19:7 “If 1 I cry out, 2 ‘Violence!’ 3
I receive no answer; 4
I cry for help,
but there is no justice.
19:8 He has blocked 5 my way so I cannot pass,
and has set darkness 6 over my paths.
1 tn The particle is used here as in 9:11 (see GKC 497 §159.w).
2 tc The LXX has “I laugh at reproach.”
3 tn The same idea is expressed in Jer 20:8 and Hab 1:2. The cry is a cry for help, that he has been wronged, that there is no justice.
4 tn The Niphal is simply “I am not answered.” See Prov 21:13b.
5 tn The verb גָּדַר (gadar) means “to wall up; to fence up; to block.” God has blocked Job’s way so that he cannot get through. See the note on 3:23. Cf. Lam 3:7.
6 tn Some commentators take the word to be חָשַׁךְ (hasak), related to an Arabic word for “thorn hedge.”