Job 13:1

Job Pleads His Cause to God ¹ 

13:1 “Indeed, my eyes have seen all this, ² 

my ears have heard and understood it.

Job 17:6

17:6 He has made me ³  a byword ⁴  to people,

I am the one in whose face they spit. ⁵ 

Job 23:12

23:12 I have not departed from the commands of his lips;

I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my allotted portion. ⁶ 

Job 28:22

28:22 Destruction ⁷  and Death say,

‘With our ears we have heard a rumor about where it can be found.’ ⁸ 

Job 33:14

Elihu Disagrees With Job’s View of God

33:14 “For God speaks, the first time in one way,

the second time in another,

though a person does not perceive ⁹  it.

Job 36:11

36:11 If they obey and serve him,

they live out their days in prosperity

and their years in pleasantness. ¹⁰ 

Job 37:4

37:4 After that a voice roars;

he thunders with an exalted voice,

and he does not hold back his lightning bolts ¹¹ 

when his voice is heard.

Job 42:5

42:5 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,

but now my eye has seen you. ¹² 

[13:1]  ¹ sn Chapter 13 records Job’s charges against his friends for the way they used their knowledge (1-5), his warning that God would find out their insincerity (6-12), and his pleading of his cause to God in which he begs for God to remove his hand from him and that he would not terrify him with his majesty and that he would reveal the sins that caused such great suffering (13-28).

[13:1]  ² tn Hebrew has כֹּל (kol, “all”); there is no reason to add anything to the text to gain a meaning “all this.”

[17:6]  ³ tn The verb is the third person, and so God is likely the subject. The LXX has “you have made me.” So most commentators clarify the verb in some such way. However, without an expressed subject it can also be taken as a passive.

[17:6]  ⁴ tn The word “byword” is related to the word translated “proverb” in the Bible (מָשָׁל, mashal). Job’s case is so well known that he is synonymous with afflictions and with abuse by people.

[17:6]  ⁵ tn The word תֹפֶת (tofet) is a hapax legomenon. The expression is “and a spitting in/to the face I have become,” i.e., “I have become one in whose face people spit.” Various suggestions have been made, including a link to Tophet, but they are weak. The verse as it exists in the MT is fine, and fits the context well.

[23:12]  ⁵ tc The form in the MT (מֵחֻקִּי, mekhuqqi) means “more than my portion” or “more than my law.” An expanded meaning results in “more than my necessary food” (see Ps 119:11; cf. KJV, NASB, ESV). HALOT 346 s.v. חֹק 1 indicates that חֹק (khoq) has the meaning of “portion” and is here a reference to “what is appointed for me.” The LXX and the Latin versions, along with many commentators, have בְּחֵקִי (bÿkheqi, “in my bosom”).

[28:22]  ⁷ tn Heb “Abaddon.”

[28:22]  ⁸ tn Heb “heard a report of it,” which means a report of its location, thus “where it can be found.”

[33:14]  ⁹ tn The Syriac and the Vulgate have “and he does not repeat it,” a reading of the text as it is, according to E. Dhorme (Job, 403). But his argument is based on another root with this meaning – a root which does not exist (see L. Dennefeld, RB 48 [1939]: 175). The verse is saying that God does speak to man.

[36:11]  ¹¹ tc Some commentators delete this last line for metrical considerations. But there is no textual evidence for the deletion; it is simply the attempt by some to make the meter rigid.

[37:4]  ¹³ tn The verb simply has the pronominal suffix, “them.” The idea must be that when God brings in all the thunderings he does not hold back his lightning bolts either.

[42:5]  ¹⁵ sn This statement does not imply there was a vision. He is simply saying that this experience of God was real and personal. In the past his knowledge of God was what he had heard – hearsay. This was real.