Ayub 5:26

5:26 You will come to your grave in a full age, ¹ 

As stacks of grain are harvested in their season.

Ayub 7:19

7:19 Will you never ²  look away from me, ³ 

will you not let me alone ⁴ 

long enough to swallow my spittle?

Ayub 8:2

8:2 “How long will you speak these things, ⁵ 

seeing ⁶  that the words of your mouth

are like a great ⁷  wind? ⁸ 

Ayub 16:3

16:3 Will ⁹  there be an end to your ¹⁰  windy words? ¹¹ 

Or what provokes ¹²  you that you answer? ¹³ 

Ayub 20:11

20:11 His bones ¹⁴  were full of his youthful vigor, ¹⁵ 

but that vigor will lie down with him in the dust.

Ayub 29:18

Job’s Confidence

29:18 “Then I thought, ‘I will die in my own home, ¹⁶ 

my days as numerous as the grains of sand. ¹⁷ 

[5:26]  ¹ tn The word translated “in a full age” has been given an array of meanings: “health; integrity”; “like a new blade of corn”; “in your strength [or vigor].” The numerical value of the letters in the word בְכֶלָח (bÿkhelakh, “in old age”) was 2, 20, 30, and 8, or 60. This led some of the commentators to say that at 60 one would enter the ripe old age (E. Dhorme, Job, 73).

[7:19]  ² tn Heb “according to what [= how long] will you not look away from me.”

[7:19]  ³ tn The verb שָׁעָה (sha’ah, “to look”) with the preposition מִן (min) means “to look away from; to avert one’s gaze.” Job wonders if God would not look away from him even briefly, for the constant vigilance is killing him.

[7:19]  ⁴ tn The Hiphil of רָפָה (rafah) means “to leave someone alone.”

[8:2]  ⁵ sn “These things” refers to all of Job’s speech, the general drift of which seems to Bildad to question the justice of God.

[8:2]  ⁶ tn The second colon of the verse simply says “and a strong wind the words of your mouth.” The simplest way to treat this is to make it an independent nominal sentence: “the words of your mouth are a strong wind.” Some have made it parallel to the first by apposition, understanding “how long” to do double duty. The line beginning with the ו (vav) can also be subordinated as a circumstantial clause, as here.

[8:2]  ⁷ tn The word כַּבִּיר (kabbir, “great”) implies both abundance and greatness. Here the word modifies “wind”; the point of the analogy is that Job’s words are full of sound but without solid content.

[8:2]  ⁸ tn See, however, G. R. Driver’s translation, “the breath of one who is mighty are the words of your mouth” (“Hebrew Studies,” JRAS 1948: 170).

[16:3]  ⁹ tn Disjunctive questions are introduced with the sign of the interrogative; the second part is introduced with אוֹ (’o, see GKC 475 §150.g).

[16:3]  ¹⁰ tn In v. 3 the second person singular is employed rather than the plural as in vv. 2 and 4. The singular might be an indication that the words of v. 3 were directed at Eliphaz specifically.

[16:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “words of wind.”

[16:3]  ¹² tn The Hiphil of מָרַץ (marats) does not occur anywhere else. The word means “to compel; to force” (see 6:25).

[16:3]  ¹³ tn The LXX seems to have gone a different way: “What, is there any reason in vain words, or what will hinder you from answering?”

[20:11]  ¹⁴ tn “Bones” is often used metonymically for the whole person, the bones being the framework, meaning everything inside, as well as the body itself.

[20:11]  ¹⁵ sn This line means that he dies prematurely – at the height of his youthful vigor.

[29:18]  ¹⁶ tc The expression in the MT is “with my nest.” The figure is satisfactory for the context – a home with all the young together, a picture of unity and safety. In Isa 16:2 the word can mean “nestlings,” and with the preposition “with” that might be the meaning here, except that his children had grown up and lived in their own homes. The figure cannot be pushed too far. But the verse apparently has caused enormous problems, because the versions offer a variety of readings and free paraphrases. The LXX has “My age shall grow old as the stem of a palm tree, I shall live a long time.” The Vulgate has, “In my nest I shall die and like the palm tree increase my days.” G. R. Driver found an Egyptian word meaning “strength” (“Birds in the Old Testament,” PEQ 87 [1955]: 138-39). Several read “in a ripe old age” instead of “in my nest” (Pope, Dhorme; see P. P. Saydon, “Philological and Textual Notes to the Maltese Translation of the Old Testament,” CBQ 23 [1961]: 252). This requires the verb זָקַן (zaqan, “be old”), i.e., בִּזְקוּנַי (bizqunay, “in my old age”) instead of קִנִּי (qinni, “my nest”). It has support from the LXX.

[29:18]  ¹⁷ tc For חוֹל (khol, “sand”) the LXX has a word that is “like the palm tree,” but which could also be translated “like the phoenix” (cf. NAB, NRSV). This latter idea was developed further in rabbinical teaching (see R. Gordis, Job, 321). See also M. Dahood, “Nest and phoenix in Job 29:18,” Bib 48 (1967): 542-44. But the MT yields an acceptable sense here.