Ayub 7:2

7:2 Like a servant ¹  longing for the evening shadow, ² 

and like a hired man looking ³  for his wages, ⁴ 

Ayub 11:19

11:19 You will lie down with ⁵  no one to make you afraid,

and many will seek your favor. ⁶ 

Ayub 14:18

14:18 But as ⁷  a mountain falls away and crumbles, ⁸ 

and as a rock will be removed from its place,

Ayub 15:33

15:33 Like a vine he will let his sour grapes fall, ⁹ 

and like an olive tree

he will shed his blossoms. ¹⁰ 

Ayub 16:21

16:21 and ¹¹  he contends with God on behalf of man

as a man ¹²  pleads ¹³  for his friend.

Ayub 18:14

18:14 He is dragged from the security of his tent, ¹⁴ 

and marched off ¹⁵  to the king ¹⁶  of terrors.

Ayub 22:26

22:26 Surely then you will delight yourself ¹⁷  in the Almighty,

and will lift up your face toward God.

Ayub 29:18

Job’s Confidence

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

my days as numerous as the grains of sand. ¹⁹ 

Ayub 35:10

35:10 But no one says, ‘Where is God, my Creator,

who gives songs in the night, ²⁰ 

[7:2]  ¹ tn This term עֶבֶד (’eved) is the servant or the slave. He is compelled to work through the day, in the heat; but he longs for evening, when he can rest from the slavery.

[7:2]  ² tn The expression יִשְׁאַף־צֵל (yish’af tsel, “longing for the evening shadow”) could also be taken as a relative clause (without the relative pronoun): “as a servant [who] longs for the evening shadow” (see GKC 487 §155.g). In either case, the expressions in v. 2 emphasize the point of the comparison, which will be summed up in v. 3.

[7:2]  ³ tn The two verbs in this verse stress the eager expectation and waiting. The first, שָׁאַף (sha’af), means “to long for; to desire”; and the second, קָוָה (qavah), has the idea of “to hope for; to look for; to wait.” The words would give the sense that the servant or hired man had the longing on his mind all day.

[7:2]  ⁴ tn The word פֹּעַל (po’al) means “work.” But here the word should be taken as a metonymy, meaning the pay for the work that he has done (compare Jer 22:13).

[11:19]  ⁵ tn The clause that reads “and there is no one making you afraid,” is functioning circumstantially here (see 5:4; 10:7).

[11:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “they will stroke your face,” a picture drawn from the domestic scene of a child stroking the face of the parent. The verb is a Piel, meaning “stroke, make soft.” It is used in the Bible of seeking favor from God (supplication); but it may on the human level also mean seeking to sway people by flattery. See further D. R. Ap-Thomas, “Notes on Some Terms Relating to Prayer,” VT 6 (1956): 225-41.

[14:18]  ⁷ tn The indication that this is a simile is to be obtained from the conjunction beginning 19c (see GKC 499 §161.a).

[14:18]  ⁸ tn The word יִבּוֹל (yibbol) usually refers to a flower fading and so seems strange here. The LXX and the Syriac translate “and will fall”; most commentators accept this and repoint the preceding word to get “and will surely fall.” Duhm retains the MT and applies the image of the flower to the falling mountain. The verb is used of the earth in Isa 24:4, and so NIV, RSV, and NJPS all have the idea of “crumble away.”

[15:33]  ⁹ tn The verb means “to treat violently” or “to wrong.” It indicates that the vine did not nourish the grapes well enough for them to grow, and so they dry up and drop off.

[15:33]  ¹⁰ sn The point is that like the tree the wicked man shows signs of life but produces nothing valuable. The olive tree will have blossoms in the years that it produces no olives, and so eventually drops the blossoms.

[16:21]  ¹¹ tn E. Dhorme (Job, 240) alters this slightly to read “Would that” or “Ah! if only.”

[16:21]  ¹² tn This is the simple translation of the expression “son of man” in Job. But some commentators wish to change the word בֵּן (ben, “son”) to בֵּין (ben, “between”). It would then be “[as] between a man and [for] his friend.” Even though a few mss have this reading, it is to be rejected. But see J. Barr, “Some Notes on ‘ben’ in Classical Hebrew,” JSS 23 (1978): 1-22.

[16:21]  ¹³ tn The verb is supplied from the parallel clause.

[18:14]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “from his tent, his security.” The apposition serves to modify the tent as his security.

[18:14]  ¹⁵ tn The verb is the Hiphil of צָעַד (tsa’ad, “to lead away”). The problem is that the form is either a third feminine (Rashi thought it was referring to Job’s wife) or the second person. There is a good deal of debate over the possibility of the prefix t- being a variant for the third masculine form. The evidence in Ugaritic and Akkadian is mixed, stronger for the plural than the singular. Gesenius has some samples where the third feminine form might also be used for the passive if there is no expressed subject (see GKC 459 §144.b), but the evidence is not strong. The simplest choices are to change the prefix to a י (yod), or argue that the ת (tav) can be masculine, or follow Gesenius.

[18:14]  ¹⁶ sn This is a reference to death, the king of all terrors. Other identifications are made in the commentaries: Mot, the Ugaritic god of death; Nergal of the Babylonians; Molech of the Canaanites, the one to whom people sent emissaries.

[22:26]  ¹⁷ tc This is the same verb as in Ps 37:4. G. R. Driver suggests the word comes from another root that means “abandon oneself to, depend on” (“Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 84).

[29:18]  ¹⁸ 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]  ¹⁹ 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.

[35:10]  ²⁰ tn There have been several attempts to emend the line, none of which are particularly helpful or interesting. H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 225) says, “It is a pity to rob Elihu of a poetic line when he creates one.”