Ayub 33:15

33:15 In a dream, a night vision,

when deep sleep falls on people

as they sleep in their beds.

Ayub 20:8

20:8 Like a dream he flies away, never again to be found, ¹ 

and like a vision of the night he is put to flight.

Ayub 7:14

7:14 then you scare me ²  with dreams

and terrify ³  me with ⁴  visions,

Ayub 4:13

4:13 In the troubling thoughts ⁵  of the dreams ⁶  in the night

when a deep sleep ⁷  falls on men,

Ayub 7:13

7:13 If ⁸  I say, ⁹  “My bed will comfort me, ¹⁰ 

my couch will ease ¹¹  my complaint,”

Ayub 22:27

22:27 You will pray to him and he will hear you,

and you will fulfill your vows to him. ¹² 

[20:8]  ¹ tn Heb “and they do not find him.” The verb has no expressed subject, and so here is equivalent to a passive. The clause itself is taken adverbially in the sentence.

[7:14]  ² tn The Piel of חָתַת (khatat) occurs only here and in Jer 51:56 (where it is doubtful). The meaning is clearly “startle, scare.” The perfect verb with the ו (vav) is fitting in the apodosis of the conditional sentence.

[7:14]  sn Here Job is boldly saying that it is God who is behind the horrible dreams that he is having at night.

[7:14]  ³ tn The Piel of בָּעַת (ba’at, “terrify”) is one of the characteristic words in the book of Job; it occurs in 3:5; 9:34; 13:11, 21; 15:24; 18:11; and 33:7.

[7:14]  ⁴ tn The prepositions בּ (bet) and מִן (min) interchange here; they express the instrument of causality. See N. Sarna, “The Interchange of the Prepositions bet and min in Biblical Hebrew,” JBL 78 (1959): 310-16. Emphasis on the instruments of terror in this verse is highlighted by the use of chiasm in which the prepositional phrases comprise the central elements (ab//b’a’). Verse 18 contains another example.

[4:13]  ⁵ tn Here too the word is rare. The form שְׂעִפִּים (sÿ’ippim, “disquietings”) occurs only here and in 20:2. The form שַׂרְעַפִּים (sar’appim, “disquieting thoughts”), possibly related by dissimilation, occurs in Pss 94:19 and 139:23. There seems to be a connection with סְעִפִּים (sÿ’ippim) in 1 Kgs 18:21 with the meaning “divided opinion”; this is related to the idea of סְעִפָּה (sÿ’ippah, “bough”). H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 47) concludes that the point is that like branches the thoughts lead off into different and bewildering places. E. Dhorme (Job, 50) links the word to an Arabic root (“to be passionately smitten”) for the idea of “intimate thoughts.” The idea here and in Ps 139 has more to do with anxious, troubling, disquieting thoughts, as in a nightmare.

[4:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “visions” of the night.

[4:13]  ⁷ tn The word תַּרְדֵּמָה (tardemah) is a “deep sleep.” It is used in the creation account when the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam; and it is used in the story of Jonah when the prophet was asleep during the storm. The LXX interprets it to mean “fear,” rendering the whole verse “but terror falls upon men with dread and a sound in the night.”

[7:13]  ⁸ tn The particle כִּי (ki) could also be translated “when,” but “if” might work better to introduce the conditional clause and to parallel the earlier reasoning of Job in v. 4 (using אִם, ’im). See GKC 336-37 §112.hh.

[7:13]  ⁹ tn The verb literally means “say,” but here the connotation must be “think” or “say to oneself” – “when I think my bed….”

[7:13]  ¹⁰ sn Sleep is the recourse of the troubled and unhappy. Here “bed” is metonymical for sleep. Job expects sleep to give him the comfort that his friends have not.

[7:13]  ¹¹ tn The verb means “to lift up; to take away” (נָשָׂא, nasa’). When followed by the preposition בּ (bet) with the complement of the verb, the idea is “to bear a part; to take a share,” or “to share in the burden” (cf. Num 11:7). The idea then would be that the sleep would ease the complaint. It would not end the illness, but the complaining for a while.

[22:27]  ¹² tn The words “to him” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied.