9:18 He does not allow 1 me to recover 2 my breath,
for he fills 3 me with bitterness.
14:1 “Man, born of woman, 4
lives but a few days, 5 and they are full of trouble. 6
19:22 Why do you pursue me like God does? 7
Will you never be satiated with my flesh? 8
1 tn The verb נָתַן (natan) essentially means “to give”; but followed by the infinitive (without the ל [lamed] here) it means “to permit; to allow.”
2 tn The Hiphil of the verb means “to bring back”; with the object “my breath,” it means “get my breath” or simply “breathe.” The infinitive is here functioning as the object of the verb (see GKC 350 §114.m).
3 sn The meaning of the word is “to satiate; to fill,” as in “drink to the full, be satisfied.” Job is satiated – in the negative sense – with bitterness. There is no room for more.
4 tn The first of the threefold apposition for אָדָם (’adam, “man”) is “born of a woman.” The genitive (“woman”) after a passive participle denotes the agent of the action (see GKC 359 §116.l).
5 tn The second description is simply “[is] short of days.” The meaning here is that his life is short (“days” being put as the understatement for “years”).
6 tn The third expression is “consumed/full/sated – with/of – trouble/restlessness.” The latter word, רֹגֶז (rogez), occurred in Job 3:17; see also the idea in 10:15.
7 sn Strahan comments, “The whole tragedy of the book is packed into these extraordinary words.”
8 sn The idiom of eating the pieces of someone means “slander” in Aramaic (see Dan 3:8), Arabic and Akkadian.