Job 3:19

3:19 Small and great are ¹  there,

and the slave is free ²  from his master. ³ 

Job 5:18

5:18 For ⁴  he ⁵  wounds, ⁶  but he also bandages;

he strikes, but his hands also heal.

Job 8:16

8:16 He is a well-watered plant ⁷  in ⁸  the sun,

its shoots spread ⁹  over its garden. ¹⁰ 

Job 8:19

8:19 Indeed, this is the joy of his way, ¹¹ 

and out of the earth ¹²  others spring up. ¹³ 

Job 13:19

13:19 Who ¹⁴  will contend with me?

If anyone can, I will be silent and die. ¹⁵ 

Job 15:9

15:9 What do you know that we don’t know?

What do you understand that we don’t understand? ¹⁶ 

Job 17:3

17:3 Make then my pledge ¹⁷  with you.

Who else will put up security for me? ¹⁸ 

Job 22:18

22:18 But it was he ¹⁹  who filled their houses

with good things –

yet the counsel of the wicked ²⁰ 

was far from me. ²¹ 

Job 23:13

23:13 But he is unchangeable, ²²  and who can change ²³  him?

Whatever he ²⁴  has desired, he does.

Job 28:23

28:23 God understands the way to it,

and he alone knows its place.

Job 31:4

31:4 Does he not see my ways

and count all my steps?

Job 31:28

31:28 then this ²⁵  also would be iniquity to be judged, ²⁶ 

for I would have been false ²⁷  to God above.

Job 32:8

32:8 But it is a spirit in people,

the breath ²⁸  of the Almighty,

that makes them understand.

Job 39:30

39:30 And its young ones devour the blood,

and where the dead carcasses ²⁹  are,

there it is.”

Job 40:19

40:19 It ranks first among the works of God, ³⁰ 

the One who made it

has furnished it with a sword. ³¹ 

[3:19]  ¹ tn The versions have taken the pronoun in the sense of the verb “to be.” Others give it the sense of “the same thing,” rendering the verse as “small and great, there is no difference there.” GKC 437 §135.a, n. 1, follows this idea with a meaning of “the same.”

[3:19]  ² tn The LXX renders this as “unafraid,” although the negative has disappeared in some mss to give the reading “and the servant that feared his master.” See I. Mendelsohn, “The Canaanite Term for ‘Free Proletarian’,” BASOR 83 (1941): 36-39; idem, “New Light on hupsu,” BASOR 139 (1955): 9-11.

[3:19]  ³ tn The plural “masters” could be taken here as a plural of majesty rather than as referring to numerous masters.

[5:18]  ⁴ sn Verses 18-23 give the reasons why someone should accept the chastening of God – the hand that wounds is the same hand that heals. But, of course, the lines do not apply to Job because his suffering is not due to divine chastening.

[5:18]  ⁵ tn The addition of the independent pronoun here makes the subject emphatic, as if to say, “For it is he who makes….”

[5:18]  ⁶ tn The imperfect verbs in this verse describe the characteristic activities of God; the classification as habitual imperfect fits the idea and is to be rendered with the English present tense.

[8:16]  ⁷ tn The figure now changes to a plant that is flourishing and spreading and then suddenly cut off. The word רָטַב (ratav) means “to be moist; to be watered.” The word occurs in Arabic, Aramaic, and Akkadian, but only twice in the Bible: here as the adjective and in 24:8 as the verb.

[8:16]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew is לִפְנֵי (lifne, “before”). Does this mean “in the presence of the sun,” i.e., under a sweltering sun, or “before” the sun rises? It seems more natural to take לִפְנֵי (lifne) as “in the presence of” or “under.”

[8:16]  ⁹ tn Heb “its shoot goes out.”

[8:16]  ¹⁰ tc Some have emended this phrase to obtain “over the roofs.” The LXX has “out of his corruption.” H. M. Orlinsky has shown that this reading arose from an internal LXX change, saprias having replaced prasias, “garden” (JQR 26 [1935/36]: 134-35).

[8:19]  ¹⁰ tn This line is difficult. If the MT stands as it is, the expression must be ironic. It would be saying that the joy (all the security and prosperity) of its way (its life) is short-lived – that is the way its joy goes. Most commentators are not satisfied with this. Dhorme, for one, changes מְשׂוֹשׂ (mÿsos, “joy”) to מְסוֹס (mÿsos, “rotting”), and gets “behold him lie rotting on the path.” The sibilants can interchange this way. But Dhorme thinks the MT was written the way it was because the word was thought to be “joy,” when it should have been the other way. The word “way” then becomes an accusative of place. The suggestion is rather compelling and would certainly fit the context. The difficulty is that a root סוּס (sus, “to rot”) has to be proposed. E. Dhorme does this by drawing on Arabic sas, “to be eaten by moths or worms,” thus “worm-eaten; decaying; rotting.” Cf. NIV “its life withers away”; also NAB “there he lies rotting beside the road.”

[8:19]  ¹¹ tn Heb “dust.”

[8:19]  ¹² sn As with the tree, so with the godless man – his place will soon be taken by another.

[13:19]  ¹³ tn The interrogative is joined with the emphatic pronoun, stressing “who is he [who] will contend,” or more emphatically, “who in the world will contend.” Job is confident that no one can bring charges against him. He is certain of success.

[13:19]  ¹⁴ sn Job is confident that he will be vindicated. But if someone were to show up and have proof of sin against him, he would be silent and die (literally “keep silent and expire”).

[15:9]  ¹⁶ tn The last clause simply has “and it is not with us.” It means that one possesses something through knowledge. Note the parallelism of “know” and “with me” in Ps 50:11.

[17:3]  ¹⁹ tn The MT has two imperatives: “Lay down, pledge me, with me.” Most commentators think that the second imperative should be a noun, and take it to say, “Lay my pledge with/beside you.” A. B. Davidson (Job, 126) suggests that the first verb means “give a pledge,” and so the two similar verbs would be emphatic: “Give a pledge, be my surety.” Other than such a change (which would involve changing the vowels) one would have to interpret similarly by seeing the imperatives as a kind of hendiadys, with the main emphasis being on the second imperative, “make a pledge.”

[17:3]  ²⁰ sn The idiom is “to strike the hand.” Here the wording is a little different, “Who is he that will strike himself into my hand?”

[22:18]  ²² tn The pronoun is added for this emphasis; it has “but he” before the verb.

[22:18]  ²³ tn See Job 10:3.

[22:18]  ²⁴ tc The LXX has “from him,” and this is followed by several commentators. But the MT is to be retained, for Eliphaz is recalling the words of Job. Verses 17 and 18 are deleted by a number of commentators as a gloss because they have many similarities to 21:14-16. But Eliphaz is recalling what Job said, in order to say that the prosperity to which Job alluded was only the prelude to a disaster he denied (H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 156).

[23:13]  ²⁵ tc The MT has “But he [is] in one.” Many add the word “mind” to capture the point that God is resolute and unchanging. Some commentators find this too difficult, and so change the text from בְאֶחָד (bÿ’ekhad, here “unchangeable”) to בָחָר (bakhar, “he has chosen”). The wording in the text is idiomatic and should be retained. R. Gordis (Job, 262) translates it “he is one, i.e., unchangeable, fixed, determined.” The preposition בּ (bet) is a bet essentiae – “and he [is] as one,” or “he is one” (see GKC 379 §119.i).

[23:13]  ²⁶ tn Heb “cause him to return.”

[23:13]  ²⁷ tn Or “his soul.”

[31:28]  ²⁸ tn Heb “it.”

[31:28]  ²⁹ tn See v. 11 for the construction. In Deut 17:2ff. false worship of heavenly bodies is a capital offense. In this passage, Job is talking about just a momentary glance at the sun or moon and the brief lapse into a pagan thought. But it is still sin.

[31:28]  ³⁰ tn The verb כָּחַשׁ (kakhash) in the Piel means “to deny.” The root meaning is “to deceive; to disappoint; to grow lean.” Here it means that he would have failed or proven unfaithful because his act would have been a denial of God.

[32:8]  ³¹ tn This is the word נְשָׁמָה (nÿshamah, “breath”); according to Gen 2:7 it was breathed into Adam to make him a living person (“soul”). With that divine impartation came this spiritual understanding. Some commentators identify the רוּחַ (ruakh) in the first line as the Spirit of God; this “breath” would then be the human spirit. Whether Elihu knew that much, however, is hard to prove.

[39:30]  ³⁴ tn The word חֲלָלִים (khalalim) designates someone who is fatally wounded, literally the “pierced one,” meaning anyone or thing that dies a violent death.

[40:19]  ³⁷ tn Heb “the ways of God.”

[40:19]  ³⁸ tc The literal reading of the MT is “let the one who made him draw near [with] his sword.” The sword is apparently a reference to the teeth or tusks of the animal, which cut vegetation like a sword. But the idea of a weapon is easier to see, and so the people who favor the mythological background see here a reference to God’s slaying the Beast. There are again many suggestions on how to read the line. The RV probably has the safest: “He that made him has furnished him with his sword” (the sword being a reference to the sharp tusks with which he can attack).