Job 12:20

12:20 He deprives the trusted advisers ¹  of speech ² 

and takes away the discernment ³  of elders.

Job 15:12

15:12 Why ⁴  has your heart carried you away, ⁵ 

and why do your eyes flash, ⁶ 

Job 28:2

28:2 Iron is taken from the ground, ⁷ 

and rock is poured out ⁸  as copper.

Job 40:24

40:24 Can anyone catch it by its eyes, ⁹ 

or pierce its nose with a snare? ¹⁰ 

[12:20]  ¹ tn The Hebrew נֶאֱמָנִים (ne’emanim) is the Niphal participle; it is often translated “the faithful” in the Bible. The Rabbis rather fancifully took the word from נְאֻם (nÿ’um, “oracle, utterance”) and so rendered it “those who are eloquent, fluent in words.” But that would make this the only place in the Bible where this form came from that root or any other root besides אָמַן (’aman, “confirm, support”). But to say that God takes away the speech of the truthful or the faithful would be very difficult. It has to refer to reliable men, because it is parallel to the elders or old men. The NIV has “trusted advisers,” which fits well with kings and judges and priests.

[12:20]  ² tn Heb “he removes the lip of the trusted ones.”

[12:20]  ³ tn Heb “taste,” meaning “opinion” or “decision.”

[15:12]  ⁴ tn The interrogative מָה (mah) here has the sense of “why?” (see Job 7:21).

[15:12]  ⁵ tn The verb simply means “to take.” The RSV has “carry you away.” E. Dhorme (Job, 212-13) goes further, saying that it implies being unhinged by passion, to be carried away by the passions beyond good sense (pp. 212-13). Pope and Tur-Sinai suggest that the suffix on the verb is datival, and translate it, “What has taken from you your mind?” But the parallelism shows that “your heart” and “your eyes” are subjects.

[15:12]  ⁶ tn Here is another word that occurs only here, and in the absence of a completely convincing suggestion, probably should be left as it is. The verb is רָזַם (razam, “wink, flash”). Targum Job and the Syriac equate it with a verb found in Aramaic and postbiblical Hebrew with the same letters but metathesized – רָמַז (ramaz). It would mean “to make a sign” or “to wink.” Budde, following the LXX probably, has “Why are your eyes lofty?” Others follow an Arabic root meaning “become weak.”

[28:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “from dust.”

[28:2]  ⁸ tn The verb יָצוּק (yatsuq) is usually translated as a passive participle “is smelted” (from יָצַק [yatsaq, “to melt”]): “copper is smelted from the ore” (ESV) or “from the stone, copper is poured out” (as an imperfect from צוּק [tsuq]). But the rock becomes the metal in the process. So according to R. Gordis (Job, 304) the translation should be: “the rock is poured out as copper.” E. Dhorme (Job, 400), however, defines the form in the text as “hard,” and simply has it “hard stone becomes copper.”

[40:24]  ¹⁰ tn The idea would be either (1) catch it while it is watching, or (2) in some way disabling its eyes before the attack. But others change the reading; Ball suggested “with hooks” and this has been adopted by some modern English versions (e.g., NRSV).

[40:24]  ¹¹ tn Ehrlich altered the MT slightly to get “with thorns,” a view accepted by Driver, Dhorme and Pope.