17:6 He has made me 1 a byword 2 to people,
I am the one in whose face they spit. 3
36:20 Do not long for the cover of night
to drag people away from their homes. 4
1 tn The verb is the third person, and so God is likely the subject. The LXX has “you have made me.” So most commentators clarify the verb in some such way. However, without an expressed subject it can also be taken as a passive.
2 tn The word “byword” is related to the word translated “proverb” in the Bible (מָשָׁל, mashal). Job’s case is so well known that he is synonymous with afflictions and with abuse by people.
3 tn The word תֹפֶת (tofet) is a hapax legomenon. The expression is “and a spitting in/to the face I have become,” i.e., “I have become one in whose face people spit.” Various suggestions have been made, including a link to Tophet, but they are weak. The verse as it exists in the MT is fine, and fits the context well.
4 tn The meaning of this line is difficult. There are numerous suggestions for emending the text. Kissane takes the first verb in the sense of “oppress,” and for “the night” he has “belonging to you,” meaning “your people.” This reads: “Oppress not them that belong not to you, that your kinsmen may mount up in their place.”