Job 13:26-27

13:26 For you write down ¹  bitter things against me

and cause me to inherit the sins of my youth. ² 

13:27 And you put my feet in the stocks ³ 

and you watch all my movements; ⁴ 

you put marks ⁵  on the soles of my feet.

Job 14:16-17

The Present Condition ⁶ 

14:16 “Surely now you count my steps; ⁷ 

then you would not mark ⁸  my sin. ⁹ 

14:17 My offenses would be sealed up ¹⁰  in a bag; ¹¹ 

you would cover over ¹²  my sin.

Job 31:4

31:4 Does he not see my ways

and count all my steps?

Matthew 3:12

3:12 His winnowing fork ¹³  is in his hand, and he will clean out his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the storehouse, ¹⁴  but the chaff he will burn up with inextinguishable fire.” ¹⁵ 

[13:26]  ¹ tn The meaning is that of writing down a formal charge against someone (cf. Job 31:15).

[13:26]  ² 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]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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.”

[14:16]  ⁶ sn The hope for life after death is supported now by a description of the severity with which God deals with people in this life.

[14:16]  ⁷ tn If v. 16a continues the previous series, the translation here would be “then” (as in RSV). Others take it as a new beginning to express God’s present watch over Job, and interpret the second half of the verse as a question, or emend it to say God does not pass over his sins.

[14:16]  ⁸ sn Compare Ps 130:3-4, which says, “If you should mark iniquity O Lord, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, in order that you might be feared.”

[14:16]  ⁹ tn The second colon of the verse can be contrasted with the first, the first being the present reality and the second the hope looked for in the future. This seems to fit the context well without making any changes at all.

[14:17]  ¹⁰ tn The passive participle חָתֻם (khatum), from חָתַם (khatam, “seal”), which is used frequently in the Bible, means “sealed up.” The image of sealing sins in a bag is another of the many poetic ways of expressing the removal of sin from the individual (see 1 Sam 25:29). Since the term most frequently describes sealed documents, the idea here may be more that of sealing in a bag the record of Job’s sins (see D. J. A. Clines, Job [WBC], 334).

[14:17]  ¹¹ tn The idea has been presented that the background of putting tally stones in a bag is intended (see A. L. Oppenheim, “On an Operational Device in Mesopotamian Bureaucracy,” JNES 18 [1959]: 121-28).

[14:17]  ¹² tn This verb was used in Job 13:4 for “plasterers of lies.” The idea is probably that God coats or paints over the sins so that they are forgotten (see Isa 1:18). A. B. Davidson (Job, 105) suggests that the sins are preserved until full punishment is exacted. But the verse still seems to be continuing the thought of how the sins would be forgotten in the next life.

[3:12]  ¹³ sn A winnowing fork was a pitchfork-like tool used to toss threshed grain in the air so that the wind blew away the chaff, leaving the grain to fall to the ground. The note of purging is highlighted by the use of imagery involving sifting though threshed grain for the useful kernels.

[3:12]  ¹⁴ tn Or “granary,” “barn” (referring to a building used to store a farm’s produce rather than a building to house livestock).

[3:12]  ¹⁵ sn The image of fire that cannot be extinguished is from the OT: Job 20:26; Isa 34:8-10; 66:24.