9:11 If 1 he passes by me, I cannot see 2 him, 3
if he goes by, I cannot perceive him. 4
14:5 Since man’s days 5 are determined, 6
the number of his months is under your control; 7
you have set his limit 8 and he cannot pass it.
30:15 Terrors are turned loose 9 on me;
they drive away 10 my honor like the wind,
and like a cloud my deliverance has passed away.
34:20 In a moment they die, in the middle of the night, 11
people 12 are shaken 13 and they pass away.
The mighty are removed effortlessly. 14
37:21 But now, the sun 15 cannot be looked at 16 –
it is bright in the skies –
after a wind passed and swept the clouds away. 17
1 tn The NIV has “when” to form a temporal clause here. For the use of “if,” see GKC 497 §159.w.
2 tn The imperfect verbs in this verse are consistent with the clauses. In the conditional clauses a progressive imperfect is used, but in the following clauses the verbs are potential imperfects.
3 tn The pronoun “him” is supplied here; it is not in MT, but the Syriac and Vulgate have it (probably for translation purposes as well).
4 sn Like the mountains, Job knows that God has passed by and caused him to shake and tremble, but he cannot understand or perceive the reasons.
5 tn Heb “his days.”
6 tn The passive participle is from חָרַץ (kharats), which means “determined.” The word literally means “cut” (Lev 22:22, “mutilated”). E. Dhorme, (Job, 197) takes it to mean “engraved” as on stone; from a custom of inscribing decrees on tablets of stone he derives the meaning here of “decreed.” This, he argues, is parallel to the way חָקַק (khaqaq, “engrave”) is used. The word חֹק (khoq) is an “ordinance” or “statute”; the idea is connected to the verb “to engrave.” The LXX has “if his life should be but one day on the earth, and his months are numbered by him, you have appointed him for a time and he shall by no means exceed it.”
7 tn Heb “[is] with you.” This clearly means under God’s control.
8 tn The word חֹק (khoq) has the meanings of “decree, decision, and limit” (cf. Job 28:26; 38:10).
9 tn The passive singular verb (Hophal) is used with a plural subject (see GKC 388 §121.b).
10 tc This translation assumes that “terrors” (in the plural) is the subject. Others emend the text in accordance with the LXX, which has, “my hope is gone like the wind.”
13 tn Dhorme transposes “in the middle of the night” with “they pass away” to get a smoother reading. But the MT emphasizes the suddenness by putting both temporal ideas first. E. F. Sutcliffe leaves the order as it stands in the text, but adds a verb “they expire” after “in the middle of the night” (“Notes on Job, textual and exegetical,” Bib 30 [1949]: 79ff.).
14 tn R. Gordis (Job, 389) thinks “people” here mean the people who count, the upper class.
15 tn The verb means “to be violently agitated.” There is no problem with the word in this context, but commentators have made suggestions for improving the idea. The proposal that has the most to commend it, if one were inclined to choose a new word, is the change to יִגְוָעוּ (yigva’u, “they expire”; so Ball, Holscher, Fohrer, and others).
16 tn Heb “not by hand.” This means without having to use force.
17 tn The light here must refer to the sun in the skies that had been veiled by the storm. Then, when the winds blew the clouds away, it could not be looked at because it was so dazzling. Elihu’s analogy will be that God is the same – in his glory one cannot look at him or challenge him.
18 tn The verb has an indefinite subject, and so should be a passive here.
19 tn Heb “and cleaned them.” The referent is the clouds (v. 18), which has been supplied in the translation for clarity. There is another way of reading this verse: the word translated “bright” means “dark; obscured” in Syriac. In this interpretation the first line would mean that they could not see the sun, because it was darkened by the clouds, but then the wind came and blew the clouds away. Dhorme, Gray, and several others take it this way, as does the NAB.