7:13 If 1 I say, 2 “My bed will comfort me, 3
my couch will ease 4 my complaint,”
7:14 then you scare me 5 with dreams
and terrify 6 me with 7 visions,
17:12 These men 8 change 9 night into day;
they say, 10 ‘The light is near
in the face of darkness.’ 11
30:17 Night pierces 12 my bones; 13
my gnawing pains 14 never cease.
6:6 I am exhausted as I groan;
all night long I drench my bed in tears; 15
my tears saturate the cushion beneath me. 16
77:4 You held my eyelids open; 17
I was troubled and could not speak. 18
130:6 I yearn for the Lord, 19
more than watchmen do for the morning,
yes, more than watchmen do for the morning. 20
1 tn The particle כִּי (ki) could also be translated “when,” but “if” might work better to introduce the conditional clause and to parallel the earlier reasoning of Job in v. 4 (using אִם, ’im). See GKC 336-37 §112.hh.
2 tn The verb literally means “say,” but here the connotation must be “think” or “say to oneself” – “when I think my bed….”
3 sn Sleep is the recourse of the troubled and unhappy. Here “bed” is metonymical for sleep. Job expects sleep to give him the comfort that his friends have not.
4 tn The verb means “to lift up; to take away” (נָשָׂא, nasa’). When followed by the preposition בּ (bet) with the complement of the verb, the idea is “to bear a part; to take a share,” or “to share in the burden” (cf. Num 11:7). The idea then would be that the sleep would ease the complaint. It would not end the illness, but the complaining for a while.
5 tn The Piel of חָתַת (khatat) occurs only here and in Jer 51:56 (where it is doubtful). The meaning is clearly “startle, scare.” The perfect verb with the ו (vav) is fitting in the apodosis of the conditional sentence.
6 tn The Piel of בָּעַת (ba’at, “terrify”) is one of the characteristic words in the book of Job; it occurs in 3:5; 9:34; 13:11, 21; 15:24; 18:11; and 33:7.
7 tn The prepositions בּ (bet) and מִן (min) interchange here; they express the instrument of causality. See N. Sarna, “The Interchange of the Prepositions bet and min in Biblical Hebrew,” JBL 78 (1959): 310-16. Emphasis on the instruments of terror in this verse is highlighted by the use of chiasm in which the prepositional phrases comprise the central elements (ab//b’a’). Verse 18 contains another example.
8 tn The verse simply has the plural, “they change.” But since this verse seems to be a description of his friends, a clarification of the referent in the translation is helpful.
9 tn The same verb שִׂים (sim, “set”) is used this way in Isa 5:20: “…who change darkness into light.”
10 tn The rest of the verse makes better sense if it is interpreted as what his friends say.
11 tn This expression is open to alternative translations: (1) It could mean that they say in the face of darkness, “Light is near.” (2) It could also mean “The light is near the darkness” or “The light is nearer than the darkness.”
12 tn The subject of the verb “pierces” can be the night (personified), or it could be God (understood), leaving “night” to be an adverbial accusative of time – “at night he pierces.”
13 tc The MT concludes this half-verse with “upon me.” That phrase is not in the LXX, and so many commentators delete it as making the line too long.
14 tn Heb “my gnawers,” which is open to several interpretations. The NASB and NIV take it as “gnawing pains”; cf. NRSV “the pain that gnaws me.” Some suggest worms in the sores (7:5). The LXX has “my nerves,” a view accepted by many commentators.
15 tn Heb “I cause to swim through all the night my bed.”
16 tn Heb “with my tears my bed I flood/melt.”
17 tn Heb “you held fast the guards of my eyes.” The “guards of the eyes” apparently refers to his eyelids. The psalmist seems to be saying that God would not bring him relief, which would have allowed him to shut his eyes and get some sleep (see v. 2).
18 tn The imperfect is used in the second clause to emphasize that this was an ongoing condition in the past.
19 tn Heb “my soul for the master.”
20 tn Heb “more than watchmen for the morning, watchmen for the morning.” The words “yes, more” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.