Ayub 19:23

Job’s Assurance of Vindication

19:23 “O that ¹  my words were written down,

O that they were written on a scroll, ² 

Ayub 22:25

22:25 then the Almighty himself will be your gold, ³ 

and the choicest ⁴  silver for you.

Ayub 37:8

37:8 The wild animals go to their lairs,

and in their dens they remain.

[19:23]  ¹ tn The optative is again expressed with the interrogative clause “Who will give that they be written?” Job wishes that his words be preserved long after his death.

[19:23]  ² tn While the sense of this line is clear, there is a small problem and a plausible solution. The last word is indeed סֶפֶר (sefer, “book”), usually understood here to mean “scroll.” But the verb that follows it in the verse is יֻחָקוּ (yukhaqu), from חָקַק (khaqaq, “to engrave; to carve”). While the meaning is clearly that Job wants his words to be retained, the idea of engraving in a book, although not impossible, is unusual. And so many have suggested that the Akkadian word siparru, “copper; brass,” is what is meant here (see Isa 30:8; Judg 5:14). The consonants are the same, and the vowel pattern is close to the original vowel pattern of this segholate noun. Writing on copper or bronze sheets has been attested from the 12th to the 2nd centuries, notably in the copper scroll, which would allow the translation “scroll” in our text (for more bibliography see D. J. A. Clines, Job [WBC], 432). But H. S. Gehman notes that in Phoenician our word can mean “inscription” (“SEÝFER, an inscription, in the book of Job,” JBL 63 [1944]: 303-7), making the proposed substitution unnecessary.

[22:25]  ³ tn The form for “gold” here is plural, which could be a plural of extension. The LXX and Latin versions have “The Almighty will be your helper against your enemies.”

[22:25]  ⁴ tn E. Dhorme (Job, 339) connects this word with an Arabic root meaning “to be elevated, steep.” From that he gets “heaps of silver.”