Discovery BoxJob 10:5
Context10:5 Are your days like the days of a mortal,
or your years like the years 1 of a mortal,
Job 15:16
Context15:16 how much less man, who is abominable and corrupt, 2
who drinks in evil like water! 3
Job 19:10
Context19:10 He tears me down 4 on every side until I perish; 5
he uproots 6 my hope 7 like one uproots 8 a tree.
Job 38:3
Context38:3 Get ready for a difficult task 9 like a man;
I will question you
and you will inform me!
Job 40:7
Context40:7 “Get ready for a difficult task 10 like a man.
I will question you and you will inform me!
Job 40:15
Context40:15 “Look now at Behemoth, 12 which I made as 13 I made you;
it eats grass like the ox.
[10:5] 1 tn The Hebrew has repeated here “like the days of,” but some scholars think that this was an accidental replacement of what should be here, namely, “like the years of.” D. J. A. Clines notes that such repetition is not uncommon in Job, but suggests that the change should be made for English style even if the text is not emended (Job [WBC], 221). This has been followed in the present translation.
[15:16] 2 tn The two descriptions here used are “abominable,” meaning “disgusting” (a Niphal participle with the value of a Latin participle [see GKC 356-57 §116.e]), and “corrupt” (a Niphal participle which occurs only in Pss 14:3 and 53:4), always in a moral sense. On the significance of the first description, see P. Humbert, “Le substantif toáe„ba„ et le verbe táb dans l’Ancien Testament,” ZAW 72 [1960]: 217ff.). On the second word, G. R. Driver suggests from Arabic, “debauched with luxury, corrupt” (“Some Hebrew Words,” JTS 29 [1927/28]: 390-96).
[15:16] 3 sn Man commits evil with the same ease and facility as he drinks in water – freely and in large quantities.
[19:10] 3 tn The metaphors are changed now to a demolished building and an uprooted tree. The verb is נָתַץ (natats, “to demolish”). Since it is Job himself who is the object, the meaning cannot be “demolish” (as of a house so that an inhabitant has to leave), but more of the attack or the battering.
[19:10] 4 tn The text has הָלַךְ (halakh, “to leave”). But in view of Job 14:20, “perish” or “depart” would be a better meaning here.
[19:10] 5 tn The verb נָסַע (nasa’) means “to travel” generally, but specifically it means “to pull up the tent pegs and move.” The Hiphil here means “uproot.” It is used of a vine in Ps 80:9. The idea here does not contradict Job 14:7, for there the tree still had roots and so could grow.
[19:10] 6 tn The NEB has “my tent rope,” but that seems too contrived here. It is absurd to pull up a tent-rope like a tree.
[19:10] 7 tn Heb “like a tree.” The words “one uproots” are supplied in the translation for clarity.
[38:3] 4 tn Heb “Gird up your loins.” This idiom basically describes taking the hem of the long garment or robe and pulling it up between the legs and tucking it into the front of the belt, allowing easier and freer movement of the legs. “Girding the loins” meant the preparation for some difficult task (Jer 1:17), or for battle (Isa 5:27), or for running (1 Kgs 18:46). C. Gordon suggests that it includes belt-wrestling, a form of hand-to-hand mortal combat (“Belt-wrestling in the Bible World,” HUCA 23 [1950/51]: 136).
[40:7] 5 tn See note on “task” in 38:3.
[40:15] 6 sn The next ten verses are devoted to a portrayal of Behemoth (the name means “beast” in Hebrew). It does not fit any of the present material very well, and so many think the section is a later addition. Its style is more like that of a textbook. Moreover, if the animal is a real animal (the usual suggestion is the hippopotamus), then the location of such an animal is Egypt and not Palestine. Some have identified these creatures Behemoth and Leviathan as mythological creatures (Gunkel, Pope). Others point out that these creatures could have been dinosaurs (P. J. Maarten, NIDOTTE, 2:780; H. M. Morris, The Remarkable Record of Job, 115-22). Most would say they are real animals, but probably mythologized by the pagans. So the pagan reader would receive an additional impact from this point about God’s sovereignty over all nature.
[40:15] 7 sn By form the word is the feminine plural of the Hebrew word for “beast.” Here it is an abstract word – a title.
[40:15] 8 tn Heb “with you.” The meaning could be temporal (“when I made you”) – perhaps a reference to the sixth day of creation (Gen 1:24).
