Job 2:6

2:6 So the Lord said to Satan, “All right, ¹  he is ²  in your power; ³  only preserve ⁴  his life.”

Job 13:27

13:27 And you put my feet in the stocks ⁵ 

and you watch all my movements; ⁶ 

you put marks ⁷  on the soles of my feet.

Job 24:15

24:15 And the eye of the adulterer watches for the twilight,

thinking, ⁸  ‘No eye can see me,’

and covers his face with a mask.

Job 36:21

36:21 Take heed, do not turn to evil,

for because of this you have been tested ⁹  by affliction.

[2:6]  ¹ tn The particle הִנּוֹ (hinno) is literally, “here he is!” God presents Job to Satan, with the restriction on preserving Job’s life.

[2:6]  ² tn The LXX has “I deliver him up to you.”

[2:6]  ³ tn Heb “hand.”

[2:6]  ⁴ sn The irony of the passage comes through with this choice of words. The verb שָׁמַר (shamar) means “to keep; to guard; to preserve.” The exceptive clause casts Satan in the role of a savior – he cannot destroy this life but must protect it.

[13:27]  ⁵ tn The word occurs here and in Job 33:11. It could be taken as “stocks,” in which the feet were held fast; or it could be “shackles,” which allowed the prisoner to move about. The parallelism favors the latter, if the two lines are meant to be referring to the same thing.

[13:27]  ⁶ tn The word means “ways; roads; paths,” but it is used here in the sense of the “way” in which one goes about his activities.

[13:27]  ⁷ tn The verb תִּתְחַקֶּה (titkhaqqeh) is a Hitpael from the root חָקָה (khaqah, parallel to חָקַק, khaqaq). The word means “to engrave” or “to carve out.” This Hitpael would mean “to imprint something on oneself” (E. Dhorme [Job, 192] says on one’s mind, and so derives the meaning “examine.”). The object of this is the expression “on the roots of my feet,” which would refer to where the feet hit the ground. Since the passage has more to do with God’s restricting Job’s movement, the translation “you set a boundary to the soles of my feet” would be better than Dhorme’s view. The image of inscribing or putting marks on the feet is not found elsewhere. It may be, as Pope suggests, a reference to marking the slaves to make tracking them easier. The LXX has “you have penetrated to my heels.”

[24:15]  ⁹ tn Heb “saying.”

[36:21]  ¹³ tn Normally “tested” would be the translation for the Niphal of בָּחַר (bakhar). Although the Qal is employed here, the context favors “tested” rather than “chose.”