make tortuous” (Prov 19:3), or “plunge” into misfortune (Prov 21:12). God overthrows those who seem to be solid.

[12:19]  ¹⁴ tn The original meaning of אֵיתָן (’eytan) is “perpetual.” It is usually an epithet for a torrent that is always flowing. It carries the connotations of permanence and stability; here applied to people in society, it refers to one whose power and influence does not change. These are the pillars of society.

[21:32]  ¹⁵ tn The verb says “he will watch.” The subject is unspecified, so the translation is passive.

[21:32]  ¹⁶ tn The Hebrew word refers to the tumulus, the burial mound that is erected on the spot where the person is buried.

[38:20]  ¹⁷ tn The suffixes are singular (“that you may take it to its border…to its home”), referring to either the light or the darkness. Because either is referred to, the translation has employed plurals, since singulars would imply that only the second item, “darkness,” was the referent. Plurals are also employed by NAB and NIV.

[12:17]  ¹⁸ tn The personal pronoun normally present as the subject of the participle is frequently omitted (see GKC 381 §119.s).

[12:17]  ¹⁹ tn GKC 361-62 §116.x notes that almost as a rule a participle beginning a sentence is continued with a finite verb with or without a ו (vav). Here the participle (“leads”) is followed by an imperfect (“makes fools”) after a ו (vav).

[12:17]  ²⁰ tn The word שׁוֹלָל (sholal), from the root שָׁלַל (shalal, “to plunder; to strip”), is an adjective expressing the state (and is in the singular, as if to say, “in the state of one naked” [GKC 375 §118.o]). The word is found in military contexts (see Mic 1:8). It refers to the carrying away of people in nakedness and shame by enemies who plunder (see also Isa 8:1-4). They will go away as slaves and captives, deprived of their outer garments. Some (cf. NAB) suggest “barefoot,” based on the LXX of Mic 1:8; but the meaning of that is uncertain. G. R. Driver wanted to derive the word from an Arabic root “to be mad; to be giddy,” forming a better parallel.

[12:17]  ²¹ sn The judges, like the counselors, are nobles in the cities. God may reverse their lot, either by captivity or by shame, and they cannot resist his power.

[12:17]  ²² tn Some translate this “makes mad” as in Isa 44:25, but this gives the wrong connotation today; more likely God shows them to be fools.

[28:11]  ²³ tc The translation “searched” follows the LXX and Vulgate; the MT reads “binds up” or “dams up.” This latter translation might refer to the damming of water that might seep into a mine (HALOT 289 s.v. חבשׁ; cf. ESV, NJPS, NASB, REB, NLT).

[28:11]  ²⁴ tc The older translations had “he binds the streams from weeping,” i.e., from trickling (מִבְּכִי, mibbÿkhi). But the Ugaritic parallel has changed the understanding, reading “toward the spring of the rivers” (`m mbk nhrm). Earlier than that discovery, the versions had taken the word as a noun as well. Some commentators had suggested repointing the Hebrew. Some chose מַבְּכֵי (mabbÿkhe, “sources”). Now there is much Ugaritic support for the reading (see G. M. Landes, BASOR 144 [1956]: 32f.; and H. L. Ginsberg, “The Ugaritic texts and textual criticism,” JBL 62 [1943]: 111).

[14:3]  ²⁵ tn Heb “open the eye on,” an idiom meaning to prepare to judge someone.

[14:3]  ²⁶ tn The verse opens with אַף־עַל־זֶה (’af-’al-zeh), meaning “even on such a one!” It is an exclamation of surprise.

[14:3]  ²⁷ tn The text clearly has “me” as the accusative; but many wish to emend it to say “him” (אֹתוֹ, ’oto). But D. J. A. Clines rightly rejects this in view of the way Job is written, often moving back and forth from his own tragedy and others’ tragedies (Job [WBC], 283).

[35:6]  ²⁸ tn Heb “him” (also in v. 7); the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[35:6]  ²⁹ tn See Job 7:20.

[15:12]  ³⁰ tn The interrogative מָה (mah) here has the sense of “why?” (see Job 7:21).

[15:12]  ³¹ tn The verb simply means “to take.” The RSV has “carry you away.” E. Dhorme (Job, 212-13) goes further, saying that it implies being unhinged by passion, to be carried away by the passions beyond good sense (pp. 212-13). Pope and Tur-Sinai suggest that the suffix on the verb is datival, and translate it, “What has taken from you your mind?” But the parallelism shows that “your heart” and “your eyes” are subjects.

[15:12]  ³² tn Here is another word that occurs only here, and in the absence of a completely convincing suggestion, probably should be left as it is. The verb is רָזַם (razam, “wink, flash”). Targum Job and the Syriac equate it with a verb found in Aramaic and postbiblical Hebrew with the same letters but metathesized – רָמַז (ramaz). It would mean “to make a sign” or “to wink.” Budde, following the LXX probably, has “Why are your eyes lofty?” Others follow an Arabic root meaning “become weak.”

