14:14 If a man dies, will he live again? 6
All the days of my hard service 7 I will wait 8
until my release comes. 9
39:5 Look, you make my days short-lived, 10
and my life span is nothing from your perspective. 11
Surely all people, even those who seem secure, are nothing but vapor. 12
39:6 Surely people go through life as mere ghosts. 13
Surely they accumulate worthless wealth
without knowing who will eventually haul it away.” 14
For the music director, Jeduthun; a psalm of David.
39:1 I decided, 16 “I will watch what I say
and make sure I do not sin with my tongue. 17
I will put a muzzle over my mouth
while in the presence of an evil man.” 18
1 tn Heb “the days of.”
2 tn Heb “sojournings.” Jacob uses a term that depicts him as one who has lived an unsettled life, temporarily residing in many different places.
3 tn Heb “the days of.”
4 tn The Hebrew word רַע (ra’) can sometimes mean “evil,” but that would give the wrong connotation here, where it refers to pain, difficulty, and sorrow. Jacob is thinking back through all the troubles he had to endure to get to this point.
5 tn Heb “and they have not reached the days of the years of my fathers in the days of their sojournings.”
6 tc The LXX removes the interrogative and makes the statement affirmative, i.e., that man will live again. This reading is taken by D. H. Gard (“The Concept of the Future Life according to the Greek Translator of the Book of Job,” JBL 73 [1954]: 137-38). D. J. A. Clines follows this, putting both of the expressions in the wish clause: “if a man dies and could live again…” (Job [WBC], 332). If that is the way it is translated, then the verbs in the second half of the verse and in the next verse would all be part of the apodosis, and should be translated “would.” The interpretation would not greatly differ; it would be saying that if there was life after death, Job would long for his release – his death. If the traditional view is taken and the question was raised whether there was life after death (the implication of the question being that there is), then Job would still be longing for his death. The point the line is making is that if there is life after death, that would be all the more reason for Job to eagerly expect, to hope for, his death.
7 tn See Job 7:1.
8 tn The verb אֲיַחֵל (’ayakhel) may be rendered “I will/would wait” or “I will/would hope.” The word describes eager expectation and longing hope.
9 tn The construction is the same as that found in the last verse: a temporal preposition עַד (’ad) followed by the infinitive construct followed by the subjective genitive “release/relief.” Due, in part, to the same verb (חָלַף, khalaf) having the meaning “sprout again” in v. 7, some take “renewal” as the meaning here (J. E. Hartley, Alden, NIV, ESV).
10 tn Heb “Look, handbreadths you make my days.” The “handbreadth” (equivalent to the width of four fingers) was one of the smallest measures used by ancient Israelites. See P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 (WBC), 309.
11 tn Heb “is like nothing before you.”
12 tn Heb “surely, all vapor [is] all mankind, standing firm.” Another option is to translate, “Surely, all mankind, though seemingly secure, is nothing but a vapor.”
13 tn Heb “surely, as an image man walks about.” The preposition prefixed to “image” indicates identity here.
14 tc Heb “Surely [in] vain they strive, he accumulates and does not know who gathers them.” The MT as it stands is syntactically awkward. The verb forms switch from singular (“walks about”) to plural (“they strive”) and then back to singular (“accumulates and does not know”), even though the subject (generic “man”) remains the same. Furthermore there is no object for the verb “accumulates” and no plural antecedent for the plural pronoun (“them”) attached to “gathers.” These problems can be removed if one emends the text from הֶבֶל יֶהֱמָיוּן (hevel yehemaun, “[in] vain they strive”) to הֶבְלֵי הָמוֹן (hevley hamon, “vain things of wealth”). This assumes a misdivision in the MT and a virtual dittography of vav (ו) between the mem and nun of המון. The present translation follows this emendation.
15 sn Psalm 39. The psalmist laments his frailty and mortality as he begs the Lord to take pity on him and remove his disciplinary hand.
16 tn Heb “I said.”
17 tn Heb “I will watch my ways, from sinning with my tongue.”
18 sn The psalmist wanted to voice a lament to the
19 tn The Greek phrase εἴς ὅ (eis Jo, “toward which”) implies “movement toward a goal” and has been rendered by the English phrase “Toward this goal.”
20 tn The prepositional phrase ἐν δυνάμει (en dunamei) seems to be functioning adverbially, related to the participle, and has therefore been translated “powerfully.”
21 tn Grk “who” (continuing the description of the people of v. 13). Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.
22 tn Or “you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.”
23 tn Or “a vapor.” The Greek word ἀτμίς (atmis) denotes a swirl of smoke arising from a fire (cf. Gen 19:28; Lev 16:13; Joel 2:30 [Acts 2:19]; Ezek 8:11).