Job 19:17

19:17 My breath is repulsive ¹  to my wife;

I am loathsome ²  to my brothers. ³ 

Genesis 42:7

42:7 When Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger ⁴  to them and spoke to them harshly. He asked, “Where do you come from?” They answered, ⁵  “From the land of Canaan, to buy grain for food.” ⁶ 

Psalms 69:8

69:8 My own brothers treat me like a stranger;

they act as if I were a foreigner. ⁷ 

[19:17]  ¹ tn The Hebrew appears to have “my breath is strange to my wife.” This would be the meaning if the verb was from זוּר (zur, “to turn aside; to be a stranger”). But it should be connected to זִיר (zir), cognate to Assyrian zaru, “to feel repugnance toward.” Here it is used in the intransitive sense, “to be repulsive.” L. A. Snijders, following Driver, doubts the existence of this second root, and retains “strange” (“The Meaning of zar in the Old Testament,” OTS 10 [1964]: 1-154).

[19:17]  ² tn The normal meaning here would be based on the root חָנַן (khanan, “to be gracious”). And so we have versions reading “although I entreated” or “my supplication.” But it seems more likely it is to be connected to another root meaning “to be offensive; to be loathsome.” For the discussion of the connection to the Arabic, see E. Dhorme, Job, 278.

[19:17]  ³ tn The text has “the sons of my belly [= body].” This would normally mean “my sons.” But they are all dead. And there is no suggestion that Job had other sons. The word “my belly” will have to be understood as “my womb,” i.e., the womb I came from. Instead of “brothers,” the sense could be “siblings” (both brothers and sisters; G. R. Driver and G. B. Gray, Job [ICC], 2:168).

[42:7]  ⁴ sn But pretended to be a stranger. Joseph intends to test his brothers to see if they have changed and have the integrity to be patriarchs of the tribes of Israel. He will do this by putting them in the same situations that they and he were in before. The first test will be to awaken their conscience.

[42:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “said.”

[42:7]  ⁶ tn The verb is denominative, meaning “to buy grain”; the word “food” could simply be the direct object, but may also be an adverbial accusative.

[69:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “and I am estranged to my brothers, and a foreigner to the sons of my mother.”