Job 19:7-8

Job’s Abandonment and Affliction

19:7 “If ¹  I cry out, ²  ‘Violence!’ ³ 

I receive no answer; ⁴ 

I cry for help,

but there is no justice.

19:8 He has blocked ⁵  my way so I cannot pass,

and has set darkness ⁶  over my paths.

[19:7]  ¹ tn The particle is used here as in 9:11 (see GKC 497 §159.w).

[19:7]  ² tc The LXX has “I laugh at reproach.”

[19:7]  ³ tn The same idea is expressed in Jer 20:8 and Hab 1:2. The cry is a cry for help, that he has been wronged, that there is no justice.

[19:7]  ⁴ tn The Niphal is simply “I am not answered.” See Prov 21:13b.

[19:8]  ⁵ tn The verb גָּדַר (gadar) means “to wall up; to fence up; to block.” God has blocked Job’s way so that he cannot get through. See the note on 3:23. Cf. Lam 3:7.

[19:8]  ⁶ tn Some commentators take the word to be חָשַׁךְ (hasak), related to an Arabic word for “thorn hedge.”