Job 19:17

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

I am loathsome ²  to my brothers. ³ 

Job 20:15

20:15 The wealth that he consumed ⁴  he vomits up,

God will make him throw it out ⁵  of his stomach.

Job 32:18

32:18 For I am full of words,

and the spirit within me ⁶  constrains me. ⁷ 

Job 3:10-11

3:10 because it ⁸  did not shut the doors ⁹  of my mother’s womb on me, ¹⁰ 

nor did it hide trouble ¹¹  from my eyes!

Job Wishes He Had Died at Birth ¹² 

3:11 “Why did I not ¹³  die ¹⁴  at birth, ¹⁵ 

and why did I not expire

as ¹⁶  I came out of the womb?

Job 10:19

10:19 I should have been as though I had never existed; ¹⁷ 

I should have been carried

right from the womb to the grave!

Job 15:2

15:2 “Does a wise man answer with blustery knowledge, ¹⁸ 

or fill his belly ¹⁹  with the east wind? ²⁰ 

Job 15:35

15:35 They conceive ²¹  trouble and bring forth evil;

their belly ²²  prepares deception.”

Job 20:20

20:20 For he knows no satisfaction in his appetite; ²³ 

he does not let anything he desires ²⁴  escape. ²⁵ 

Job 31:15

31:15 Did not the one who made me in the womb make them? ²⁶ 

Did not the same one form us in the womb?

Job 31:18

31:18 but from my youth I raised the orphan ²⁷  like a father,

and from my mother’s womb ²⁸ 

I guided the widow! ²⁹ 

Job 32:19

32:19 Inside I am like wine which has no outlet, ³⁰ 

like new wineskins ³¹  ready to burst!

Job 38:29

38:29 From whose womb does the ice emerge,

and the frost from the sky, ³²  who gives birth to it,

Job 40:16

40:16 Look ³³  at its strength in its loins,

and its power in the muscles of its belly.

Job 20:23

20:23 “While he is ³⁴  filling his belly,

God ³⁵  sends his burning anger ³⁶  against him,

and rains down his blows upon him. ³⁷ 

Job 1:21

1:21 He said, “Naked ³⁸  I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return there. ³⁹  The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. ⁴⁰  May the name of the Lord ⁴¹  be blessed!”

[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).

[20:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “swallowed.”

[20:15]  ⁵ tn The choice of words is excellent. The verb יָרַשׁ (yarash) means either “to inherit” or “to disinherit; to dispossess.” The context makes the figure clear that God is administering the emetic to make the wicked throw up the wealth (thus, “God will make him throw it out…”); but since wealth is the subject there is a disinheritance meant here.

[32:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “the spirit of my belly.”

[32:18]  ⁸ tn The verb צוּק (tsuq) means “to constrain; to urge; to press.” It is used in Judg 14:17; 16:16 with the sense of wearing someone down with repeated entreaties. Elihu cannot withhold himself any longer.

[3:10]  ¹⁰ tn The subject is still “that night.” Here, at the end of this first section, Job finally expresses the crime of that night – it did not hinder his birth.

[3:10]  ¹¹ sn This use of doors for the womb forms an implied comparison; the night should have hindered conception (see Gen 20:18 and 1 Sam 1:5).

[3:10]  ¹² tn The Hebrew has simply “my belly [= womb].” The suffix on the noun must be objective – it was the womb of Job’s mother in which he lay before his birth. See however N. C. Habel, “The Dative Suffix in Job 33:13,” Bib 63 (1982): 258-59, who thinks it is deliberately ambiguous.

[3:10]  ¹³ tn The word עָמָל (’amal) means “work, heavy labor, agonizing labor, struggle” with the idea of fatigue and pain.

[3:11]  ¹³ sn Job follows his initial cry with a series of rhetorical questions. His argument runs along these lines: since he was born (v. 10), the next chance he had of escaping this life of misery would have been to be still born (vv. 11-12, 16). In vv. 13-19 Job considers death as falling into a peaceful sleep in a place where there is no trouble. The high frequency of rhetorical questions in series is a characteristic of the Book of Job that sets it off from all other portions of the OT. The effect is primarily dramatic, creating a tension that requires resolution. See W. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, 340-41.

[3:11]  ¹⁴ tn The negative only occurs with the first clause, but it extends its influence to the parallel second clause (GKC 483 §152.z).

[3:11]  ¹⁵ tn The two verbs in this verse are both prefix conjugations; they are clearly referring to the past and should be classified as preterites. E. Dhorme (Job, 32) notes that the verb “I came out” is in the perfect to mark its priority in time in relation to the other verbs.

[3:11]  ¹⁶ tn The translation “at birth” is very smooth, but catches the meaning and avoids the tautology in the verse. The line literally reads “from the womb.” The second half of the verse has the verb “I came out/forth” which does double duty for both parallel lines. The second half uses “belly” for the womb.

[3:11]  ¹⁷ tn The two halves of the verse use the prepositional phrases (“from the womb” and “from the belly I went out”) in the temporal sense of “on emerging from the womb.”

[10:19]  ¹⁶ sn This means “If only I had never come into existence.”

[15:2]  ¹⁹ tn The Hebrew is דַעַת־רוּחַ (da’at-ruakh). This means knowledge without any content, vain knowledge.

[15:2]  ²⁰ tn The image is rather graphic. It is saying that he puffs himself up with the wind and then brings out of his mouth blasts of this wind.

