21:10 Their bulls 1 breed 2 without fail; 3
their cows calve and do not miscarry.
21:14 So they say to God, ‘Turn away from us!
We do not want to 4 know your ways. 5
21:15 Who is the Almighty, that 6 we should serve him?
What would we gain
if we were to pray 7 to him?’ 8
30:11 Turn aside from the way,
stray off the path. 9
Remove from our presence the Holy One of Israel.” 10
1:28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, 16 God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done. 17
1 tn Heb “his bull,” but it is meant to signify the bulls of the wicked.
2 tn The verb used here means “to impregnate,” and not to be confused with the verb עָבַר (’avar, “to pass over”).
3 tn The use of the verb גָּעַר (ga’ar) in this place is interesting. It means “to rebuke; to abhor; to loathe.” In the causative stem it means “to occasion impurity” or “to reject as loathsome.” The rabbinic interpretation is that it does not emit semen in vain, and so the meaning is it does not fail to breed (see E. Dhorme, Job, 311; R. Gordis, Job, 229).
4 tn The absence of the preposition before the complement adds greater vividness to the statement: “and knowing your ways – we do not desire.”
5 sn Contrast Ps 25:4, which affirms that walking in God’s ways means to obey God’s will – the Torah.
6 tn The interrogative clause is followed by ki, similar to Exod 5:2, “Who is Yahweh, that I should obey him?”
7 tn The verb פָּגַע (paga’) means “to encounter; to meet,” but also “to meet with request; to intercede; to interpose.” The latter meaning is a derived meaning by usage.
8 tn The verse is not present in the LXX. It may be that it was considered too blasphemous and therefore omitted.
9 sn The imagery refers to the way or path of truth, as revealed by God to the prophet.
10 sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.
11 tn Grk “And behold, they cried out, saying.” The Greek word ἰδού (idou) has not been translated because it has no exact English equivalent here, but adds interest and emphasis (BDAG 468 s.v. 1). The participle λέγοντες (legontes) is redundant and has not been translated.
12 tn Grk “what to us and to you?” (an idiom). The phrase τί ἡμῖν καὶ σοί (ti Jhmin kai soi) is Semitic in origin, though it made its way into colloquial Greek (BDAG 275 s.v. ἐγώ). The equivalent Hebrew expression in the OT had two basic meanings: (1) When one person was unjustly bothering another, the injured party could say “What to me and to you?” meaning, “What have I done to you that you should do this to me?” (Judg 11:12, 2 Chr 35:21, 1 Kgs 17:18). (2) When someone was asked to get involved in a matter he felt was no business of his own, he could say to the one asking him, “What to me and to you?” meaning, “That is your business, how am I involved?” (2 Kgs 3:13, Hos 14:8). These nuances were apparently expanded in Greek, but the basic notions of defensive hostility (option 1) and indifference or disengagement (option 2) are still present. BDAG suggests the following as glosses for this expression: What have I to do with you? What have we in common? Leave me alone! Never mind! Hostility between Jesus and the demons is certainly to be understood in this context, hence the translation: “Leave us alone….”
13 sn There was an appointed time in which demons would face their judgment, and they seem to have viewed Jesus’ arrival on the scene as an illegitimate change in God’s plan regarding the time when their sentence would be executed.
14 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative. The Greek word ἰδού (idou) has not been translated because it has no exact English equivalent here, but adds interest and emphasis (BDAG 468 s.v. 1).
15 tn Or “city.”
16 tn Grk “and just as they did not approve to have God in knowledge.”
17 tn Grk “the things that are improper.”