Job 19:8

19:8 He has blocked ¹  my way so I cannot pass,

and has set darkness ²  over my paths.

Job 42:10-17

42:10 So the Lord ³  restored what Job had lost ⁴  after he prayed for his friends, ⁵  and the Lord doubled ⁶  all that had belonged to Job. 42:11 So they came to him, all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they dined ⁷  with him in his house. They comforted him and consoled him for all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver ⁸  and a gold ring. ⁹ 

42:12 So the Lord blessed the second part of Job’s life more than the first. He had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. 42:13 And he also had seven sons ¹⁰  and three daughters. 42:14 The first daughter he named Jemimah, ¹¹  the second Keziah, ¹²  and the third Keren-Happuch. ¹³  42:15 Nowhere in all the land could women be found who were as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance alongside their brothers.

42:16 After this Job lived 140 years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 42:17 And so Job died, old and full of days.

Psalms 18:19

18:19 He brought me out into a wide open place;

he delivered me because he was pleased with me. ¹⁴ 

Psalms 31:8

31:8 You do not deliver me over to the power of the enemy;

you enable me to stand ¹⁵  in a wide open place.

Psalms 40:1-3

Psalm 40 ¹⁶ 

For the music director; By David, a psalm.

40:1 I relied completely ¹⁷  on the Lord,

and he turned toward me

and heard my cry for help.

40:2 He lifted me out of the watery pit, ¹⁸ 

out of the slimy mud. ¹⁹ 

He placed my feet on a rock

and gave me secure footing. ²⁰ 

40:3 He gave me reason to sing a new song, ²¹ 

praising our God. ²² 

May many see what God has done,

so that they might swear allegiance to him and trust in the Lord! ²³ 

Psalms 118:5

118:5 In my distress ²⁴  I cried out to the Lord.

The Lord answered me and put me in a wide open place. ²⁵ 

[19:8]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Some commentators take the word to be חָשַׁךְ (hasak), related to an Arabic word for “thorn hedge.”

[42:10]  ³ tn The paragraph begins with the disjunctive vav, “Now as for the Lord, he….”

[42:10]  ⁴ sn The expression here is interesting: “he returned the captivity of Job,” a clause used elsewhere in the Bible of Israel (see e.g., Ps 126). Here it must mean “the fortunes of Job,” i.e., what he had lost. There is a good deal of literature on this; for example, see R. Borger, “Zu sub sb(i)t,” ZAW 25 (1954): 315-16; and E. Baumann, ZAW 6 (1929): 17ff.

[42:10]  ⁵ tn This is a temporal clause, using the infinitive construct with the subject genitive suffix. By this it seems that this act of Job was also something of a prerequisite for restoration – to pray for them.

[42:10]  ⁶ tn The construction uses the verb “and he added” with the word “repeat” (or “twice”).

[42:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “ate bread.”

[42:11]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew word קְשִׂיטָה (qÿsitah) is generally understood to refer to a unit of money, but the value is unknown.

[42:11]  ⁹ sn This gold ring was worn by women in the nose, or men and women in the ear.

[42:13]  ¹⁰ tn The word for “seven” is spelled in an unusual way. From this some have thought it means “twice seven,” or fourteen sons. Several commentators take this view; but it is probably not warranted.

[42:14]  ¹¹ sn The Hebrew name Jemimah means “dove.”

[42:14]  ¹² sn The Hebrew name Keziah means “cassia.”

[42:14]  ¹³ sn The Hebrew name Keren-Happuch means “horn of eye-paint.”

[18:19]  ¹⁴ tn Or “delighted in me.”

[31:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “you cause my feet to stand.”

[40:1]  ¹⁶ sn Psalm 40. The psalmist combines a song of thanksgiving for a recent act of divine deliverance (vv. 1-11) with a confident petition for renewed divine intervention (vv. 12-17).

[40:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “relying, I relied.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verbal form to emphasize the verbal idea. The emphasis is reflected in the translation through the adverb “completely.” Another option is to translate, “I waited patiently” (cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[40:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “cistern of roaring.” The Hebrew noun בּוֹר (bor, “cistern, pit”) is used metaphorically here of Sheol, the place of death, which is sometimes depicted as a raging sea (see Ps 18:4, 15-16). The noun שָׁאוֹן (sha’on, “roaring”) refers elsewhere to the crashing sound of the sea’s waves (see Ps 65:7).

[40:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “from the mud of mud.” The Hebrew phrase translated “slimy mud” employs an appositional genitive. Two synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the single idea. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81.

[40:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “he established my footsteps.”

[40:3]  ²¹ sn A new song was appropriate because the Lord had intervened in the psalmist’s experience in a fresh and exciting way.

[40:3]  ²² tn Heb “and he placed in my mouth a new song, praise to our God.”

[40:3]  ²³ tn Heb “may many see and fear and trust in the Lord.” The translation assumes that the initial prefixed verbal form is a jussive (“may many see”), rather than an imperfect (“many will see”). The following prefixed verbal forms with vav (ו) conjunctive are taken as indicating purpose or result (“so that they might swear allegiance…and trust”) after the introductory jussive.

[118:5]  ²⁴ tn Heb “from the distress.” The noun מֵצַר (metsar, “straits; distress”) occurs only here and in Lam 1:3. In Ps 116:3 מצר should probably be emended to מְצָדֵי (mÿtsadey, “snares of”).

[118:5]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the Lord answered me in a wide open place.”