Job 18:10

18:10 A rope is hidden for him ¹  on the ground

and a trap for him ²  lies on the path.

Job 36:8

36:8 But if they are bound in chains, ³ 

and held captive by the cords of affliction,

Job 39:3

39:3 They crouch, they bear ⁴  their young,

they bring forth the offspring they have carried. ⁵ 

Job 41:1

The Description of Leviathan

41:1 (40:25) ⁶  “Can you pull in ⁷  Leviathan with a hook,

and tie down ⁸  its tongue with a rope?

Job 21:17

How Often Do the Wicked Suffer?

21:17 “How often ⁹  is the lamp of the wicked extinguished?

How often does their ¹⁰  misfortune come upon them?

How often does God apportion pain ¹¹  to them ¹²  in his anger?

[18:10]  ¹ tn Heb “his rope.” The suffix must be a genitive expressing that the trap was for him, to trap him, and so an objective genitive.

[18:10]  ² tn Heb “his trap.” The pronominal suffix is objective genitive here as well.

[36:8]  ³ tn Dhorme thinks that the verse is still talking about kings, who may be in captivity. But this diverts attention from Elihu’s emphasis on the righteous.

[39:3]  ⁵ tc The Hebrew verb used here means “to cleave,” and this would not have the object “their young.” Olshausen and others after him change the ח (khet) to ט (tet) and get a verb “to drop,” meaning “drop [= give birth to] young” as used in Job 21:10. G. R. Driver holds out for the MT, arguing it is an idiom, “to breach the womb” (“Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 92-93).

[39:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “they cast forth their labor pains.” This word usually means “birth pangs” but here can mean what caused the pains (metonymy of effect). This fits better with the parallelism, and the verb (“cast forth”). The words “their offspring” are supplied in the translation for clarity; direct objects were often omitted when clear from the context, although English expects them to be included.

[41:1]  ⁷ sn Beginning with 41:1, the verse numbers through 41:9 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 41:1 ET = 40:25 HT, 41:2 ET = 40:26 HT, etc., through 41:34 ET = 41:26 HT. The Hebrew verse numbers in the remainder of the chapter differ from the verse numbers in the English Bible. Beginning with 42:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same.

[41:1]  ⁸ tn The verb מָשַׁךְ (mashakh) means “to extract from the water; to fish.” The question here includes the use of a hook to fish the creature out of the water so that its jaws can be tied safely.

[41:1]  ⁹ tn The verb שָׁקַע (shaqa’) means “to cause to sink,” if it is connected with the word in Amos 8:8 and 9:5. But it may have the sense of “to tie; to bind.” If the rope were put around the tongue and jaw, binding tightly would be the sense.

[21:17]  ⁹ tn The interrogative “How often” occurs only with the first colon; it is supplied for smoother reading in the next two.

[21:17]  ¹⁰ tn The pronominal suffix is objective; it re-enforces the object of the preposition, “upon them.” The verb in the clause is בּוֹא (bo’) followed by עַל (’al), “come upon [or against],” may be interpreted as meaning attack or strike.

[21:17]  ¹¹ tn חֲבָלִים (khavalim) can mean “ropes” or “cords,” but that would not go with the verb “apportion” in this line. The meaning of “pangs (as in “birth-pangs”) seems to fit best here. The wider meaning would be “physical agony.”

[21:17]  ¹² tn The phrase “to them” is understood and thus is supplied in the translation for clarification.