Job 19:9-12

19:9 He has stripped me of my honor

and has taken the crown off my head. ¹ 

19:10 He tears me down ²  on every side until I perish; ³ 

he uproots ⁴  my hope ⁵  like one uproots ⁶  a tree.

19:11 Thus ⁷  his anger burns against me,

and he considers me among his enemies. ⁸ 

19:12 His troops ⁹  advance together;

they throw up ¹⁰  a siege ramp against me,

and they camp around my tent.

Psalms 139:15-16

139:15 my bones were not hidden from you,

when ¹¹  I was made in secret

and sewed together in the depths of the earth. ¹² 

139:16 Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. ¹³ 

All the days ordained for me

were recorded in your scroll

before one of them came into existence. ¹⁴ 

[19:9]  ¹ sn The images here are fairly common in the Bible. God has stripped away Job’s honorable reputation. The crown is the metaphor for the esteem and dignity he once had. See 29:14; Isa 61:3; see Ps 8:5 [6].

[19:10]  ² tn The metaphors are changed now to a demolished building and an uprooted tree. The verb is נָתַץ (natats, “to demolish”). Since it is Job himself who is the object, the meaning cannot be “demolish” (as of a house so that an inhabitant has to leave), but more of the attack or the battering.

[19:10]  ³ tn The text has הָלַךְ (halakh, “to leave”). But in view of Job 14:20, “perish” or “depart” would be a better meaning here.

[19:10]  ⁴ tn The verb נָסַע (nasa’) means “to travel” generally, but specifically it means “to pull up the tent pegs and move.” The Hiphil here means “uproot.” It is used of a vine in Ps 80:9. The idea here does not contradict Job 14:7, for there the tree still had roots and so could grow.

[19:10]  ⁵ tn The NEB has “my tent rope,” but that seems too contrived here. It is absurd to pull up a tent-rope like a tree.

[19:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “like a tree.” The words “one uproots” are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[19:11]  ⁷ tn The verb is a nonpreterite vayyiqtol perhaps employed to indicate that the contents of v. 11 are a logical sequence to the actions described in v. 10.

[19:11]  ⁸ tn This second half of the verse is a little difficult. The Hebrew has “and he reckons me for him like his adversaries.” Most would change the last word to a singular in harmony with the versions, “as his adversary.” But some retain the MT pointing and try to explain it variously: Weiser suggests that the plural might have come from a cultic recitation of Yahweh’s deeds against his enemies; Fohrer thinks it refers to the primeval enemies; Gordis takes it as distributive, “as one of his foes.” If the plural is retained, this latter view makes the most sense.

[19:12]  ⁹ sn Now the metaphor changes again. Since God thinks of Job as an enemy, he attacks with his troops, builds the siege ramp, and camps around him to besiege him. All the power and all the forces are at God’s disposal in his attack of Job.

[19:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “they throw up their way against me.” The verb סָלַל (salal) means “to build a siege ramp” or “to throw up a ramp”; here the object is “their way.” The latter could be taken as an adverbial accusative, “as their way.” But as the object it fits just as well. Some delete the middle clause; the LXX has “Together his troops fell upon me, they beset my ways with an ambush.”

[139:15]  ¹¹ tc The Hebrew term אֲשֶׁר (’asher, “which”) should probably be emended to כֲּאַשֶׁר (ka’asher, “when”). The kaf (כ) may have been lost by haplography (note the kaf at the end of the preceding form).

[139:15]  ¹² sn The phrase depths of the earth may be metaphorical (euphemistic) or it may reflect a prescientific belief about the origins of the embryo deep beneath the earth’s surface (see H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 96-97). Job 1:21 also closely associates the mother’s womb with the earth.

[139:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “Your eyes saw my shapeless form.” The Hebrew noun גֹּלֶם (golem) occurs only here in the OT. In later Hebrew the word refers to “a lump, a shapeless or lifeless substance,” and to “unfinished matter, a vessel wanting finishing” (Jastrow 222 s.v. גּוֹלֶם). The translation employs the dynamic rendering “when I was inside the womb” to clarify that the speaker was still in his mother’s womb at the time he was “seen” by God.

[139:16]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and on your scroll all of them were written, [the] days [which] were formed, and [there was] not one among them.” This “scroll” may be the “scroll of life” mentioned in Ps 69:28 (see the note on the word “living” there).