Ayub 3:22

3:22 who rejoice ¹  even to jubilation, ² 

and are exultant ³  when ⁴  they find the grave? ⁵ 

Ayub 8:3

8:3 Does God pervert ⁶  justice? ⁷ 

Or does the Almighty pervert ⁸  what is right?

Ayub 29:5

29:5 when the Almighty ⁹  was still with me

and my children were ¹⁰  around me;

[3:22]  ¹ tn Here too the form is the participle in apposition “to him who is in misery” in v. 20. It continues the description of those who are destitute and would be delighted to die.

[3:22]  ² tn The Syriac has “and gather themselves together,” possibly reading גִּיל (gil, “rejoicing”) as גַּל (gal, “heap”). Some have tried to emend the text to make the word mean “heap” or “mound,” as in a funerary mound. While one could argue for a heap of stones as a funerary mound, the passage has already spoken of digging a grave, which would be quite different. And while such a change would make a neater parallelism in the verse, there is no reason to force such; the idea of “jubilation” fits the tenor of the whole verse easily enough and there is no reason to change it. A similar expression is found in Hos 9:1, which says, “rejoice not, O Israel, with jubilation.” Here the idea then is that these sufferers would rejoice “to the point of jubilation” at death.

[3:22]  ³ tn This sentence also parallels an imperfect verb with the substantival participle of the first colon. It is translated as an English present tense.

[3:22]  ⁴ tn The particle could be “when” or “because” in this verse.

[3:22]  ⁵ sn The expression “when they find a grave” means when they finally die. The verse describes the relief and rest that the sufferer will obtain when the long-awaited death is reached.

[8:3]  ⁶ tn The Piel verb יְעַוֵּת (yÿ’avvet) means “to bend; to cause to swerve from the norm; to deviate; to pervert.” The LXX renders the first colon as “will the Lord be unjust when he judges?”

[8:3]  ⁷ tn The first word is מִשְׁפָּת (mishpat, “justice”). It can mean an act of judgment, place of judgment, or what is just, that is, the outcome of the decision. It basically describes an umpire’s decision. The parallel word is צֶדֶק (tsedeq, “righteousness,” or “what is right”). The basic idea here is that which conforms to the standard, what is right. See S. H. Scholnick, “The Meaning of Mishpat in the Book of Job,” JBL 101 (1982): 521-29.

[8:3]  ⁸ tn Some commentators think that the second verb should be changed in order to avoid the repetition of the same word and to reflect the different words in the versions. The suggestion is to read יְעַוֵּה (yÿ’avveh) instead; this would mean “to cause someone to deviate,” for the root means “to bend.” The change is completely unwarranted; the LXX probably chose different words for stylistic reasons (see D. J. A. Clines, Job [WBC], 198). The repetition in the Hebrew text is a common type; it strengthens the enormity of the charge Job seems to be making.

[29:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “Shaddai.”

[29:5]  ¹⁰ tc Some commentators suggest that עִמָּדִי (’immadi, “with me”) of the second colon of v. 6 (which is too long) belongs to the second colon of v. 5, and should be pointed as the verb עָמָדוּ (’amadu, “they stood”), meaning the boys stood around him (see, e.g., E. Dhorme, Job, 417). But as R. Gordis (Job, 319) notes, there is a purpose for the imbalance of the metric pattern at the end of a section.