21:4 Is my 1 complaint against a man? 2
If so, 3 why should I not be impatient? 4
21:5 Look 5 at me and be appalled;
put your hands over your mouths. 6
21:6 For, when I think 7 about this, I am terrified 8
and my body feels a shudder. 9
1 tn The addition of the independent pronoun at the beginning of the sentence (“Is it I / against a man / my complaint”) strengthens the pronominal suffix on “complaint” (see GKC 438 §135.f).
2 sn The point seems to be that if his complaint were merely against men he might expect sympathy from other men; but no one dares offer him sympathy when his complaint is against God. So he will give free expression to his spirit (H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 147).
3 tn On disjunctive interrogatives, see GKC 475 §150.g.
4 tn Heb “why should my spirit/breath not be short” (see Num 21:4; Judg 16:16).
5 tn The verb פְּנוּ (pÿnu) is from the verb “to turn,” related to the word for “face.” In calling for them to turn toward him, he is calling for them to look at him. But here it may be more in the sense of their attention rather than just a looking at him.
6 tn The idiom is “put a hand over a mouth,” the natural gesture for keeping silent and listening (cf. Job 29:9; 40:4; Mic 7:16).
7 tn The verb is זָכַר (zakhar, “to remember”). Here it has the sense of “to keep in memory; to meditate; to think upon.”
8 tn The main clause is introduced here by the conjunction, following the adverbial clause of time.
9 tn Some commentators take “shudder” to be the subject of the verb, “a shudder seizes my body.” But the word is feminine (and see the usage, especially in Job 9:6 and 18:20). It is the subject in Isa 21:4; Ps 55:6; and Ezek 7:18.