Ayub 4:7

4:7 Call to mind now: ¹ 

Who, ²  being innocent, ever perished? ³ 

And where were upright people ⁴  ever destroyed? ⁵ 

Ayub 22:27

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

and you will fulfill your vows to him. ⁶ 

Ayub 27:5

27:5 I will never ⁷  declare that you three ⁸  are in the right;

until I die, I will not set aside my integrity!

Ayub 27:17

27:17 what he stores up ⁹  a righteous man will wear,

and an innocent man will inherit his silver.

[4:7]  ¹ sn Eliphaz will put his thesis forward first negatively and then positively (vv. 8ff). He will argue that the suffering of the righteous is disciplinary and not for their destruction. He next will argue that it is the wicked who deserve judgment.

[4:7]  ² tn The use of the independent personal pronoun is emphatic, almost as an enclitic to emphasize interrogatives: “who indeed….” (GKC 442 §136.c).

[4:7]  ³ tn The perfect verb in this line has the nuance of the past tense to express the unique past – the uniqueness of the action is expressed with “ever” (“who has ever perished”).

[4:7]  ⁴ tn The adjective is used here substantivally. Without the article the word stresses the meaning of “uprightness.” Job will use “innocent” and “upright” together in 17:8.

[4:7]  ⁵ tn The Niphal means “to be hidden” (see the Piel in 6:10; 15:18; and 27:11); the connotation here is “destroyed” or “annihilated.”

[22:27]  ⁶ tn The words “to him” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied.

[27:5]  ⁷ tn The text uses חָלִילָה לִּי (khalilah li) meaning “far be it from me,” or more strongly, something akin to “sacrilege.”

[27:5]  ⁸ tn In the Hebrew text “you” is plural – a reference to Eliphaz, Zophar, and Bildad. To make this clear, “three” is supplied in the translation.

[27:17]  ⁹ tn The text simply repeats the verb from the last clause. It could be treated as a separate short clause: “He may store it up, but the righteous will wear it. But it also could be understood as the object of the following verb, “[what] he stores up the righteous will wear.” The LXX simply has, “All these things shall the righteous gain.”