21:8 Their children 1 are firmly established
in their presence, 2
their offspring before their eyes.
31:8 then let me sow 3 and let another eat,
and let my crops 4 be uprooted.
5:25 You will also know that your children 5 will be numerous,
and your descendants 6 like the grass of the earth.
27:14 If his children increase – it is for the sword! 7
His offspring never have enough to eat. 8
1 tn Heb “their seed.”
2 tn The text uses לִפְנֵיהֶם עִמָּם (lifnehem ’immam, “before them, with them”). Many editors think that these were alternative readings, and so omit one or the other. Dhorme moved עִמָּם (’immam) to the second half of the verse and emended it to read עֹמְדִים (’omÿdim, “abide”). Kissane and Gordis changed only the vowels and came up with עַמָּם (’ammam, “their kinfolk”). But Gordis thinks the presence of both of them in the line is evidence of a conflated reading (p. 229).
3 tn The cohortative is often found in the apodosis of the conditional clause (see GKC 320 §108.f).
4 tn The word means “what sprouts up” (from יָצָא [yatsa’] with the sense of “sprout forth”). It could refer metaphorically to children (and so Kissane and Pope), as well as in its literal sense of crops. The latter fits here perfectly.
5 tn Heb “your seed.”
6 tn The word means “your shoots” and is parallel to “your seed” in the first colon. It refers here (as in Isa 34:1 and 42:5) to the produce of the earth. Some commentators suggest that Eliphaz seems to have forgotten or was insensitive to Job’s loss of his children; H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 57) says his conventional theology is untouched by human feeling.
7 tn R. Gordis (Job, 294) identifies this as a breviloquence. Compare Ps 92:8 where the last two words also constitute the apodosis.
8 tn Heb “will not be satisfied with bread/food.”