Text -- Job 4:2 (NET)

4:2 “If someone should attempt a word with you, will you be impatient? But who can refrain from speaking?

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Job 4:2

¹ tn The verb has no expressed subject, and so may be translated with “one” or “someone.”

² tn The Piel perfect is difficult here. It would normally be translated “has one tried (words with you)?” Most commentaries posit a conditional clause, however.

³ tn The verb means “to be weary.” But it can have the extended sense of being either exhausted or impatient (see v. 5). A. B. Davidson (Job, 29) takes it in the sense of “will it be too much for you?” There is nothing in the sentence that indicates this should be an interrogative clause; it is simply an imperfect. But in view of the juxtaposition of the first part, this seems to make good sense. E. Dhorme (Job, 42) has “Shall we address you? You are dejected.”

⁴ tn The construction uses a noun with the preposition: “and to refrain with words – who is able?” The Aramaic plural of “words” (מִלִּין, millin) occurs 13 times in Job, with the Hebrew plural ten times. The commentaries show that Eliphaz’s speech had a distinctly Aramaic coloring to it.