Job 21:33

21:33 The clods of the torrent valley ¹  are sweet to him;

behind him everybody follows in procession,

and before him goes a countless throng.

Job 39:21

39:21 It ²  paws the ground in the valley, ³ 

exulting mightily, ⁴ 

it goes out to meet the weapons.

Job 28:4

28:4 Far from where people live ⁵  he sinks a shaft,

in places travelers have long forgotten, ⁶ 

far from other people he dangles and sways. ⁷ 

Job 36:16

36:16 And surely, he drew you ⁸  from the mouth of distress,

to a wide place, unrestricted, ⁹ 

and to the comfort ¹⁰  of your table

filled with rich food. ¹¹ 

[21:33]  ¹ tn The clods are those that are used to make a mound over the body. And, for a burial in the valley, see Deut 34:6. The verse here sees him as participating in his funeral and enjoying it. Nothing seems to go wrong with the wicked.

[39:21]  ² tc The Hebrew text has a plural verb, “they paw.” For consistency and for stylistic reasons this is translated as a singular.

[39:21]  ³ tn The armies would prepare for battles that were usually fought in the valleys, and so the horse was ready to charge. But in Ugaritic the word `mk means “force” as well as “valley.” The idea of “force” would fit the parallelism here well (see M. Dahood, “Value of Ugaritic for textual criticism,” Bib 40 [1959]: 166).

[39:21]  ⁴ tn Or “in strength.”

[28:4]  ³ tc The first part of this verse, “He cuts a shaft far from the place where people live,” has received a lot of attention. The word for “live” is גָּר (gar). Some of the proposals are: “limestone,” on the basis of the LXX; “far from the light,” reading נֵר (ner); “by a foreign people,” taking the word to means “foreign people”; “a foreign people opening shafts”; or taking gar as “crater” based on Arabic. Driver puts this and the next together: “a strange people who have been forgotten cut shafts” (see AJSL 3 [1935]: 162). L. Waterman had “the people of the lamp” (“Note on Job 28:4,” JBL 71 [1952]: 167ff). And there are others. Since there is really no compelling argument in favor of one of these alternative interpretations, the MT should be preserved until shown to be wrong.

[28:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “forgotten by the foot.” This means that there are people walking above on the ground, and the places below, these mines, are not noticed by the pedestrians above.

[28:4]  ⁵ sn This is a description of the mining procedures. Dangling suspended from a rope would be a necessary part of the job of going up and down the shafts.

[36:16]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew verb means “to entice; to lure; to allure; to seduce,” but these have negative connotations. The English “to persuade; to draw” might work better. The verb is the Hiphil perfect of סוּת (sut). But the nuance of the verb is difficult. It can be equivalent to an English present expressing what God is doing (Peake). But the subject is contested as well. Since the verb usually has an evil connotation, there have been attempts to make the “plaza” the subject – “the wide place has led you astray” (Ewald).

[36:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “a broad place where there is no cramping beneath [or under] it.”

[36:16]  ⁶ tn The word נַחַת (nakhat) could be translated “set” if it is connected with the verb נוּחַ (nuakh, “to rest,” but then “to lay to rest, to set”). Kissane translates it “comfort.” Dhorme thinks it could come from נוּחַ (nuakh, “to rest”) or נָחַת (nakhat, “to descend”). But his conclusion is that it is a dittography after “under it” (p. 545).

[36:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “filled with fat.”