Job 11:4

11:4 For you have said, ‘My teaching ¹  is flawless,

and I am pure in your sight.’

Job 22:29

22:29 When people are brought low ²  and you say

‘Lift them up!’ ³ 

then he will save the downcast; ⁴ 

Job 2:9

2:9 Then ⁵  his wife said to him, “Are you still holding firmly to your integrity? ⁶  Curse ⁷  God, and die!” ⁸ 

[11:4]  ¹ tn The word translated “teaching” is related etymologically to the Hebrew word “receive,” but that does not restrict the teaching to what is received.

[22:29]  ² tn There is no expressed subject here, and so the verb is taken as a passive voice again.

[22:29]  ³ tn The word גֵּוָה (gevah) means “loftiness; pride.” Here it simply says “up,” or “pride.” The rest is paraphrased. Of the many suggestions, the following provide a sampling: “It is because of pride” (ESV), “he abases pride” (H. H. Rowley); “[he abases] the lofty and the proud” (Beer); “[he abases] the word of pride” [Duhm]; “[he abases] the haughtiness of pride” [Fohrer and others]; “[he abases] the one who speaks proudly” [Weiser]; “[he abases] the one who boasts in pride” [Kissane]; and “God [abases] pride” [Budde, Gray].

[22:29]  ⁴ tn Or “humble”; Heb “the lowly of eyes.”

[2:9]  ³ tn The versions have some information here that is interesting, albeit fanciful. The Targum calls her “Dinah.” The LXX has “when a long time had passed.” But the whole rendering of the LXX is paraphrastic: “How long will you hold out, saying, ‘Behold, I wait yet a little while, expecting the hope of my deliverance?’ for behold, your memorial is abolished from the earth, even your sons and daughters, the pangs and pains of my womb which I bore in vain with sorrows, and you yourself sit down to spend the night in the open air among the corruption of worms, and I am a wanderer and a servant from place to place and house to house, waiting for the setting sun, that I may rest from my labors and pains that now beset me, but say some word against the Lord and die.”

[2:9]  ⁴ sn See R. D. Moore, “The Integrity of Job,” CBQ 45 (1983): 17-31. The reference of Job’s wife to his “integrity” could be a precursor of the conclusion reached by Elihu in 32:2 where he charged Job with justifying himself rather than God.

[2:9]  ⁵ tn The verb is literally בָּרַךְ, (barakh, “bless”). As in the earlier uses, the meaning probably has more to do with renouncing God than of speaking a curse. The actual word may be taken as a theological euphemism for the verb קִלֵּל (qillel, “curse”). If Job’s wife had meant that he was trying to justify himself rather than God, “bless God” might be translated “speak well of God,” the resolution accepted by God in 42:7-8 following Job’s double confession of having spoken wrongly of God (40:3-5; 42:1-6).

[2:9]  ⁶ tn The imperative with the conjunction in this expression serves to express the certainty that will follow as the result or consequence of the previous imperative (GKC 324-25 §110.f).