[20:16]  ³³ tn The word is a homonym for the word for “head,” which has led to some confusion in the early versions.

[20:16]  ³⁴ sn To take the possessions of another person is hereby compared to sucking poison from a serpent – it will kill eventually.

[20:16]  ³⁵ tn Heb “tongue.”

[20:16]  ³⁶ tn Some have thought this verse is a gloss on v. 14 and should be deleted. But the word for “viper” (אֶפְעֶה, ’ef’eh) is a rare word, occurring only here and in Isa 30:6 and 59:5. It is unlikely that a rarer word would be used in a gloss. But the point is similar to v. 14 – the wealth that was greedily sucked in by the wicked proves to be their undoing. Either this is totally irrelevant to Job’s case, a general discussion, or the man is raising questions about how Job got his wealth.

[33:22]  ³⁷ tn Heb “his soul [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh, “life”] draws near.”

[33:22]  ³⁸ tn The MT uses the Hiphil participle, “to those who cause death.” This seems to be a reference to the belief in demons that brought about death, an idea not mentioned in the Bible itself. Thus many proposals have been made for this expression. Hoffmann and Budde divide the word into לְמוֹ מֵתִּים (lÿmo metim) and simply read “to the dead.” Dhorme adds a couple of letters to get לִמְקוֹם מֵתִּים (limqom metim, “to the place [or abode] of the dead”).

[36:27]  ³⁹ tn The verb means “to filter; to refine,” and so a plural subject with the drops of water as the subject will not work. So many read the singular, “he distills.”

[36:27]  ⁴⁰ tn This word עֵד (’ed) occurs also in Gen 2:6. The suggestion has been that instead of a mist it represents an underground watercourse that wells up to water the ground.

[37:9]  ⁴¹ tn The “driving winds” reflects the Hebrew “from the scatterers.” This refers to the north winds that bring the cold air and the ice and snow and hard rains.

[1:21]  ⁴² tn The adjective “naked” is functioning here as an adverbial accusative of state, explicative of the state of the subject. While it does include the literal sense of nakedness at birth, Job is also using it symbolically to mean “without possessions.”

[1:21]  ⁴³ sn While the first half of the couplet is to be taken literally as referring to his coming into this life, this second part must be interpreted only generally to refer to his departure from this life. It is parallel to 1 Tim 6:7, “For we have brought nothing into this world and so we cannot take a single thing out either.”

[1:21]  ⁴⁴ tn The two verbs are simple perfects. (1) They can be given the nuance of gnomic imperfect, expressing what the sovereign God always does. This is the approach taken in the present translation. Alternatively (2) they could be referring specifically to Job’s own experience: “Yahweh gave [definite past, referring to his coming into this good life] and Yahweh has taken away” [present perfect, referring to his great losses]. Many English versions follow the second alternative.

[1:21]  ⁴⁵ sn Some commentators are troubled by the appearance of the word “Yahweh” on the lips of Job, assuming that the narrator inserted his own name for God into the story-telling. Such thinking is based on the assumption that Yahweh was only a national god of Israel, unknown to anyone else in the ancient world. But here is a clear indication that a non-Israelite, Job, knew and believed in Yahweh.

[11:10]  ⁴⁶ tn The verb יַחֲלֹף (yakhalof) is literally “passes by/through” (NIV “comes along” in the sense of “if it should so happen”). Many accept the emendation to יַחְתֹּף (yakhtof, “he seizes,” cf. Gordis, Driver), but there is not much support for these.

[11:10]  ⁴⁷ tn The verb is the Hiphil of סָגַר (sagar, “to close; to shut”) and so here in this context it probably means something like “to shut in; to confine.” But this is a difficult meaning, and the sentence is cryptic. E. Dhorme (Job, 162) thinks this word and the next have to be antithetical, and so he suggests from a meaning “to keep confined” the idea of keeping a matter secret; and with the next verb, “to convene an assembly,” he offers “to divulge it.”

[11:10]  ⁴⁸ tn The pronoun “you” is not in the Hebrew text but has been supplied in the translation.

[11:10]  ⁴⁹ tn The denominative Hiphil of קָהָל (qahal, “an assembly”) has the idea of “to convene an assembly.” In this context there would be the legal sense of convening a court, i.e., calling Job to account (D. J. A. Clines, Job [WBC], 255). See E. Ullendorff, “The Meaning of QHLT,” VT 12 (1962): 215; he defines the verb also as “argue, rebuke.”

[11:10]  ⁵⁰ tn The verb means “turn him back.” Zophar uses Job’s own words (see 9:12).

[12:22]  ⁵¹ tn The Hebrew word is traditionally rendered “shadow of death” (so KJV, ASV); see comments at Job 3:3.

