Text -- Job 7:1 (NET)

The Brevity of Life

7:1 “Does not humanity have hard service on earth? Are not their days also like the days of a hired man?

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Job 7:1

¹ tn The word צָבָא (tsava’) is actually “army”; it can be used for the hard service of military service as well as other toil. As a military term it would include the fixed period of duty (the time) and the hard work (toil). Job here is considering the lot of all humans, not just himself.

² tn The שָׂכִיר (sakhir) is a hired man, either a man who works for wages, or a mercenary soldier (Jer 46:21). The latter sense may be what is intended here in view of the parallelism, although the next verse seems much broader.