30:29 I have become a brother to jackals
and a companion of ostriches. 1
30:30 My skin has turned dark on me; 2
my body 3 is hot with fever. 4
38:14 Like a swallow or a thrush I chirp,
I coo 5 like a dove;
my eyes grow tired from looking up to the sky. 6
O sovereign master, 7 I am oppressed;
help me! 8
1:8 For this reason I 9 will mourn and wail;
I will walk around barefoot 10 and without my outer garments. 11
I will howl 12 like a wild dog, 13
and screech 14 like an owl. 15
1 sn The point of this figure is that Job’s cries of lament are like the howls and screeches of these animals, not that he lives with them. In Job 39:13 the female ostrich is called “the wailer.”
2 tn The MT has “become dark from upon me,” prompting some editions to supply the verb “falls from me” (RSV, NRSV), or “peels” (NIV).
3 tn The word “my bones” may be taken as a metonymy of subject, the bony framework indicating the whole body.
4 tn The word חֹרֶב (khorev) also means “heat.” The heat in this line is not that of the sun, but obviously a fever.
5 tn Or “moan” (ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); KJV, CEV “mourn.”
6 tn Heb “my eyes become weak, toward the height.”
7 tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here and in v. 16 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).
8 tn Heb “stand surety for me.” Hezekiah seems to be picturing himself as a debtor who is being exploited; he asks that the Lord might relieve his debt and deliver him from the oppressive creditor.
9 tn The prophet is probably the speaker here.
10 tn Or “stripped.” The precise meaning of this Hebrew word is unclear. It may refer to walking barefoot (see 2 Sam 15:30) or to partially stripping oneself (see Job 12:17-19).
11 tn Heb “naked.” This probably does not refer to complete nudity, but to stripping off one’s outer garments as an outward sign of the destitution felt by the mourner.
12 tn Heb “I will make lamentation.”
13 tn Or “a jackal”; CEV “howling wolves.”
14 tn Heb “[make] a mourning.”
15 tn Or perhaps “ostrich” (cf. ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT).