Job 29:23-24

29:23 They waited for me as people wait ¹  for the rain,

and they opened their mouths ² 

as for ³  the spring rains.

29:24 If I smiled at them, they hardly believed it; ⁴ 

and they did not cause the light of my face to darken. ⁵ 

[29:23]  ¹ tn The phrase “people wait for” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation.

[29:23]  ² sn The analogy is that they received his words eagerly as the dry ground opens to receive the rains.

[29:23]  ³ tn The כּ (kaf) preposition is to be supplied by analogy with the preceding phrase. This leaves a double proposition, “as for” (but see Job 29:2).

[29:24]  ⁴ tn The connection of this clause with the verse is difficult. The line simply reads: “[if] I would smile at them, they would not believe.” Obviously something has to be supplied to make sense out of this. The view adopted here makes the most sense, namely, that when he smiled at people, they could hardly believe their good fortune. Other interpretations are strained, such as Kissane’s, “If I laughed at them, they believed not,” meaning, people rejected the views that Job laughed at.

[29:24]  ⁵ tn The meaning, according to Gordis, is that they did nothing to provoke Job’s displeasure.