[20:14]  ⁵² tn The perfect verb in the apodosis might express the suddenness of the change (see S. R. Driver, Tenses in Hebrew, 204), or it might be a constative perfect looking at the action as a whole without reference to inception, progress, or completion (see IBHS 480-81 §30.1d). The Niphal perfect simply means “is turned” or “turns”; “sour is supplied in the translation to clarify what is meant.

[20:14]  ⁵³ tn The word is “in his loins” or “within him.” Some translate more specifically “bowels.”

[20:14]  ⁵⁴ sn Some commentators suggest that the ancients believed that serpents secreted poison in the gall bladder, or that the poison came from the gall bladder of serpents. In any case, there is poison (from the root “bitter”) in the system of the wicked person; it may simply be saying it is that type of poison.

[20:20]  ⁵⁵ tn Heb “belly,” which represents his cravings, his desires and appetites. The “satisfaction” is actually the word for “quiet; peace; calmness; ease.” He was driven by greedy desires, or he felt and displayed an insatiable greed.

[20:20]  ⁵⁶ tn The verb is the passive participle of the verb חָמַד (khamad) which is one of the words for “covet; desire.” This person is controlled by his desires; there is no escape. He is a slave.

[20:20]  ⁵⁷ tn The verb is difficult to translate in this line. It basically means “to cause to escape; to rescue.” Some translate this verb as “it is impossible to escape”; this may work, but is uncertain. Others translate the verb in the sense of saving something else: N. Sarna says, “Of his most cherished possessions he shall save nothing” (“The Interchange of the Preposition bet and min in Biblical Hebrew,” JBL 78 [1959]: 315-16). The RSV has “he will save nothing in which he delights”; NIV has “he cannot save himself by his treasure.”

[22:4]  ⁵⁸ tn The word “your fear” or “your piety” refers to Job’s reverence – it is his fear of God (thus a subjective genitive). When “fear” is used of religion, it includes faith and adoration on the positive side, fear and obedience on the negative.

[22:4]  ⁵⁹ sn Of course the point is that God does not charge Job because he is righteous; the point is he must be unrighteous.

[38:32]  ⁶⁰ tn The word מַזָּרוֹת (mazzarot) is taken by some to refer to the constellations (see 2 Kgs 23:5), and by others as connected to the word for “crown,” and so “corona.”

[38:32]  ⁶¹ sn See Job 9:9.

[40:24]  ⁶² tn The idea would be either (1) catch it while it is watching, or (2) in some way disabling its eyes before the attack. But others change the reading; Ball suggested “with hooks” and this has been adopted by some modern English versions (e.g., NRSV).

[40:24]  ⁶³ tn Ehrlich altered the MT slightly to get “with thorns,” a view accepted by Driver, Dhorme and Pope.

[12:6]  ⁶⁴ tn The verse gives the other side of the coin now, the fact that the wicked prosper.

[12:6]  ⁶⁵ tn The plural is used to suggest the supreme degree of arrogant confidence (E. Dhorme, Job, 171).

[12:6]  ⁶⁶ sn The line is perhaps best understood as describing one who thinks he is invested with the power of God.

[21:30]  ⁶⁷ tn The verb means “to be led forth.” To be “led forth in the day of trouble” means to be delivered.

[37:19]  ⁶⁸ tn The imperfect verb here carries the obligatory nuance, “what we should say?”

[37:19]  ⁶⁹ tn The verb means “to arrange; to set in order.” From the context the idea of a legal case is included.

[36:16]  ⁷⁰ tn The Hebrew verb means “to entice; to lure; to allure; to seduce,” but these have negative connotations. The English “to persuade; to draw” might work better. The verb is the Hiphil perfect of סוּת (sut). But the nuance of the verb is difficult. It can be equivalent to an English present expressing what God is doing (Peake). But the subject is contested as well. Since the verb usually has an evil connotation, there have been attempts to make the “plaza” the subject – “the wide place has led you astray” (Ewald).

[36:16]  ⁷¹ tn Heb “a broad place where there is no cramping beneath [or under] it.”

[36:16]  ⁷² tn The word נַחַת (nakhat) could be translated “set” if it is connected with the verb נוּחַ (nuakh, “to rest,” but then “to lay to rest, to set”). Kissane translates it “comfort.” Dhorme thinks it could come from נוּחַ (nuakh, “to rest”) or נָחַת (nakhat, “to descend”). But his conclusion is that it is a dittography after “under it” (p. 545).

[36:16]  ⁷³ tn Heb “filled with fat.”

[42:11]  ⁷⁴ tn Heb “ate bread.”

[42:11]  ⁷⁵ tn The Hebrew word קְשִׂיטָה (qÿsitah) is generally understood to refer to a unit of money, but the value is unknown.

[42:11]  sn The Hebrew word refers to a piece of silver, yet uncoined. It is the kind used in Gen 33:19 and Josh 24:32. It is what would be expected of a story set in the patriarchal age.

[42:11]  ⁷⁶ sn This gold ring was worn by women in the nose, or men and women in the ear.