Job 2:5

2:5 But extend your hand and strike his bone and his flesh, ¹  and he will no doubt ²  curse you to your face!”

Job 5:6

5:6 For evil does not come up from the dust, ³ 

nor does trouble spring up from the ground,

Job 5:27

5:27 Look, we have investigated this, so it is true.

Hear it, ⁴  and apply it for your own ⁵  good.” ⁶ 

Job 7:5

7:5 My body ⁷  is clothed ⁸  with worms ⁹  and dirty scabs; ¹⁰ 

my skin is broken ¹¹  and festering.

Job 8:10

8:10 Will they not ¹²  instruct you and ¹³  speak to you,

and bring forth words ¹⁴ 

from their understanding? ¹⁵ 

Job 30:5

30:5 They were banished from the community ¹⁶  –

people ¹⁷  shouted at them

like they would shout at thieves ¹⁸  –

Job 30:20

30:20 I cry out to you, ¹⁹  but you do not answer me;

I stand up, ²⁰  and you only look at me. ²¹ 

Job 33:6

33:6 Look, I am just like you in relation to God;

I too have been molded ²²  from clay.

Job 37:2

37:2 Listen carefully ²³  to the thunder of his voice,

to the rumbling ²⁴  that proceeds from his mouth.

Job 38:14

38:14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; ²⁵ 

its features ²⁶  are dyed ²⁷  like a garment.

Job 38:32

38:32 Can you lead out

the constellations ²⁸  in their seasons,

or guide the Bear with its cubs? ²⁹ 

[2:5]  ¹ sn The “bones and flesh” are idiomatic for the whole person, his physical and his psychical/spiritual being (see further H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 26-28).

[2:5]  ² sn This is the same oath formula found in 1:11; see the note there.

[5:6]  ³ sn The previous discussion shows how trouble rises, namely, from the rebelliousness of the fool. Here Eliphaz simply summarizes the points made with this general principle – trouble does not come from outside man, nor does it come as a part of the natural order, but rather it comes from the evil nature of man.

[5:27]  ⁵ tn To make a better parallelism, some commentators have replaced the imperative with another finite verb, “we have found it.”

[5:27]  ⁶ tn The preposition with the suffix (referred to as the ethical dative) strengthens the imperative. An emphatic personal pronoun also precedes the imperative. The resulting force would be something like “and you had better apply it for your own good!”

[5:27]  ⁷ sn With this the speech by Eliphaz comes to a close. His two mistakes with it are: (1) that the tone was too cold and (2) the argument did not fit Job’s case (see further, A. B. Davidson, Job, 42).

[7:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “my flesh.”

[7:5]  ⁸ tn The implied comparison is vivid: the dirty scabs cover his entire body like a garment – so he is clothed with them.

[7:5]  ⁹ sn The word for “worms” (רִמָּה, rimmah, a collective noun), is usually connected with rotten food (Exod 16:24), or the grave (Isa 14:11). Job’s disease is a malignant ulcer of some kind that causes the rotting of the flesh. One may recall that both Antiochus Epiphanes (2 Macc 9:9) and Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:23) were devoured by such worms in their diseases.

[7:5]  ¹⁰ tn The text has “clods of dust.” The word גִּישׁ (gish, “dirty scabs”) is a hapax legomenon from גּוּשׁ (gush, “clod”). Driver suggests the word has a medical sense, like “pustules” (G. R. Driver, “Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 73) or “scabs” (JB, NEB, NAB, NIV). Driver thinks “clods of dust” is wrong; he repoints “dust” to make a new verb “to cover,” cognate to Arabic, and reads “my flesh is clothed with worms, and scab covers my skin.” This refers to the dirty scabs that crusted over the sores all over his body. The LXX links this with the second half of the verse: “And my body has been covered with loathsome worms, and I waste away, scraping off clods of dirt from my eruption.”

[7:5]  ¹¹ tn The meaning of רָגַע (raga’) is also debated here. D. J. A. Clines (Job [WBC], 163) does not think the word can mean “cracked” because scabs show evidence of the sores healing. But E. Dhorme (Job, 100) argues that the usage of the word shows the idea of “splitting, separating, making a break,” or the like. Here then it would mean “my skin splits” and as a result festers. This need not be a reference to the scabs, but to new places. Or it could mean that the scabbing never heals, but is always splitting open.

[8:10]  ⁹ tn The sentence begins emphatically: “Is it not they.”

[8:10]  ¹⁰ tn The “and” is not present in the line. The second clause seems to be in apposition to the first, explaining it more thoroughly: “Is it not they [who] will instruct you, [who] will speak to you.”

[8:10]  ¹¹ tn The noun may have been left indeterminate for the sake of emphasis (GKC 401-2 §125.c), meaning “important words.”

[8:10]  ¹² tn Heb “from their heart.”

[30:5]  ¹¹ tn The word גֵּו (gev) is an Aramaic term meaning “midst,” indicating “midst [of society].” But there is also a Phoenician word that means “community” (DISO 48).

[30:5]  ¹² tn The form simply is the plural verb, but it means those who drove them from society.

[30:5]  ¹³ tn The text merely says “as thieves,” but it obviously compares the poor to the thieves.

[30:20]  ¹³ sn The implication from the sentence is that this is a cry to God for help. The sudden change from third person (v. 19) to second person (v. 20) is indicative of the intense emotion of the sufferer.

[30:20]  ¹⁴ sn The verb is simple, but the interpretation difficult. In this verse it probably means he stands up in prayer (Jer 15:1), but it could mean that he makes his case to God. Others suggest a more figurative sense, like the English expression “stand pat,” meaning “remain silent” (see Job 29:8).

[30:20]  ¹⁵ tn If the idea of prayer is meant, then a pejorative sense to the verb is required. Some supply a negative and translate “you do not pay heed to me.” This is supported by one Hebrew ms and the Vulgate. The Syriac has the whole colon read with God as the subject, “you stand and look at me.”

[33:6]  ¹⁵ tn The verb means “nipped off,” as a potter breaks off a piece of clay when molding a vessel.

[37:2]  ¹⁷ tn The imperative is followed by the infinitive absolute from the same root to express the intensity of the verb.

[37:2]  ¹⁸ tn The word is the usual word for “to meditate; to murmur; to groan”; here it refers to the low building of the thunder as it rumbles in the sky. The thunder is the voice of God (see Ps 29).

[38:14]  ¹⁹ sn The verse needs to be understood in the context: as the light shines in the dawn, the features of the earth take on a recognizable shape or form. The language is phenomenological.

[38:14]  ²⁰ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the objects or features on the earth) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[38:14]  ²¹ tc The MT reads “they stand up like a garment” (NASB, NIV) or “its features stand out like a garment” (ESV). The reference could be either to embroidered decoration on a garment or to the folds of a garment (REB: “until all things stand out like the folds of a cloak”; cf. J. E. Hartley, Job [NICOT], 497, “the early light of day makes the earth appear as a beautiful garment, exquisite in design and glorious in color”). Since this is thought to be an odd statement, some suggest with Ehrlich that the text be changed to תִּצָּבַּע (titsabba’, “is dyed [like a garment]”). This reference would be to the colors appearing on the earth’s surface under daylight. The present translation follows the emendation.

[38:32]  ²¹ tn The word מַזָּרוֹת (mazzarot) is taken by some to refer to the constellations (see 2 Kgs 23:5), and by others as connected to the word for “crown,” and so “corona.”

[38:32]  ²² sn See Job 9:9.