Job 13:10-11

13:10 He would certainly rebuke ¹  you

if you secretly ²  showed partiality!

13:11 Would not his splendor ³  terrify ⁴  you

and the fear he inspires ⁵  fall on you?

Job 13:25

13:25 Do you wish to torment ⁶  a windblown ⁷  leaf

and chase after dry chaff? ⁸ 

Job 28:23

28:23 God understands the way to it,

and he alone knows its place.

[13:10]  ¹ tn The verbal idea is intensified with the infinitive absolute. This is the same verb used in v. 3; here it would have the sense of “rebuke, convict.”

[13:10]  ² sn The use of the word “in secret” or “secretly” suggests that what they do is a guilty action (31:27a).

[13:11]  ³ sn The word translated “his majesty” or “his splendor” (שְׂאֵתוֹ, sÿ’eto) forms a play on the word “show partiality” (תִּשָּׂאוּן, tissa’un) in the last verse. They are both from the verb נָשַׂא (nasa’, “to lift up”).

[13:11]  ⁴ tn On this verb in the Piel, see 7:14.

[13:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “His dread”; the suffix is a subjective genitive.

[13:25]  ⁵ tn The verb תַּעֲרוֹץ (ta’arots, “you torment”) is from עָרַץ (’arats), which usually means “fear; dread,” but can also mean “to make afraid; to terrify” (Isa 2:19,21). The imperfect is here taken as a desiderative imperfect: “why do you want to”; but it could also be a simple future: “will you torment.”

[13:25]  ⁶ tn The word נִדָּף (niddaf) is “driven” from the root נָדַף (nadaf, “drive”). The words “by the wind” or the interpretation “windblown” has to be added for the clarification. Job is comparing himself to this leaf (so an implied comparison, called hypocatastasis) – so light and insubstantial that it is amazing that God should come after him. Guillaume suggests that the word is not from this root, but from a second root נָדַף (nadaf), cognate to Arabic nadifa, “to dry up” (A. Guillaume, “A Note on Isaiah 19:7,” JTS 14 [1963]: 382-83). But as D. J. A. Clines notes (Job [WBC], 283), a dried leaf is a driven leaf – a point Guillaume allows as he says there is ambiguity in the term.

[13:25]  ⁷ tn The word קַשׁ (qash) means “chaff; stubble,” or a wisp of straw. It is found in Job 41:20-21 for that which is so worthless and insignificant that it is hardly worth mentioning. If dried up or withered, it too will be blown away in the wind.