Job 1:22

1:22 In all this Job did not sin, nor did he charge God with moral impropriety. ¹ 

Job 5:10

5:10 he gives ²  rain on the earth, ³ 

and sends ⁴  water on the fields; ⁵ 

Job 9:24

9:24 If a land ⁶  has been given

into the hand of a wicked man, ⁷ 

he covers ⁸  the faces of its judges; ⁹ 

if it is not he, then who is it? ¹⁰ 

Job 14:13

The Possibility of Another Life

14:13 “O that ¹¹  you would hide me in Sheol, ¹² 

and conceal me till your anger has passed! ¹³ 

O that you would set me a time ¹⁴ 

and then remember me! ¹⁵ 

Job 31:31

31:31 if ¹⁶  the members of my household ¹⁷  have never said, ¹⁸ 

‘If only there were ¹⁹  someone

who has not been satisfied from Job’s ²⁰  meat!’ –

Job 35:7

35:7 If you are righteous, what do you give to God,

or what does he receive from your hand?

Job 38:36

38:36 Who has put wisdom in the heart, ²¹ 

or has imparted understanding to the mind?

[1:22]  ¹ tn The last clause is difficult to translate. It simply reads, “and he did not give unseemliness to God.” The word תִּפְלָה (tiflah) means “unsavoriness” or “unseemliness” in a moral sense. The sense is that Job did not charge God with any moral impropriety in his dealings with him. God did nothing worthless or tasteless. The ancient versions saw the word connected with “foolishness” or “stupidity” (תָּפֵל, tafel, “to be tasteless”). It is possible that “folly” would capture some of what Job meant here. See also M. Dahood, “Hebrew-Ugaritic Lexicography XII,” Bib 55 (1974): 381-93.

[5:10]  ² tn Heb “who gives.” The participle continues the doxology here. But the article is necessary because of the distance between this verse and the reference to God.

[5:10]  ³ tn In both halves of the verse the literal rendering would be “upon the face of the earth” and “upon the face of the fields.”

[5:10]  ⁴ tn The second participle is simply coordinated to the first and therefore does not need the definite article repeated (see GKC 404 §126.b).

[5:10]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew term חוּצוֹת (khutsot) basically means “outside,” or what is outside. It could refer to streets if what is meant is outside the house; but it refers to fields here (parallel to the more general word) because it is outside the village. See Ps 144:13 for the use of the expression for “countryside.” The LXX gives a much wider interpretation: “what is under heaven.”

[9:24]  ³ tn Some would render this “earth,” meaning the whole earth, and having the verse be a general principle for all mankind. But Job may have in mind the more specific issue of individual land.

[9:24]  ⁴ sn The details of the verse are not easy to explain, but the meaning of the whole verse seems to be about the miscarriage of justice in the courts and the failure of God to do anything about it.

[9:24]  ⁵ tn The subject of the verb is God. The reasoning goes this way: it is the duty of judges to make sure that justice prevails, that restitution and restoration are carried through; but when the wicked gain control of the land of other people, and the judges are ineffective to stop it, then God must be veiling their eyes.

[9:24]  ⁶ sn That these words are strong, if not wild, is undeniable. But Job is only taking the implications of his friends’ speeches to their logical conclusion – if God dispenses justice in the world, and there is no justice, then God is behind it all. The LXX omitted these words, perhaps out of reverence for God.

[9:24]  ⁷ tn This seems to be a broken-off sentence (anacoluthon), and so is rather striking. The scribes transposed the words אֵפוֹא (’efo’) and הוּא (hu’) to make the smoother reading: “If it is not he, who then is it?”

[14:13]  ⁴ tn The optative mood is introduced here again with מִי יִתֵּן (mi yitten), literally, “who will give?”

[14:13]  ⁵ sn Sheol in the Bible refers to the place where the dead go. But it can have different categories of meaning: death in general, the grave, or the realm of the departed spirits [hell]. A. Heidel shows that in the Bible when hell is in view the righteous are not there – it is the realm of the departed spirits of the wicked. When the righteous go to Sheol, the meaning is usually the grave or death. See chapter 3 in A. Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and the Old Testament Parallels.

[14:13]  ⁶ tn The construction used here is the preposition followed by the infinitive construct followed by the subjective genitive, forming an adverbial clause of time.

[14:13]  ⁷ tn This is the same word used in v. 5 for “limit.”

[14:13]  ⁸ tn The verb זָכַר (zakhar) means more than simply “to remember.” In many cases, including this one, it means “to act on what is remembered,” i.e., deliver or rescue (see Gen 8:1, “and God remembered Noah”). In this sense, a prayer “remember me” is a prayer for God to act upon his covenant promises.

[31:31]  ⁵ tn Now Job picks up the series of clauses serving as the protasis.

[31:31]  ⁶ tn Heb “the men of my tent.” In context this refers to members of Job’s household.

[31:31]  ⁷ sn The line is difficult to sort out. Job is saying it is sinful “if his men have never said, ‘O that there was one who has not been satisfied from his food.’” If they never said that, it would mean there were people out there who needed to be satisfied with his food.

[31:31]  ⁸ tn The optative is again expressed with “who will give?”

[31:31]  ⁹ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Job) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[38:36]  ⁶ tn This verse is difficult because of the two words, טֻחוֹת (tukhot, rendered here “heart”) and שֶׂכְוִי (sekhvi, here “mind”). They have been translated a number of ways: “meteor” and “celestial appearance”; the stars “Procyon” and “Sirius”; “inward part” and “mind”; even as birds, “ibis” and “cock.” One expects them to have something to do with nature – clouds and the like. The RSV accordingly took them to mean “meteor” (from a verb “to wander”) and “a celestial appearance.” But these meanings are not well-attested.