Ayub 6:29

6:29 Relent, ¹  let there be no falsehood; ² 

reconsider, ³  for my righteousness is intact! ⁴ 

Ayub 9:25

Renewed Complaint

9:25 “My days ⁵  are swifter than a runner, ⁶ 

they speed by without seeing happiness.

Ayub 12:10

12:10 in whose hand ⁷  is the life ⁸  of every creature

and the breath of all the human race. ⁹ 

Ayub 13:1

Job Pleads His Cause to God ¹⁰ 

13:1 “Indeed, my eyes have seen all this, ¹¹ 

my ears have heard and understood it.

Ayub 20:20

20:20 For he knows no satisfaction in his appetite; ¹² 

he does not let anything he desires ¹³  escape. ¹⁴ 

Ayub 26:5

A Better Description of God’s Greatness ¹⁵ 

26:5 “The dead ¹⁶  tremble ¹⁷  –

those beneath the waters

and all that live in them. ¹⁸ 

Ayub 26:7

26:7 He spreads out the northern skies ¹⁹  over empty space; ²⁰ 

he suspends the earth on nothing. ²¹ 

Ayub 28:10

28:10 He has cut out channels ²²  through the rocks;

his eyes have spotted ²³  every precious thing.

Ayub 28:21

28:21 For ²⁴  it has been hidden

from the eyes of every living creature,

and from the birds of the sky it has been concealed.

Ayub 28:23

28:23 God understands the way to it,

and he alone knows its place.

Ayub 30:17

30:17 Night pierces ²⁵  my bones; ²⁶ 

my gnawing pains ²⁷  never cease.

Ayub 31:37

31:37 I would give him an accounting of my steps;

like a prince I would approach him.

Ayub 33:13

33:13 Why do you contend against him,

that he does not answer all a person’s ²⁸  words?

Ayub 34:22

34:22 There is no darkness, and no deep darkness,

where evildoers can hide themselves. ²⁹ 

Ayub 36:5

36:5 Indeed, God is mighty; and he does not despise people, ³⁰ 

he ³¹  is mighty, and firm ³²  in his intent. ³³ 

Ayub 37:16

37:16 Do you know about the balancing ³⁴  of the clouds,

that wondrous activity of him who is perfect in knowledge?

Ayub 38:21

38:21 You know, for you were born before them; ³⁵ 

and the number of your days is great!

Ayub 39:8

39:8 It ranges the hills as its pasture,

and searches after every green plant.

Ayub 41:34

41:34 It looks on every haughty being;

it is king over all that are proud.” ³⁶ 

[6:29]  ¹ tn The Hebrew verb שֻׁבוּ (shuvu) would literally be “return.” It has here the sense of “to begin again; to adopt another course,” that is, proceed on another supposition other than my guilt (A. B. Davidson, Job, 49). The LXX takes the word from יָשַׁב (yashav, “sit, dwell”) reading “sit down now.”

[6:29]  ² tn The word עַוְלָה (’avlah) is sometimes translated “iniquity.” The word can mean “perversion, wickedness, injustice” (cf. 16:11). But here he means in regard to words. Unjust or wicked words would be words that are false and destroy.

[6:29]  ³ tn The verb here is also שֻׁבוּ (shuvu), although there is a Kethib-Qere reading. See R. Gordis, “Some Unrecognized Meanings of the Root Shub,” JBL 52 (1933): 153-62.

[6:29]  ⁴ tn The text has simply “yet my right is in it.” A. B. Davidson (Job, 49, 50) thinks this means that in his plea against God, Job has right on his side. It may mean this; it simply says “my righteousness is yet in it.” If the “in it” does not refer to Job’s cause, then it would simply mean “is present.” It would have very little difference either way.

[9:25]  ⁵ tn The text has “and my days” following the thoughts in the previous section.

[9:25]  ⁶ sn Job returns to the thought of the brevity of his life (7:6). But now the figure is the swift runner instead of the weaver’s shuttle.

[12:10]  ⁷ tn The construction with the relative clause includes a resumptive pronoun referring to God: “who in his hand” = “in whose hand.”

[12:10]  ⁸ tn The two words נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) and רוּחַ (ruakh) are synonymous in general. They could be translated “soul” and “spirit,” but “soul” is not precise for נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh), and so “life” is to be preferred. Since that is the case for the first half of the verse, “breath” will be preferable in the second part.

[12:10]  ⁹ tn Human life is made of “flesh” and “spirit.” So here the line reads “and the spirit of all flesh of man.” If the text had simply said “all flesh,” that would have applied to all flesh in which there is the breath of life (see Gen 6:17; 7:15). But to limit this to human beings requires the qualification with “man.”

[13:1]  ¹⁰ sn Chapter 13 records Job’s charges against his friends for the way they used their knowledge (1-5), his warning that God would find out their insincerity (6-12), and his pleading of his cause to God in which he begs for God to remove his hand from him and that he would not terrify him with his majesty and that he would reveal the sins that caused such great suffering (13-28).

[13:1]  ¹¹ tn Hebrew has כֹּל (kol, “all”); there is no reason to add anything to the text to gain a meaning “all this.”

[20:20]  ¹² tn Heb “belly,” which represents his cravings, his desires and appetites. The “satisfaction” is actually the word for “quiet; peace; calmness; ease.” He was driven by greedy desires, or he felt and displayed an insatiable greed.

