Job 13:22

13:22 Then call, ¹  and I will answer,

or I will speak, and you respond to me.

Job 14:15

14:15 You will call ²  and I ³  – I will answer you;

you will long for ⁴  the creature you have made. ⁵ 

Job 5:1

5:1 “Call now! ⁶  Is there anyone who will answer you? ⁷ 

To which of the holy ones ⁸  will you turn? ⁹ 

Job 9:16

9:16 If I summoned him, and he answered me, ¹⁰ 

I would not believe ¹¹ 

that he would be listening to my voice –

Job 17:14

17:14 If I cry ¹²  to corruption, ¹³  ‘You are my father,’

and to the worm, ‘My Mother,’ or ‘My sister,’

Job 19:16

19:16 I summon ¹⁴  my servant, but he does not respond,

even though I implore ¹⁵  him with my own mouth.

Job 27:10

27:10 Will he find delight ¹⁶  in the Almighty?

Will he call out to God at all times?

Job 12:4

12:4 I am ¹⁷  a laughingstock ¹⁸  to my friends, ¹⁹ 

I, who called on God and whom he answered ²⁰  –

a righteous and blameless ²¹  man

is a laughingstock!

Job 42:14

42:14 The first daughter he named Jemimah, ²²  the second Keziah, ²³  and the third Keren-Happuch. ²⁴ 

Job 1:4

1:4 Now his sons used to go ²⁵  and hold ²⁶  a feast in the house of each one in turn, ²⁷  and they would send and invite ²⁸  their three ²⁹  sisters to eat and to drink with them.

[13:22]  ¹ 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.

[14:15]  ² sn The idea would be that God would sometime in the future call Job into his fellowship again when he longed for the work of his hands (cf. Job 10:3).

[14:15]  ³ tn The independent personal pronoun is emphatic, as if to say, “and I on my part will answer.”

[14:15]  ⁴ tn The word כָּסַף (kasaf) originally meant “to turn pale.” It expresses the sentiment that causes pallor of face, and so is used for desire ardently, covet. The object of the desire is always introduced with the ל (lamed) preposition (see E. Dhorme, Job, 202).

[14:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “long for the work of your hands.”

[5:1]  ³ tn Some commentators transpose this verse with the following paragraph, placing it after v. 7 (see E. Dhorme, Job, 62). But the reasons for this are based on the perceived development of the argument and are not that compelling.

[5:1]  ⁴ tn The participle with the suffix could be given a more immediate translation to accompany the imperative: “Call now! Is anyone listening to you?”

[5:1]  ⁵ tn The LXX has rendered “holy ones” as “holy angels” (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT). The LXX has interpreted the verb in the colon too freely: “if you will see.”

[5:1]  ⁶ sn The point being made is that the angels do not represent the cries of people to God as if mediating for them. But if Job appealed to any of them to take his case against God, there would be no response whatsoever for that.

[9:16]  ⁴ sn The idea of “answer” in this line is that of responding to the summons, i.e., appearing in court. This preterite and the perfect before it have the nuance of hypothetical perfects since they are in conditional clauses (GKC 330 §111.x). D. J. A. Clines (Job [WBC], 219) translates literally, “If I should call and he should answer.”

[9:16]  ⁵ tn The Hiphil imperfect in the apodosis of this conditional sentence expresses what would (not) happen if God answered the summons.

[17:14]  ⁵ tn This is understood because the conditional clauses seem to run to the apodosis in v. 15.

[17:14]  ⁶ tn The word שַׁחַת (shakhat) may be the word “corruption” from a root שָׁחַת (shakhat, “to destroy”) or a word “pit” from שׁוּחַ (shuakh, “to sink down”). The same problem surfaces in Ps 16:10, where it is parallel to “Sheol.” E. F. Sutcliffe, The Old Testament and the Future Life, 76ff., defends the meaning “corruption.” But many commentators here take it to mean “the grave” in harmony with “Sheol.” But in this verse “worms” would suggest “corruption” is better.

[19:16]  ⁶ tn The verb קָרָא (qara’) followed by the ל (lamed) preposition means “to summon.” Contrast Ps 123:2.

[19:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “plead for grace” or “plead for mercy” (ESV).

[27:10]  ⁷ tn See the note on 22:26 where the same verb is employed.

[12:4]  ⁸ tn Some are troubled by the disharmony with “I am” and “to his friend.” Even though the difficulty is not insurmountable, some have emended the text. Some simply changed the verb to “he is,” which was not very compelling. C. D. Isbell argued that אֶהְיֶה (’ehyeh, “I am”) is an orthographic variant of יִהְיֶה (yihyeh, “he will”) – “a person who does not know these things would be a laughingstock” (JANESCU 37 [1978]: 227-36). G. R. Driver suggests the meaning of the MT is something like “(One that is) a mockery to his friend I am to be.”

[12:4]  ⁹ tn The word simply means “laughter”; but it can also mean the object of laughter (see Jer 20:7). The LXX jumps from one “laughter” to the next, eliminating everything in between, presumably due to haplography.

[12:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “his friend.” A number of English versions (e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT) take this collectively, “to my friends.”

[12:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “one calling to God and he answered him.” H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 92) contends that because Job has been saying that God is not answering him, these words must be part of the derisive words of his friends.

[12:4]  ¹² tn The two words, צַדִּיק תָּמִים (tsadiq tamim), could be understood as a hendiadys (= “blamelessly just”) following W. G. E. Watson (Classical Hebrew Poetry, 327).

[42:14]  ⁹ sn The Hebrew name Jemimah means “dove.”

[42:14]  ¹⁰ sn The Hebrew name Keziah means “cassia.”

[42:14]  ¹¹ sn The Hebrew name Keren-Happuch means “horn of eye-paint.”

[1:4]  ¹⁰ tn The perfect verb with the ו (vav), וְהָלְכוּ (vÿhalÿkhu, “they went”) indicates their characteristic action, actions that were frequently repeated (GKC 335-36 §112.dd).

[1:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “make a feast.”

[1:4]  ¹² tn The sense is cryptic; it literally says “house – a man – his day.” The word “house” is an adverbial accusative of place: “in the house.” “Man” is the genitive; it also has a distributive sense: “in the house of each man.” And “his day” is an adverbial accusative: “on his day.” The point is that they feasted every day of the week in rotation.

[1:4]  ¹³ tn The use of קָרָא (qara’, “to call, invite”) followed by the ל (lamed) usually has the force of “to summon.” Here the meaning would not be so commanding, but would refer to an invitation (see also 1 Kgs 1:19, 25, 26).

[1:4]  ¹⁴ tn Normally cardinal numerals tend to disagree in gender with the numbered noun. In v. 2 “three daughters” consists of the masculine numeral followed by the feminine noun. However, here “three sisters” consists of the feminine numeral followed by the feminine noun. The distinction appears to be that the normal disagreement between numeral and noun when the intent is merely to fix the number (3 daughters as opposed to 2 or 4 daughters). However, when a particular, previously known group is indicated, the numeral tends to agree with the noun in gender. A similar case occurs in Gen 3:13 (“three wives” of Noah’s sons).