[20:20] 1 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] 2 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] 3 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.”
[22:24] 4 tc The form is the imperative. Eliphaz is telling Job to get rid of his gold as evidence of his repentance. Many commentators think that this is too improbable for Eliphaz to have said, and that Job has lost everything anyway, and so they make proposals for the text. Most would follow Theodotion and the Syriac to read וְשָׁתָּ (vÿshatta, “and you will esteem….”). This would mean that he is promising Job restoration of his wealth.
[22:24] tn Heb “place.”
[22:24] 5 tn The word for “gold” is the rare בֶּצֶר (betser), which may be derived from a cognate of Arabic basara, “to see; to examine.” If this is the case, the word here would refer to refined gold. The word also forms a fine wordplay with בְצוּר (bÿtsur, “in the rock”).
[22:24] 6 tn The Hebrew text simply has “Ophir,” a metonymy for the gold that comes from there.
