Ayub 32:3

32:3 With Job’s ¹  three friends he was also angry, because they could not find ²  an answer, and so declared Job guilty. ³ 

Ayub 33:27

33:27 That person sings ⁴  to others, ⁵  saying:

‘I have sinned and falsified what is right,

but I was not punished according to what I deserved. ⁶ 

[32:3]  ¹ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Job) has been specified in the translation to indicate whose friends they were.

[32:3]  ² tn The perfect verb should be given the category of potential perfect here.

[32:3]  ³ tc This is one of the eighteen “corrections of the scribes” (tiqqune sopherim); it originally read, “and they declared God [in the wrong].” The thought was that in abandoning the debate they had conceded Job’s point.

[33:27]  ⁴ tc The verb יָשֹׁר (yashor) is unusual. The typical view is to change it to יָשִׁיר (yashir, “he sings”), but that may seem out of harmony with a confession. Dhorme suggests a root שׁוּר (shur, “to repeat”), but this is a doubtful root. J. Reider reads it יָשֵׁיר (yasher) and links it to an Arabic word “confesses” (ZAW 24 [1953]: 275).

[33:27]  ⁵ tn Heb “to men.”

[33:27]  ⁶ tn The verb שָׁוָה (shavah) has the impersonal meaning here, “it has not been requited to me.” The meaning is that the sinner has not been treated in accordance with his deeds: “I was not punished according to what I deserved.”