Imamat 26:37

26:37 They will stumble over each other as those who flee before a sword, though ¹  there is no pursuer, and there will be no one to take a stand ²  for you before your enemies.

Ayub 3:23

3:23 Why is light given ³  to a man ⁴ 

whose way is hidden, ⁵ 

and whom God has hedged in? ⁶ 

Yesaya 51:17

51:17 Wake up! Wake up!

Get up, O Jerusalem!

You drank from the cup the Lord passed to you,

which was full of his anger! ⁷ 

You drained dry

the goblet full of intoxicating wine. ⁸ 

Yeremia 23:12

23:12 So the paths they follow will be dark and slippery.

They will stumble and fall headlong.

For I will bring disaster on them.

A day of reckoning is coming for them.” ⁹ 

The Lord affirms it! ¹⁰ 

[26:37]  ¹ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) is used in a concessive sense here.

[26:37]  ² tn The term rendered “to stand up” is a noun, not an infinitive. It occurs only here and appears to designate someone who would take a powerful stand for them against their enemies.

[3:23]  ³ tn This first part of the verse, “Why is light given,” is supplied from the context. In the Hebrew text the verse simply begins with “to a man….” It is also in apposition to the construction in v. 20. But after so many qualifying clauses and phrases, a restatement of the subject (light, from v. 20) is required.

[3:23]  ⁴ sn After speaking of people in general (in the plural in vv. 21 and 22), Job returns to himself specifically (in the singular, using the same word גֶּבֶר [gever, “a man”] that he employed of himself in v. 3). He is the man whose way is hidden. The clear path of his former life has been broken off, or as the next clause says, hedged in so that he is confined to a life of suffering. The statement includes the spiritual perplexities that this involves. It is like saying that God is leading him in darkness and he can no longer see where he is going.

[3:23]  ⁵ tn The LXX translated “to a man whose way is hidden” with the vague paraphrase “death is rest to [such] a man.” The translators apparently combined the reference to “the grave” in the previous verse with “hidden”

[3:23]  ⁶ tn The verb is the Hiphil of סָכַךְ (sakhakh,“to hedge in”). The key parallel passage is Job 19:8, which says, “He has blocked [גָּדַר, gadar] my way so I cannot pass, and has set darkness over my paths.” To be hedged in is an implied metaphor, indicating that the pathway is concealed and enclosed. There is an irony in Job’s choice of words in light of Satan’s accusation in 1:10. It is heightened further when the same verb is employed by God in 38:8 (see F. I. Andersen, Job [TOTC], 109).

[51:17]  ⁷ tn Heb “[you] who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his anger.”

[51:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “the goblet, the cup [that causes] staggering, you drank, you drained.”

[23:12]  ⁹ tn For the last two lines see 11:23 and the notes there.

[23:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”