Job 15:32

15:32 Before his time ¹  he will be paid in full, ² 

and his branches will not flourish. ³ 

Job 8:11

8:11 Can the papyrus plant grow tall ⁴  where there is no marsh?

Can reeds flourish ⁵  without water?

Job 30:28

30:28 I go about blackened, ⁶  but not by the sun;

in the assembly I stand up and cry for help.

[15:32]  ¹ tn Heb “before his day.”

[15:32]  ² tn Those who put the last colon of v. 31 with v. 32 also have to change the verb תִּמָּלֵא (timmale’, “will be fulfilled”). E. Dhorme (Job, 225) says, “a mere glance at the use of yimmal…abundantly proves that the original text had timmal (G, Syr., Vulg), which became timmale’ through the accidental transposition of the ‘alep of bÿsi’o…in verse 31….” This, of course, is possible, if all the other changes up to now are granted. But the meaning of a word elsewhere in no way assures it should be the word here. The LXX has “his harvest shall perish before the time,” which could translate any number of words that might have been in the underlying Hebrew text. A commercial metaphor is not out of place here, since parallelism does not demand that the same metaphor appear in both lines.

[15:32]  ³ tn Now, in the second half of the verse, the metaphor of a tree with branches begins.

[8:11]  ⁴ sn H. H. Rowley observes the use of the words for plants that grow in Egypt and suspects that Bildad either knew Egypt or knew that much wisdom came from Egypt. The first word refers to papyrus, which grows to a height of six feet (so the verb means “to grow tall; to grow high”). The second word refers to the reed grass that grows on the banks of the river (see Gen 41:2, 18).

[8:11]  ⁵ tn The two verbs, גָּאָה (ga’ah) and שָׂגָה (sagah), have almost the same meanings of “flourish, grow, become tall.”

[30:28]  ⁷ tn The construction uses the word קֹדֵר (qoder) followed by the Piel perfect of הָלַךְ (halakh, “I go about”). The adjective “blackened” refers to Job’s skin that has been marred by the disease. Adjectives are often used before verbs to describe some bodily condition (see GKC 374-75 §118.n).