Ayub 7:7

7:7 Remember ¹  that my life is but a breath,

that ²  my eyes will never again ³  see happiness.

Ayub 7:12

7:12 Am I the sea, or the creature of the deep, ⁴ 

that you must put ⁵  me under guard? ⁶ 

Ayub 8:19

8:19 Indeed, this is the joy of his way, ⁷ 

and out of the earth ⁸  others spring up. ⁹ 

Ayub 9:28

9:28 I dread ¹⁰  all my sufferings, ¹¹ 

for ¹²  I know that you do not hold me blameless. ¹³ 

Ayub 10:2

10:2 I will say to God, ‘Do not condemn ¹⁴  me;

tell me ¹⁵  why you are contending ¹⁶  with me.’

Ayub 18:21

18:21 ‘Surely such is the residence ¹⁷  of an evil man;

and this is the place of one who has not known God.’” ¹⁸ 

Ayub 21:20

21:20 Let his own eyes see his destruction; ¹⁹ 

let him drink of the anger of the Almighty.

Ayub 22:29-30

22:29 When people are brought low ²⁰  and you say

‘Lift them up!’ ²¹ 

then he will save the downcast; ²² 

22:30 he will deliver even someone who is not innocent, ²³ 

who will escape ²⁴  through the cleanness of your hands.”

Ayub 29:2

29:2 “O that I could be ²⁵  as ²⁶  I was

in the months now gone, ²⁷ 

in the days ²⁸  when God watched ²⁹  over me,

Ayub 30:8

30:8 Sons of senseless and nameless people, ³⁰ 

they were driven out of the land with whips. ³¹ 

Ayub 30:23

30:23 I know that you are bringing ³²  me to death,

to the meeting place for all the living.

Ayub 40:20

40:20 For the hills bring it food, ³³ 

where all the wild animals play.

[7:7]  ¹ sn Job is probably turning here to God, as is clear from v. 11 on. The NIV supplies the word “God” for clarification. It was God who breathed breath into man’s nostrils (Gen 2:7), and so God is called to remember that man is but a breath.

[7:7]  ² tn The word “that” is supplied in the translation.

[7:7]  ³ tn The verb with the infinitive serves as a verbal hendiadys: “return to see” means “see again.”

[7:12]  ⁴ tn The word תַּנִּין (tannin) could be translated “whale” as well as the more mythological “dragon” or “monster of the deep” (see E. Dhorme, Job, 105). To the Hebrews this was part of God’s creation in Gen 1; in the pagan world it was a force to be reckoned with, and so the reference would be polemical. The sea is a symbol of the tumultuous elements of creation; in the sea were creatures that symbolized the powerful forces of chaos – Leviathan, Tannin, and Rahab. They required special attention.

[7:12]  ⁵ tn The imperfect verb here receives the classification of obligatory imperfect. Job wonders if he is such a threat to God that God must do this.

[7:12]  ⁶ tn The word מִשְׁמָר (mishmar) means “guard; barrier.” M. Dahood suggested “muzzle” based on Ugaritic, but that has proven to be untenable (“Mismar, ‘Muzzle,’ in Job 7:12,” JBL 80 [1961]: 270-71).

[8:19]  ⁷ tn This line is difficult. If the MT stands as it is, the expression must be ironic. It would be saying that the joy (all the security and prosperity) of its way (its life) is short-lived – that is the way its joy goes. Most commentators are not satisfied with this. Dhorme, for one, changes מְשׂוֹשׂ (mÿsos, “joy”) to מְסוֹס (mÿsos, “rotting”), and gets “behold him lie rotting on the path.” The sibilants can interchange this way. But Dhorme thinks the MT was written the way it was because the word was thought to be “joy,” when it should have been the other way. The word “way” then becomes an accusative of place. The suggestion is rather compelling and would certainly fit the context. The difficulty is that a root סוּס (sus, “to rot”) has to be proposed. E. Dhorme does this by drawing on Arabic sas, “to be eaten by moths or worms,” thus “worm-eaten; decaying; rotting.” Cf. NIV “its life withers away”; also NAB “there he lies rotting beside the road.”

[8:19]  ⁸ tn Heb “dust.”

[8:19]  ⁹ sn As with the tree, so with the godless man – his place will soon be taken by another.

[9:28]  ¹⁰ tn The word was used in Job 3:25; it has the idea of “dread, fear, tremble at.” The point here is that even if Job changes his appearance, he still dreads the sufferings, because he knows that God is treating him as a criminal.

[9:28]  ¹¹ sn See Job 7:15; see also the translation by G. Perles, “I tremble in every nerve” (“The Fourteenth Edition of Gesenius-Buhl’s Dictionary,” JQR 18 [1905/06]: 383-90).

[9:28]  ¹² tn The conjunction “for” is supplied in the translation.

