4:18 If 1 God 2 puts no trust in 3 his servants 4
and attributes 5 folly 6 to his angels,
19:8 He has blocked 7 my way so I cannot pass,
and has set darkness 8 over my paths.
34:14 If God 9 were to set his heart on it, 10
and gather in his spirit and his breath,
41:31 It makes the deep boil like a cauldron
and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment, 11
1 tn The particle הֵן (hen) introduces a conditional clause here, although the older translations used “behold.” The clause forms the foundation for the point made in the next verse, an argument by analogy – if this be true, then how much more/less the other.
2 tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
3 tn The verb יַאֲמִין (ya’amin), a Hiphil imperfect from אָמַן (’aman) followed by the preposition בּ (bet), means “trust in.”
4 sn The servants here must be angels in view of the parallelism. The Targum to Job interpreted them to be the prophets. In the book we have already read about the “sons of God” who take their stand as servants before the
5 tn The verb שִׂים (sim, “set”) with the preposition בּ (bet) has the sense of “impute” or “attribute something to someone.”
6 tn The word תָּהֳלָה (toholah) is a hapax legomenon, and so has created some confusion in the various translations. It seems to mean “error; folly.” The word is translated “perverseness” in the LXX; but Symmachus connects it with the word for “madness.” “Some commentators have repointed the word to תְּהִלָּה (tÿhillah, “praise”) making the line read: “he finds no [cause for] praise in his angels.” Others suggest תִּפְלָה (tiflah, “offensiveness, silliness”) a bigger change; this matches the idiom in Job 24:12. But if the etymology of the word is הָלַל (halal, “to be mad”) then that change is not necessary. The feminine noun “madness” still leaves the meaning of the line a little uncertain: “[if] he does not impute madness to his angels.” The point of the verse is that God finds flaws in his angels and does not put his trust in them.
7 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.
8 tn Some commentators take the word to be חָשַׁךְ (hasak), related to an Arabic word for “thorn hedge.”
13 tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
14 tc This is the reading following the Qere. The Kethib and the Syriac and the LXX suggest a reading יָשִׂים (yasim, “if he [God] recalls”). But this would require leaving out “his heart,” and would also require redividing the verse to make “his spirit” the object. It makes better parallelism, but may require too many changes.
19 sn The idea is either that the sea is stirred up like the foam from beating the ingredients together, or it is the musk-smell that is the point of comparison.