Job 13:27

13:27 And you put my feet in the stocks ¹ 

and you watch all my movements; ² 

you put marks ³  on the soles of my feet.

Job 14:3

14:3 Do you fix your eye ⁴  on such a one? ⁵ 

And do you bring me ⁶  before you for judgment?

Psalms 39:11

39:11 You severely discipline people for their sins; ⁷ 

like a moth you slowly devour their strength. ⁸ 

Surely all people are a mere vapor. (Selah)

Psalms 90:8-9

90:8 You are aware of our sins; ⁹ 

you even know about our hidden sins. ¹⁰ 

90:9 Yes, ¹¹  throughout all our days we experience your raging fury; ¹² 

the years of our lives pass quickly, like a sigh. ¹³ 

[13:27]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  ³ 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.”

[14:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “open the eye on,” an idiom meaning to prepare to judge someone.

[14:3]  ⁵ tn The verse opens with אַף־עַל־זֶה (’af-’al-zeh), meaning “even on such a one!” It is an exclamation of surprise.

[14:3]  ⁶ tn The text clearly has “me” as the accusative; but many wish to emend it to say “him” (אֹתוֹ, ’oto). But D. J. A. Clines rightly rejects this in view of the way Job is written, often moving back and forth from his own tragedy and others’ tragedies (Job [WBC], 283).

[39:11]  ⁷ tn “with punishments on account of sin you discipline a man.”

[39:11]  ⁸ tc Heb “you cause to dissolve, like a moth, his desired [thing].” The translation assumes an emendation of חֲמוּדוֹ (khamudo, “his desirable [thing]”) to חֶמְדוֹ (khemdo, “his loveliness” [or “beauty”]), a reading that is supported by a few medieval Hebrew mss.

[90:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “you set our sins in front of you.”

[90:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “what we have hidden to the light of your face.” God’s face is compared to a light or lamp that exposes the darkness around it.

[90:9]  ¹¹ tn Or “for.”

[90:9]  ¹² tn Heb “all our days pass by in your anger.”

[90:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “we finish our years like a sigh.” In Ezek 2:10 the word הֶגֶה (hegeh) elsewhere refers to a grumbling or moaning sound. Here a brief sigh or moan is probably in view. If so, the simile pictures one’s lifetime as transient. Another option is that the simile alludes to the weakness that characteristically overtakes a person at the end of one’s lifetime. In this case the phrase could be translated, “we end our lives with a painful moan.”