[9:28]  ¹³ sn A. B. Davidson (Job, 73) appropriately notes that Job’s afflictions were the proof of his guilt in the estimation of God. If God held him innocent, he would remove the afflictions.

[10:2]  ¹⁴ tn The negated jussive is the Hiphil jussive of רָשַׁע (rasha’); its meaning then would be literally “do not declare me guilty.” The negated jussive stresses the immediacy of the request.

[10:2]  ¹⁵ tn The Hiphil imperative of יָדַע (yada’) would more literally be “cause me to know.” It is a plea for God to help him understand the afflictions.

[10:2]  ¹⁶ tn The verb is רִיב (riv), meaning “to dispute; to contend; to strive; to quarrel” – often in the legal sense. The precise words chosen in this verse show that the setting is legal. The imperfect verb here is progressive, expressing what is currently going on.

[18:21]  ¹⁷ tn The term is in the plural, “the tabernacles”; it should be taken as a plural of local extension (see GKC 397 §124.b).

[18:21]  ¹⁸ tn The word “place” is in construct; the clause following it replaces the genitive: “this is the place of – he has not known God.”

[21:20]  ¹⁹ tc This word occurs only here. The word כִּיד (kid) was connected to Arabic kaid, “fraud, trickery,” or “warfare.” The word is emended by the commentators to other ideas, such as פִּיד (pid, “[his] calamity”). Dahood and others alter it to “cup”; Wright to “weapons.” A. F. L. Beeston argues for a meaning “condemnation” for the MT form, and so makes no change in the text (Mus 67 [1954]: 315-16). If the connection to Arabic “warfare” is sustained, or if such explanations of the existing MT can be sustained, then the text need not be emended. In any case, the sense of the line is clear.

[22:29]  ²⁰ tn There is no expressed subject here, and so the verb is taken as a passive voice again.

[22:29]  ²¹ tn The word גֵּוָה (gevah) means “loftiness; pride.” Here it simply says “up,” or “pride.” The rest is paraphrased. Of the many suggestions, the following provide a sampling: “It is because of pride” (ESV), “he abases pride” (H. H. Rowley); “[he abases] the lofty and the proud” (Beer); “[he abases] the word of pride” [Duhm]; “[he abases] the haughtiness of pride” [Fohrer and others]; “[he abases] the one who speaks proudly” [Weiser]; “[he abases] the one who boasts in pride” [Kissane]; and “God [abases] pride” [Budde, Gray].

[22:29]  ²² tn Or “humble”; Heb “the lowly of eyes.”

[22:30]  ²³ tc The Hebrew has אִי־נָקִי (’i naqi), which could be taken as “island of the innocent” (so Ibn-Ezra), or “him that is not innocent” (so Rashi). But some have changed אִי (’i) to אִישׁ (’ish, “the innocent man”). Others differ: A. Guillaume links אִי (’i) to Arabic ‘ayya “whosoever,” and so leaves the text alone. M. Dahood secures the same idea from Ugaritic, but reads it אֵי (’e).

[22:30]  ²⁴ tc The MT has “he will escape [or be delivered].” Theodotion has the second person, “you will be delivered.”

[29:2]  ²⁵ tn The optative is here expressed with מִי־יִתְּנֵנִי (mi-yittÿneni, “who will give me”), meaning, “O that I [could be]…” (see GKC 477 §151.b).

[29:2]  ²⁶ tn The preposition כּ (kaf) is used here in an expression describing the state desired, especially in the former time (see GKC 376 §118.u).

[29:2]  ²⁷ tn The expression is literally “months of before [or of old; or past].” The word קֶדֶם (qedem) is intended here to be temporal and not spatial; it means days that preceded the present.

[29:2]  ²⁸ tn The construct state (“days of”) governs the independent sentence that follows (see GKC 422 §130.d): “as the days of […] God used to watch over me.”

[29:2]  ²⁹ tn The imperfect verb here has a customary nuance – “when God would watch over me” (back then), or “when God used to watch over me.”

[30:8]  ³⁰ tn The “sons of the senseless” (נָבָל, naval) means they were mentally and morally base and defective; and “sons of no-name” means without honor and respect, worthless (because not named).

[30:8]  ³¹ tn Heb “they were whipped from the land” (cf. ESV) or “they were cast out from the land” (HALOT 697 s.v. נכא). J. E. Hartley (Job [NICOT], 397) follows Gordis suggests that the meaning is “brought lower than the ground.”

[30:23]  ³² tn The imperfect verb would be a progressive imperfect, it is future, but it is also already underway.

[40:20]  ³³ tn The word בּוּל (bul) probably refers to food. Many take it as an abbreviated form of יְבוּל (yÿvul, “produce of the field”). The vegetation that is produced on the low hills is what is meant.