Text -- Job 42:1-7 (NET)

Job’s Confession

42:1 Then Job answered the Lord: 42:2 “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted; 42:3 you asked, ‘Who is this who darkens counsel without knowledge?’ But I have declared without understanding things too wonderful for me to know. 42:4 You said, ‘Pay attention, and I will speak; I will question you, and you will answer me.’ 42:5 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye has seen you. 42:6 Therefore I despise myself, and I repent in dust and ashes!

VII. The Epilogue (42:7-17)

42:7 After the Lord had spoken these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My anger is stirred up against you and your two friends, because you have not spoken about me what is right, as my servant Job has.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Job 42:3

¹ tn The expression “you asked” is added here to clarify the presence of the line to follow. Many commentators delete it as a gloss from Job 38:2. If it is retained, then Job has to be recalling God’s question before he answers it.

² tn The word לָכֵן (lakhen) is simply “but,” as in Job 31:37.

³ tn Heb “and I do not understand.” The expression serves here in an adverbial capacity. It also could be subordinated as a complement: “I have declared [things that] I do not understand.”

⁴ tn The last clause is “and I do not know.” This is also subordinated to become a dependent clause.

NET Notes: Job 42:4

¹ tn This phrase, “you said,” is supplied in the translation to introduce the recollection of God’s words.

NET Notes: Job 42:5

¹ sn This statement does not imply there was a vision. He is simply saying that this experience of God was real and personal. In the past his knowledge of God was what he had heard – hearsay. This was real.

NET Notes: Job 42:6

¹ tn Or “despise what I said.” There is no object on the verb; Job could be despising himself or the things he said (see L. J. Kuyper, “Repentance of Job,” VT 9 [1959]: 91-94).

NET Notes: Job 42:7

¹ tn Heb “the Lord.” The title has been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

² tn Heb “is kindled.”

³ tn The form נְכוֹנָה (nÿkhonah) is from כּוּן (kun, “to be firm; to be fixed; to be established”). Here it means “the right thing” or “truth.” The Akkadian word kenu (from כּוּן, kun) connotes justice and truth.