Job 17:3

17:3 Make then my pledge ¹  with you.

Who else will put up security for me? ² 

Job 27:19

27:19 He goes to bed wealthy, but will do so no more. ³ 

When he opens his eyes, it is all gone. ⁴ 

Job 29:24

29:24 If I smiled at them, they hardly believed it; ⁵ 

and they did not cause the light of my face to darken. ⁶ 

Job 31:10

31:10 then let my wife turn the millstone ⁷  for another man,

and may other men have sexual relations with her. ⁸ 

[17:3]  ¹ tn The MT has two imperatives: “Lay down, pledge me, with me.” Most commentators think that the second imperative should be a noun, and take it to say, “Lay my pledge with/beside you.” A. B. Davidson (Job, 126) suggests that the first verb means “give a pledge,” and so the two similar verbs would be emphatic: “Give a pledge, be my surety.” Other than such a change (which would involve changing the vowels) one would have to interpret similarly by seeing the imperatives as a kind of hendiadys, with the main emphasis being on the second imperative, “make a pledge.”

[17:3]  ² sn The idiom is “to strike the hand.” Here the wording is a little different, “Who is he that will strike himself into my hand?”

[27:19]  ³ tc The verb is the Niphal יֵאָסֵף (ye’asef), from אָסַף (’asaf, “to gather”). So, “he lies down rich, but he is not gathered.” This does not make much sense. It would mean “he will not be gathered for burial,” but that does not belong here. Many commentators accept the variant יֹאסִף (yo’sif) stood for יוֹסִיף (yosif, “will [not] add”). This is what the LXX and the Syriac have. This leads to the interpretive translation that “he will do so no longer.”

[27:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “and he is not.” One view is that this must mean that he dies, not that his wealth is gone. R. Gordis (Job, 295) says the first part should be made impersonal: “when one opens one’s eyes, the wicked is no longer there.” E. Dhorme (Job, 396) has it more simply: “He has opened his eyes, and it is for the last time.” But the other view is that the wealth goes overnight. In support of this is the introduction into the verse of the wealthy. The RSV, NRSV, ESV, and NLT take it that “wealth is gone.”

[29:24]  ⁵ tn The connection of this clause with the verse is difficult. The line simply reads: “[if] I would smile at them, they would not believe.” Obviously something has to be supplied to make sense out of this. The view adopted here makes the most sense, namely, that when he smiled at people, they could hardly believe their good fortune. Other interpretations are strained, such as Kissane’s, “If I laughed at them, they believed not,” meaning, people rejected the views that Job laughed at.

[29:24]  ⁶ tn The meaning, according to Gordis, is that they did nothing to provoke Job’s displeasure.

[31:10]  ⁷ tn Targum Job interpreted the verb טָחַן (takhan, “grind”) in a sexual sense, and this has influenced other versions and commentaries. But the literal sense fits well in this line. The idea is that she would be a slave for someone else. The second line of the verse then might build on this to explain what kind of a slave – a concubine (see A. B. Davidson, Job, 215).

[31:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “bow down over her,” an idiom for sexual relations.