[20:20]  ¹³ tn The verb is the passive participle of the verb חָמַד (khamad) which is one of the words for “covet; desire.” This person is controlled by his desires; there is no escape. He is a slave.

[20:20]  ¹⁴ tn The verb is difficult to translate in this line. It basically means “to cause to escape; to rescue.” Some translate this verb as “it is impossible to escape”; this may work, but is uncertain. Others translate the verb in the sense of saving something else: N. Sarna says, “Of his most cherished possessions he shall save nothing” (“The Interchange of the Preposition bet and min in Biblical Hebrew,” JBL 78 [1959]: 315-16). The RSV has “he will save nothing in which he delights”; NIV has “he cannot save himself by his treasure.”

[26:5]  ¹⁵ sn This is the section, Job 26:5-14, that many conclude makes better sense coming from the friend. But if it is attributed to Job, then he is showing he can surpass them in his treatise of the greatness of God.

[26:5]  ¹⁶ tn The text has הָרְפָאִים (harÿfa’im, “the shades”), referring to the “dead,” or the elite among the dead (see Isa 14:9; 26:14; Ps 88:10 [11]). For further discussion, start with A. R. Johnson, The Vitality of the Individual, 88ff.

[26:5]  ¹⁷ tn The verb is a Polal from חִיל (khil) which means “to tremble.” It shows that even these spirits cannot escape the terror.

[26:5]  ¹⁸ tc Most commentators wish to lengthen the verse and make it more parallel, but nothing is gained by doing this.

[26:7]  ¹⁹ sn The Hebrew word is צָפוֹן (tsafon). Some see here a reference to Mount Zaphon of the Ugaritic texts, the mountain that Baal made his home. The Hebrew writers often equate and contrast Mount Zion with this proud mountain of the north. Of course, the word just means north, and so in addition to any connotations for pagan mythology, it may just represent the northern skies – the stars. Since the parallel line speaks of the earth, that is probably all that was intended in this particular context.

[26:7]  ²⁰ sn There is an allusion to the creation account, for this word is תֹּהוּ (tohu), translated “without form” in Gen 1:2.

[26:7]  ²¹ sn Buttenwieser suggests that Job had outgrown the idea of the earth on pillars, and was beginning to see it was suspended in space. But in v. 11 he will still refer to the pillars.

[28:10]  ²² tn Or “tunnels.” The word is יְאֹרִים (yÿ’orim), the word for “rivers” and in the singular, the Nile River. Here it refers to tunnels or channels through the rocks.

[28:10]  ²³ tn Heb “his eye sees.”

[28:21]  ²⁴ tn The vav on the verb is unexpressed in the LXX. It should not be overlooked, for it introduces a subordinate clause of condition (R. Gordis, Job, 310).

[30:17]  ²⁵ tn The subject of the verb “pierces” can be the night (personified), or it could be God (understood), leaving “night” to be an adverbial accusative of time – “at night he pierces.”

[30:17]  ²⁶ tc The MT concludes this half-verse with “upon me.” That phrase is not in the LXX, and so many commentators delete it as making the line too long.

[30:17]  ²⁷ tn Heb “my gnawers,” which is open to several interpretations. The NASB and NIV take it as “gnawing pains”; cf. NRSV “the pain that gnaws me.” Some suggest worms in the sores (7:5). The LXX has “my nerves,” a view accepted by many commentators.

[33:13]  ²⁸ tc The MT has “all his words.” This must refer to “man” in the previous verse. But many wish to change it to “my words,” since it would be summarizing Job’s complaint to God.

[34:22]  ²⁹ tn The construction of this colon uses the Niphal infinitive construct from סָתַר (satar, “to be hidden; to hide”). The resumptive adverb makes this a relative clause in its usage: “where the evildoers can hide themselves.”

[36:5]  ³⁰ tn The object “people” is not in the Hebrew text but is implied.

[36:5]  ³¹ tn The text simply repeats “mighty.”

[36:5]  ³² tn The last two words are simply כֹּחַ לֵב (koakh lev, “strong in heart”), meaning something like “strong; firm in his decisions.”

[36:5]  ³³ tc There are several problems in this verse: the repetition of “mighty,” the lack of an object for “despise,” and the meaning of “strength of heart.” Many commentators reduce the verse to a single line, reading something like “Lo, God does not reject the pure in heart” (Kissane). Dhorme and Pope follow Nichols with: “Lo, God is mighty in strength, and rejects not the pure in heart.” This reading moved “mighty” to the first line and took the second to be בַּר (bar, “pure”).

[37:16]  ³⁴ tn As indicated by HALOT 618 s.v. מִפְלָשׂ, the concept of “balancing” probably refers to “floating” or “suspension” (cf. NIV’s “how the clouds hang poised” and J. E. Hartley, Job [NICOT], 481-82, n. 2).

[38:21]  ³⁵ tn The imperfect verb after the adverb אָז (’az, “then”) functions as a preterite: “you were born.” The line is sarcastic.

[41:34]  ³⁶ tn Heb “the sons of pride.” Dhorme repoints the last word to get “all the wild beasts,” but this misses the point of the verse. This animal looks over every proud creature – but he is king of them all in that department.