Job 2:4

2:4 But ¹  Satan answered the Lord, “Skin for ²  skin! ³  Indeed, a man will give up ⁴  all that he has to save his life! ⁵ 

Job 9:22

Accusation of God’s Justice

9:22 “It is all one! ⁶  That is why I say, ⁷ 

‘He destroys the blameless and the guilty.’

Job 13:1

Job Pleads His Cause to God ⁸ 

13:1 “Indeed, my eyes have seen all this, ⁹ 

my ears have heard and understood it.

Job 14:14

14:14 If a man dies, will he live again? ¹⁰ 

All the days of my hard service ¹¹  I will wait ¹² 

until my release comes. ¹³ 

Job 19:19

19:19 All my closest friends ¹⁴  detest me;

and those whom ¹⁵  I love have turned against me. ¹⁶ 

Job 31:12

31:12 For it is a fire that devours even to Destruction, ¹⁷ 

and it would uproot ¹⁸  all my harvest.

Job 37:7

37:7 He causes everyone to stop working, ¹⁹ 

so that all people ²⁰  may know ²¹  his work.

Job 38:18

38:18 Have you considered the vast expanses of the earth?

Tell me, if you know it all!

[2:4]  ¹ tn The form is the simply preterite with the vav (ו) consecutive. However, the speech of Satan is in contrast to what God said, even though in narrative sequence.

[2:4]  ² tn The preposition בְּעַד (bÿ’ad) designates interest or advantage arising from the idea of protection for (“for the benefit of”); see IBHS 201-2 §11.2.7a.

[2:4]  ³ sn The meaning of the expression is obscure. It may come from the idea of sacrificing an animal or another person in order to go free, suggesting the expression that one type of skin that was worth less was surrendered to save the more important life. Satan would then be saying that Job was willing for others to die for him to go free, but not himself. “Skin” would be a synecdoche of the part for the whole (like the idiomatic use of skin today for a person in a narrow escape). The second clause indicates that God has not even scratched the surface because Job has been protected. His “skin” might have been scratched, but not his flesh and bone! But if his life had been put in danger, he would have responded differently.

[2:4]  ⁴ tc The LXX has “make full payment, pay a full price” (LSJ 522 s.v. ἐκτίνω).

[2:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “Indeed, all that a man has he will give for his life.”

[9:22]  ⁶ tc The LXX omits the phrase “It is all one.” Modern scholars either omit it or transpose it for clarity.

[9:22]  ⁷ tn The relationships of these clauses is in some question. Some think that the poet has inverted the first two, and so they should read, “That is why I have said: ‘It is all one.’” Others would take the third clause to be what was said.

[13:1]  ¹¹ sn Chapter 13 records Job’s charges against his friends for the way they used their knowledge (1-5), his warning that God would find out their insincerity (6-12), and his pleading of his cause to God in which he begs for God to remove his hand from him and that he would not terrify him with his majesty and that he would reveal the sins that caused such great suffering (13-28).

[13:1]  ¹² tn Hebrew has כֹּל (kol, “all”); there is no reason to add anything to the text to gain a meaning “all this.”

[14:14]  ¹⁶ tc The LXX removes the interrogative and makes the statement affirmative, i.e., that man will live again. This reading is taken by D. H. Gard (“The Concept of the Future Life according to the Greek Translator of the Book of Job,” JBL 73 [1954]: 137-38). D. J. A. Clines follows this, putting both of the expressions in the wish clause: “if a man dies and could live again…” (Job [WBC], 332). If that is the way it is translated, then the verbs in the second half of the verse and in the next verse would all be part of the apodosis, and should be translated “would.” The interpretation would not greatly differ; it would be saying that if there was life after death, Job would long for his release – his death. If the traditional view is taken and the question was raised whether there was life after death (the implication of the question being that there is), then Job would still be longing for his death. The point the line is making is that if there is life after death, that would be all the more reason for Job to eagerly expect, to hope for, his death.

[14:14]  ¹⁷ tn See Job 7:1.

[14:14]  ¹⁸ tn The verb אֲיַחֵל (’ayakhel) may be rendered “I will/would wait” or “I will/would hope.” The word describes eager expectation and longing hope.

[14:14]  ¹⁹ tn The construction is the same as that found in the last verse: a temporal preposition עַד (’ad) followed by the infinitive construct followed by the subjective genitive “release/relief.” Due, in part, to the same verb (חָלַף, khalaf) having the meaning “sprout again” in v. 7, some take “renewal” as the meaning here (J. E. Hartley, Alden, NIV, ESV).

[19:19]  ²¹ tn Heb “men of my confidence,” or “men of my council,” i.e., intimate friends, confidants.

[19:19]  ²² tn The pronoun זֶה (zeh) functions here in the place of a nominative (see GKC 447 §138.h).

[19:19]  ²³ tn T. Penar translates this “turn away from me” (“Job 19,19 in the Light of Ben Sira 6,11,” Bib 48 [1967]: 293-95).

[31:12]  ²⁶ tn Heb “to Abaddon.”

[31:12]  ²⁷ tn The verb means “to root out,” but this does not fit the parallelism with fire. Wright changed two letters and the vowels in the verb to get the root צָרַף (tsaraf, “to burn”). The NRSV has “burn to the root.”

[37:7]  ³¹ tn Heb “by the hand of every man he seals.” This line is intended to mean with the heavy rains God suspends all agricultural activity.

[37:7]  ³² tc This reading involves a change in the text, for in MT “men” is in the construct. It would be translated, “all men whom he made” (i.e., all men of his making”). This is the translation followed by the NIV and NRSV. Olshausen suggested that the word should have been אֲנָשִׁים (’anashim) with the final ם (mem) being lost to haplography.

[37:7]  ³³ tn D. W. Thomas suggested a meaning of “rest” for the verb, based on Arabic. He then reads אֱנוֹשׁ (’enosh) for man, and supplies a ם (mem) to “his work” to get “that every man might rest from his work [in the fields].”