Genesis 47:9

47:9 Jacob said to Pharaoh, “All ¹  the years of my travels ²  are 130. All ³  the years of my life have been few and painful; ⁴  the years of my travels are not as long as those of my ancestors.” ⁵ 

Job 5:7

5:7 but people ⁶  are born ⁷  to trouble,

as surely as the sparks ⁸  fly ⁹  upward. ¹⁰ 

Job 14:1

The Brevity of Life

14:1 “Man, born of woman, ¹¹ 

lives but a few days, ¹²  and they are full of trouble. ¹³ 

Psalms 90:7-10

90:7 Yes, ¹⁴  we are consumed by your anger;

we are terrified by your wrath.

90:8 You are aware of our sins; ¹⁵ 

you even know about our hidden sins. ¹⁶ 

90:9 Yes, ¹⁷  throughout all our days we experience your raging fury; ¹⁸ 

the years of our lives pass quickly, like a sigh. ¹⁹ 

90:10 The days of our lives add up to seventy years, ²⁰ 

or eighty, if one is especially strong. ²¹ 

But even one’s best years are marred by trouble and oppression. ²² 

Yes, ²³  they pass quickly ²⁴  and we fly away. ²⁵ 

Psalms 90:15

90:15 Make us happy in proportion to the days you have afflicted us,

in proportion to the years we have experienced ²⁶  trouble!

Psalms 127:2

127:2 It is vain for you to rise early, come home late,

and work so hard for your food. ²⁷ 

Yes, ²⁸  he can provide for those whom he loves even when they sleep. ²⁹ 

[47:9]  ¹ tn Heb “the days of.”

[47:9]  ² tn Heb “sojournings.” Jacob uses a term that depicts him as one who has lived an unsettled life, temporarily residing in many different places.

[47:9]  ³ tn Heb “the days of.”

[47:9]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew word רַע (ra’) can sometimes mean “evil,” but that would give the wrong connotation here, where it refers to pain, difficulty, and sorrow. Jacob is thinking back through all the troubles he had to endure to get to this point.

[47:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “and they have not reached the days of the years of my fathers in the days of their sojournings.”

[5:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “man [is].” Because “man” is used in a generic sense for humanity here, the generic “people” has been used in the translation.

[5:7]  ⁷ tn There is a slight difficulty here in that vv. 6 and 7 seem to be saying the opposite thing. Many commentators, therefore, emend the the Niphal יוּלָּד (yullad, “is born”) to an active participle יוֹלֵד (yoled, “begets”) to place the source of trouble in man himself. But the LXX seems to retain the passive idea: “man is born to trouble.” The contrast between the two verses does not seem too difficult, for it still could imply that trouble’s source is within the man.

[5:7]  ⁸ tn For the Hebrew בְנֵי־רֶשֶׁף (bÿne reshef, “sons of the flame”) the present translation has the rendering “sparks.” E. Dhorme (Job, 62) thinks it refers to some kind of bird, but renders it “sons of the lightning” because the eagle was associated with lightning in ancient interpretations. Sparks, he argues, do not soar high above the earth. Other suggestions include Resheph, the Phoenician god of lightning (Pope), the fire of passion (Buttenwieser), angels (Peake), or demons (Targum Job). None of these are convincing; the idea of sparks flying upward fits the translation well and makes clear sense in the passage.

[5:7]  ⁹ tn The simple translation of the last two words is “fly high” or “soar aloft” which would suit the idea of an eagle. But, as H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 53) concludes, the argument to identify the expression preceding this with eagles is far-fetched.

[5:7]  ¹⁰ tn The LXX has the name of a bird here: “the vulture’s young seek the high places.” The Targum to Job has “sons of demons” or “the sparks which shoot from coals of fire.”

[14:1]  ¹¹ 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).

[14:1]  ¹² 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”).

[14:1]  ¹³ 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.

[90:7]  ¹⁴ tn Or “for.”

[90:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “you set our sins in front of you.”

[90:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “what we have hidden to the light of your face.” God’s face is compared to a light or lamp that exposes the darkness around it.

[90:9]  ¹⁷ tn Or “for.”

[90:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “all our days pass by in your anger.”

[90:9]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “we finish our years like a sigh.” In Ezek 2:10 the word הֶגֶה (hegeh) elsewhere refers to a grumbling or moaning sound. Here a brief sigh or moan is probably in view. If so, the simile pictures one’s lifetime as transient. Another option is that the simile alludes to the weakness that characteristically overtakes a person at the end of one’s lifetime. In this case the phrase could be translated, “we end our lives with a painful moan.”

[90:10]  ²⁰ tn Heb “the days of our years, in them [are] seventy years.”

[90:10]  ²¹ tn Heb “or if [there is] strength, eighty years.”

[90:10]  ²² tn Heb “and their pride [is] destruction and wickedness.” The Hebrew noun רֹהַב (rohav) occurs only here. BDB 923 s.v. assigns the meaning “pride,” deriving the noun from the verbal root רהב (“to act stormily [boisterously, arrogantly]”). Here the “pride” of one’s days (see v. 9) probably refers to one’s most productive years in the prime of life. The words translated “destruction and wickedness” are also paired in Ps 10:7. They also appear in proximity in Pss 7:14 and 55:10. The oppressive and abusive actions of evil men are probably in view (see Job 4:8; 5:6; 15:35; Isa 10:1; 59:4).

[90:10]  ²³ tn or “for.”

[90:10]  ²⁴ tn Heb “it passes quickly.” The subject of the verb is probably “their pride” (see the preceding line). The verb גּוּז (guz) means “to pass” here; it occurs only here and in Num 11:31.

[90:10]  ²⁵ sn We fly away. The psalmist compares life to a bird that quickly flies off (see Job 20:8).

[90:15]  ²⁶ tn Heb “have seen.”

[127:2]  ²⁷ tn Heb “[it is] vain for you, you who are early to rise, who delay sitting, who eat the food of hard work.” The three substantival participles are parallel and stand in apposition to the pronominal suffix on the preposition. See לָכֶם (lakhem, “for you”).

[127:2]  ²⁸ tn Here the Hebrew particle כֵּן (ken) is used to stress the following affirmation (see Josh 2:4; Ps 63:2).

[127:2]  ²⁹ tn Heb “he gives to his beloved, sleep.” The translation assumes that the Hebrew term שֵׁנָא (shena’, “sleep,” an alternate form of שֵׁנָה, shenah) is an adverbial accusative. The point seems to be this: Hard work by itself is not what counts, but one’s relationship to God, for God is able to bless an individual even while he sleeps. (There may even be a subtle allusion to the miracle of conception following sexual intercourse; see the reference to the gift of sons in the following verse.) The statement is not advocating laziness, but utilizing hyperbole to give perspective and to remind the addressees that God must be one’s first priority. Another option is to take “sleep” as the direct object: “yes, he gives sleep to his beloved” (cf. NIV, NRSV). In this case the point is this: Hard work by itself is futile, for only God is able to bless one with sleep, which metonymically refers to having one’s needs met. He blesses on the basis of one’s relationship to him, not on the basis of physical energy expended.