10:9 Remember that you have made me as with 1 the clay;
will 2 you return me to dust?
11:16 For you 3 will forget your trouble; 4
you will remember it
like water that 5 has flowed away.
28:18 Of coral and jasper no mention will be made;
the price 6 of wisdom is more than pearls. 7
36:24 Remember to extol 8 his work,
which people have praised in song.
41:8 If you lay your hand on it,
you will remember 9 the fight,
and you will never do it again!
1 tn The preposition “like” creates a small tension here. So some ignore the preposition and read “clay” as an adverbial accusative of the material (GKC 371 §117.hh but cf. 379 §119.i with reference to beth essentiae: “as it were, by clay”). The NIV gets around the problem with a different meaning for the verb: “you molded me like clay.” Some suggest the meaning was “as [with] clay” (in the same manner that we have “as [in] the day of Midian” [Isa 9:4]).
2 tn The text has a conjunction: “and to dust….”
3 tn For a second time (see v. 13) Zophar employs the emphatic personal pronoun. Could he be providing a gentle reminder that Job might have forgotten the sin that has brought this trouble? After all, there will come a time when Job will not remember this time of trial.
4 sn It is interesting to note in the book that the resolution of Job’s trouble did not come in the way that Zophar prescribed it.
5 tn The perfect verb forms an abbreviated relative clause (without the pronoun) modifying “water.”
5 tn The word מֶשֶׁךְ (meshekh) comes from a root meaning “to grasp; to seize; to hold,” and so the derived noun means “grasping; acquiring; taking possession,” and therefore, “price” (see the discussion in R. Gordis, Job, 309). Gray renders it “acquisition” (so A. Cohen, AJSL 40 [1923/24]: 175).
6 tn In Lam 4:7 these are described as red, and so have been identified as rubies (so NIV) or corals.
7 tn The expression is “that you extol,” serving as an object of the verb.
9 tn The verse uses two imperatives which can be interpreted in sequence: do this, and then this will happen.