[15:2]  ²¹ tn The word for “east wind,” קָדִים (qadim), is parallel to “spirit/wind” also in Hos 12:2. The east wind is maleficent, but here in the parallelism it is so much hot air.

[15:35]  ²² tn Infinitives absolute are used in this verse in the place of finite verbs. They lend a greater vividness to the description, stressing the basic meaning of the words.

[15:35]  ²³ tn At the start of the speech Eliphaz said Job’s belly was filled with the wind; now it is there that he prepares deception. This inclusio frames the speech.

[20:20]  ²⁵ tn Heb “belly,” which represents his cravings, his desires and appetites. The “satisfaction” is actually the word for “quiet; peace; calmness; ease.” He was driven by greedy desires, or he felt and displayed an insatiable greed.

[20:20]  ²⁶ tn The verb is the passive participle of the verb חָמַד (khamad) which is one of the words for “covet; desire.” This person is controlled by his desires; there is no escape. He is a slave.

[20:20]  ²⁷ tn The verb is difficult to translate in this line. It basically means “to cause to escape; to rescue.” Some translate this verb as “it is impossible to escape”; this may work, but is uncertain. Others translate the verb in the sense of saving something else: N. Sarna says, “Of his most cherished possessions he shall save nothing” (“The Interchange of the Preposition bet and min in Biblical Hebrew,” JBL 78 [1959]: 315-16). The RSV has “he will save nothing in which he delights”; NIV has “he cannot save himself by his treasure.”

[31:15]  ²⁸ tn Heb “him,” but the plural pronoun has been used in the translation to indicate that the referent is the servants mentioned in v. 13 (since the previous “him” in v. 14 refers to God).

[31:18]  ³¹ tn Heb “he grew up with me.” Several commentators have decided to change the pronoun to “I,” and make it causative.

[31:18]  ³² tn The expression “from my mother’s womb” is obviously hyperbolic. It is a way of saying “all his life.”

[31:18]  ³³ tn Heb “I guided her,” referring to the widow mentioned in v. 16.

[32:19]  ³⁴ tn Heb “in my belly I am like wine that is not opened” (a Niphal imperfect), meaning sealed up with no place to escape.

[32:19]  ³⁵ tc The Hebrew text has כְּאֹבוֹת חֲדָשִׁים (kÿ’ovot khadashim), traditionally rendered “like new wineskins.” But only here does the phrase have this meaning. The LXX has “smiths” for “new,” thus “like smith’s bellows.” A. Guillaume connects the word with an Arabic word for a wide vessel for wine shaped like a cup (“Archaeological and philological note on Job 32:19,” PEQ 93 [1961]: 147-50). Some have been found in archaeological sites. The poor would use skins, the rich would use jars. The key to putting this together is the verb at the end of the line, יִבָּקֵעַ (yibbaqea’, “that are ready to burst”). The point of the statement is that Elihu is bursting to speak, and until now has not had the opening.

[38:29]  ³⁷ tn Or “heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[40:16]  ⁴⁰ tn In both of these verses הִנֶּה (hinneh, “behold”) has the deictic force (the word is from Greek δείκνυμι, deiknumi, “to show”). It calls attention to something by pointing it out. The expression goes with the sudden look, the raised eye, the pointing hand – “O look!”

[20:23]  ⁴³ tn D. J. A. Clines observes that to do justice to the three jussives in the verse, one would have to translate “May it be, to fill his belly to the full, that God should send…and rain” (Job [WBC], 477). The jussive form of the verb at the beginning of the verse could also simply introduce a protasis of a conditional clause (see GKC 323 §109.h, i). This would mean, “if he [God] is about to fill his [the wicked’s] belly to the full, he will send….” The NIV reads “when he has filled his belly.” These fit better, because the context is talking about the wicked in his evil pursuit being cut down.

[20:23]  ⁴⁴ tn “God” is understood as the subject of the judgment.

[20:23]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “the anger of his wrath.”

[20:23]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “rain down upon him, on his flesh.” Dhorme changes עָלֵימוֹ (’alemo, “upon him”) to “his arrows”; he translates the line as “he rains his arrows upon his flesh.” The word בִּלְחוּמוֹ (bilkhumo,“his flesh”) has been given a wide variety of translations: “as his food,” “on his flesh,” “upon him, his anger,” or “missiles or weapons of war.”

[1:21]  ⁴⁶ tn The adjective “naked” is functioning here as an adverbial accusative of state, explicative of the state of the subject. While it does include the literal sense of nakedness at birth, Job is also using it symbolically to mean “without possessions.”

[1:21]  ⁴⁷ sn While the first half of the couplet is to be taken literally as referring to his coming into this life, this second part must be interpreted only generally to refer to his departure from this life. It is parallel to 1 Tim 6:7, “For we have brought nothing into this world and so we cannot take a single thing out either.”

[1:21]  ⁴⁸ tn The two verbs are simple perfects. (1) They can be given the nuance of gnomic imperfect, expressing what the sovereign God always does. This is the approach taken in the present translation. Alternatively (2) they could be referring specifically to Job’s own experience: “Yahweh gave [definite past, referring to his coming into this good life] and Yahweh has taken away” [present perfect, referring to his great losses]. Many English versions follow the second alternative.

[1:21]  ⁴⁹ sn Some commentators are troubled by the appearance of the word “Yahweh” on the lips of Job, assuming that the narrator inserted his own name for God into the story-telling. Such thinking is based on the assumption that Yahweh was only a national god of Israel, unknown to anyone else in the ancient world. But here is a clear indication that a non-Israelite, Job, knew and believed in Yahweh.