Job 13:24-28

13:24 Why do you hide your face ¹ 

and regard me as your enemy?

13:25 Do you wish to torment ²  a windblown ³  leaf

and chase after dry chaff? ⁴ 

13:26 For you write down ⁵  bitter things against me

and cause me to inherit the sins of my youth. ⁶ 

13:27 And you put my feet in the stocks ⁷ 

and you watch all my movements; ⁸ 

you put marks ⁹  on the soles of my feet.

13:28 So I ¹⁰  waste away like something rotten, ¹¹ 

like a garment eaten by moths.

Job 16:9

16:9 His ¹²  anger has torn me ¹³  and persecuted ¹⁴  me;

he has gnashed at me with his teeth;

my adversary locks ¹⁵  his eyes on me.

Job 19:11

19:11 Thus ¹⁶  his anger burns against me,

and he considers me among his enemies. ¹⁷ 

Job 30:21

30:21 You have become cruel to me; ¹⁸ 

with the strength of your hand you attack me. ¹⁹ 

Lamentations 2:5

ה (He)

2:5 The Lord, ²⁰  like an enemy,

destroyed ²¹  Israel.

He destroyed ²²  all her palaces;

he ruined her ²³  fortified cities.

He made everyone in Daughter Judah

mourn and lament. ²⁴ 

Hosea 5:14

The Lion Will Carry Israel Off Into Exile

5:14 I will be like a lion to Ephraim,

like a young lion to the house of Judah.

I myself will tear them to pieces,

then I will carry them off, and no one will be able to rescue them!

[13:24]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn The meaning is that of writing down a formal charge against someone (cf. Job 31:15).

[13:26]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and he.” Some of the commentators move the verse and put it after Job 14:2, 3 or 6.

[13:28]  ¹¹ 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.

[16:9]  ¹² tn The referent of these pronouns in v. 9 (“his anger…he has gnashed…his teeth…his eyes”) is best taken as God.

[16:9]  ¹³ sn The figure used now is that of a wild beast. God’s affliction of Job is compared to the attack of such an animal. Cf. Amos 1:11.

[16:9]  ¹⁴ tn The verb שָׂטַם (satam) is translated “hate” in the RSV, but this is not accepted by very many. Many emend it to שָׁמט (shamat), reading “and he dropped me” (from his mouth). But that suggests escape. D. J. A. Clines notes that usage shows it reflects ongoing hatred represented by an action such as persecution or attack (Job [WBC], 370).

[16:9]  ¹⁵ tn The verb is used of sharpening a sword in Ps 7:12; here it means “to look intently” as an animal looks for prey. The verse describes God’s relentless pursuit of Job.

[19:11]  ¹⁶ tn The verb is a nonpreterite vayyiqtol perhaps employed to indicate that the contents of v. 11 are a logical sequence to the actions described in v. 10.

[19:11]  ¹⁷ tn This second half of the verse is a little difficult. The Hebrew has “and he reckons me for him like his adversaries.” Most would change the last word to a singular in harmony with the versions, “as his adversary.” But some retain the MT pointing and try to explain it variously: Weiser suggests that the plural might have come from a cultic recitation of Yahweh’s deeds against his enemies; Fohrer thinks it refers to the primeval enemies; Gordis takes it as distributive, “as one of his foes.” If the plural is retained, this latter view makes the most sense.

[30:21]  ¹⁸ tn The idiom uses the Niphal verb “you are turned” with “to cruelty.” See Job 41:20b, as well as Isa 63:10.

[30:21]  ¹⁹ tc The LXX reads this verb as “you scourged/whipped me.” But there is no reason to adopt this change.

[2:5]  ²⁰ tc The MT reads אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “the Lord”) here rather than יהוה (YHWH, “the Lord”). See the tc note at 1:14.

[2:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “swallowed up.”

[2:5]  ²² tn Heb “swallowed up.”

[2:5]  ²³ tn Heb “his.” For consistency this has been translated as “her.”

[2:5]  ²⁴ tn Heb “He increased in Daughter Judah mourning and lamentation.”