Job 13:20-28

13:20 Only in two things spare me, ¹  O God, ² 

and then I will not hide from your face:

13:21 Remove ³  your hand ⁴  far from me

and stop making me afraid with your terror. ⁵ 

13:22 Then call, ⁶  and I will answer,

or I will speak, and you respond to me.

13:23 How many are my ⁷  iniquities and sins?

Show me my transgression and my sin. ⁸ 

13:24 Why do you hide your face ⁹ 

and regard me as your enemy?

13:25 Do you wish to torment ¹⁰  a windblown ¹¹  leaf

and chase after dry chaff? ¹² 

13:26 For you write down ¹³  bitter things against me

and cause me to inherit the sins of my youth. ¹⁴ 

13:27 And you put my feet in the stocks ¹⁵ 

and you watch all my movements; ¹⁶ 

you put marks ¹⁷  on the soles of my feet.

13:28 So I ¹⁸  waste away like something rotten, ¹⁹ 

like a garment eaten by moths.

[13:20]  ¹ tn The line reads “do not do two things.”

[13:20]  ² tn “God” is supplied to the verse, for the address is now to him. Job wishes to enter into dispute with God, but he first appeals that God not take advantage of him with his awesome power.

[13:21]  ³ tn The imperative הַרְחַק (harkhaq, “remove”; GKC 98 §29.q), from רָחַק (rakhaq, “far, be far”) means “take away [far away]; to remove.”

[13:21]  ⁴ sn This is a common, but bold, anthropomorphism. The fact that the word used is כַּף (kaf, properly “palm”) rather than יָד (yad, “hand,” with the sense of power) may stress Job’s feeling of being trapped or confined (see also Ps 139:5, 7).

[13:21]  ⁵ tn See Job 9:34.

[13:22]  ⁶ tn The imperatives in the verse function like the future tense in view of their use for instruction or advice. The chiastic arrangement of the verb forms is interesting: imperative + imperfect, imperfect + imperative. The imperative is used for God, but the imperfect is used when Job is the subject. Job is calling for the court to convene – he will be either the defendant or the prosecutor.

[13:23]  ⁷ tn The pronoun “my” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied here in the translation.

[13:23]  ⁸ sn Job uses three words for sin here: “iniquities,” which means going astray, erring; “sins,” which means missing the mark or the way; and “transgressions,” which are open rebellions. They all emphasize different kinds of sins and different degrees of willfulness. Job is demanding that any sins be brought up. Both Job and his friends agree that great afflictions would have to indicate great offenses – he wants to know what they are.

[13:24]  ⁹ sn The anthropomorphism of “hide the face” indicates a withdrawal of favor and an outpouring of wrath (see Ps 30:7 [8]; Isa 54:8; Ps 27:9). Sometimes God “hides his face” to make himself invisible or aloof (see 34:29). In either case, if God covers his face it is because he considers Job an enemy – at least this is what Job thinks.

[13:25]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² 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.

[13:26]  ¹³ tn The meaning is that of writing down a formal charge against someone (cf. Job 31:15).

[13:26]  ¹⁴ sn Job acknowledges sins in his youth, but they are trifling compared to the suffering he now endures. Job thinks it unjust of God to persecute him now for those – if that is what is happening.

[13:27]  ¹⁵ tn The word occurs here and in Job 33:11. It could be taken as “stocks,” in which the feet were held fast; or it could be “shackles,” which allowed the prisoner to move about. The parallelism favors the latter, if the two lines are meant to be referring to the same thing.

[13:27]  ¹⁶ tn The word means “ways; roads; paths,” but it is used here in the sense of the “way” in which one goes about his activities.

[13:27]  ¹⁷ tn The verb תִּתְחַקֶּה (titkhaqqeh) is a Hitpael from the root חָקָה (khaqah, parallel to חָקַק, khaqaq). The word means “to engrave” or “to carve out.” This Hitpael would mean “to imprint something on oneself” (E. Dhorme [Job, 192] says on one’s mind, and so derives the meaning “examine.”). The object of this is the expression “on the roots of my feet,” which would refer to where the feet hit the ground. Since the passage has more to do with God’s restricting Job’s movement, the translation “you set a boundary to the soles of my feet” would be better than Dhorme’s view. The image of inscribing or putting marks on the feet is not found elsewhere. It may be, as Pope suggests, a reference to marking the slaves to make tracking them easier. The LXX has “you have penetrated to my heels.”

[13:28]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and he.” Some of the commentators move the verse and put it after Job 14:2, 3 or 6.

[13:28]  ¹⁹ tn The word רָקָב (raqav) is used elsewhere in the Bible of dry rot in a house, or rotting bones in a grave. It is used in parallelism with “moth” both here and in Hos 5:12. The LXX has “like a wineskin.” This would be from רֹקֶב (roqev, “wineskin”). This word does not occur in the Hebrew Bible, but is attested in Sir 43:20 and in Aramaic. The change is not necessary.