Job 10:14

10:14 If I sinned, then you would watch me

and you would not acquit me of my iniquity.

Job 33:11

33:11 ¹ He puts my feet in shackles;

he watches closely all my paths.’

Job 10:12

10:12 You gave me ²  life and favor, ³ 

and your intervention ⁴  watched over my spirit.

Job 14:16

The Present Condition ⁵ 

14:16 “Surely now you count my steps; ⁶ 

then you would not mark ⁷  my sin. ⁸ 

Job 22:15

22:15 Will you keep to the old path ⁹ 

that evil men have walked –

Job 23:11

23:11 My feet ¹⁰  have followed ¹¹  his steps closely;

I have kept to his way and have not turned aside. ¹² 

Job 29:2

29:2 “O that I could be ¹³  as ¹⁴  I was

in the months now gone, ¹⁵ 

in the days ¹⁶  when God watched ¹⁷  over me,

Job 39:1

39:1 “Are you acquainted with the way ¹⁸ 

the mountain goats ¹⁹  give birth?

Do you watch as the wild deer give birth to their young?

Job 2:6

2:6 So the Lord said to Satan, “All right, ²⁰  he is ²¹  in your power; ²²  only preserve ²³  his life.”

Job 13:27

13:27 And you put my feet in the stocks ²⁴ 

and you watch all my movements; ²⁵ 

you put marks ²⁶  on the soles of my feet.

Job 24:15

24:15 And the eye of the adulterer watches for the twilight,

thinking, ²⁷  ‘No eye can see me,’

and covers his face with a mask.

Job 36:21

36:21 Take heed, do not turn to evil,

for because of this you have been tested ²⁸  by affliction.

[33:11]  ¹ sn See Job 13:27.

[10:12]  ¹ tn Heb “you made with me.”

[10:12]  ² tn E. Dhorme (Job, 150) suggests that the relation between these two words is like a hendiadys. In other words, “life,” which he says is made prominent by the shift of the copula, specifies the nature of the grace. He renders it “the favor of life.” D. J. A. Clines at least acknowledges that the expression “you showed loyal love with me” is primary. There are many other attempts to improve the translation of this unusual combination.

[10:12]  ³ tn The noun פְּקָָֻדּה (pÿquddah), originally translated “visitation,” actually refers to any divine intervention for blessing on the life. Here it would include the care and overseeing of the life of Job. “Providence” may be too general for the translation, but it is not far from the meaning of this line. The LXX has “your oversight.”

[14:16]  ¹ sn The hope for life after death is supported now by a description of the severity with which God deals with people in this life.

[14:16]  ² tn If v. 16a continues the previous series, the translation here would be “then” (as in RSV). Others take it as a new beginning to express God’s present watch over Job, and interpret the second half of the verse as a question, or emend it to say God does not pass over his sins.

[14:16]  ³ sn Compare Ps 130:3-4, which says, “If you should mark iniquity O Lord, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, in order that you might be feared.”

[14:16]  ⁴ tn The second colon of the verse can be contrasted with the first, the first being the present reality and the second the hope looked for in the future. This seems to fit the context well without making any changes at all.

[22:15]  ¹ tn The “old path” here is the way of defiance to God. The text in these two verses is no doubt making reference to the flood in Genesis, one of the perennial examples of divine judgment.

[23:11]  ¹ tn Heb “my foot.”

[23:11]  ² tn Heb “held fast.”

[23:11]  ³ tn The last clause, “and I have not turned aside,” functions adverbially in the sentence. The form אָט (’at) is a pausal form of אַתֶּה (’atteh), the Hiphil of נָטָה (natah, “stretch out”).

[29:2]  ¹ tn The optative is here expressed with מִי־יִתְּנֵנִי (mi-yittÿneni, “who will give me”), meaning, “O that I [could be]…” (see GKC 477 §151.b).

[29:2]  ² tn The preposition כּ (kaf) is used here in an expression describing the state desired, especially in the former time (see GKC 376 §118.u).

[29:2]  ³ tn The expression is literally “months of before [or of old; or past].” The word קֶדֶם (qedem) is intended here to be temporal and not spatial; it means days that preceded the present.

[29:2]  ⁴ tn The construct state (“days of”) governs the independent sentence that follows (see GKC 422 §130.d): “as the days of […] God used to watch over me.”

[29:2]  ⁵ tn The imperfect verb here has a customary nuance – “when God would watch over me” (back then), or “when God used to watch over me.”

[39:1]  ¹ tn The text uses the infinitive as the object: “do you know the giving birth of?”

[39:1]  ² tn Or “ibex.”

[2:6]  ¹ tn The particle הִנּוֹ (hinno) is literally, “here he is!” God presents Job to Satan, with the restriction on preserving Job’s life.

[2:6]  ² tn The LXX has “I deliver him up to you.”

[2:6]  ³ tn Heb “hand.”

[2:6]  ⁴ sn The irony of the passage comes through with this choice of words. The verb שָׁמַר (shamar) means “to keep; to guard; to preserve.” The exceptive clause casts Satan in the role of a savior – he cannot destroy this life but must protect it.

[13:27]  ¹ tn The word occurs here and in Job 33:11. It could be taken as “stocks,” in which the feet were held fast; or it could be “shackles,” which allowed the prisoner to move about. The parallelism favors the latter, if the two lines are meant to be referring to the same thing.

[13:27]  ² tn The word means “ways; roads; paths,” but it is used here in the sense of the “way” in which one goes about his activities.

[13:27]  ³ tn The verb תִּתְחַקֶּה (titkhaqqeh) is a Hitpael from the root חָקָה (khaqah, parallel to חָקַק, khaqaq). The word means “to engrave” or “to carve out.” This Hitpael would mean “to imprint something on oneself” (E. Dhorme [Job, 192] says on one’s mind, and so derives the meaning “examine.”). The object of this is the expression “on the roots of my feet,” which would refer to where the feet hit the ground. Since the passage has more to do with God’s restricting Job’s movement, the translation “you set a boundary to the soles of my feet” would be better than Dhorme’s view. The image of inscribing or putting marks on the feet is not found elsewhere. It may be, as Pope suggests, a reference to marking the slaves to make tracking them easier. The LXX has “you have penetrated to my heels.”

[24:15]  ¹ tn Heb “saying.”

[36:21]  ¹ tn Normally “tested” would be the translation for the Niphal of בָּחַר (bakhar). Although the Qal is employed here, the context favors “tested” rather than “chose.”