Job 3:3

3:3 “Let the day on which ¹  I was born ²  perish,

and the night that said, ³ 

‘A man ⁴  has been conceived!’ ⁵ 

Job 16:10

16:10 People ⁶  have opened their mouths against me,

they have struck my cheek in scorn; ⁷ 

they unite ⁸  together against me.

Job 29:24

29:24 If I smiled at them, they hardly believed it; ⁹ 

and they did not cause the light of my face to darken. ¹⁰ 

Job 33:7

33:7 Therefore no fear of me should terrify you,

nor should my pressure ¹¹  be heavy on you. ¹² 

Job 34:21

34:21 For his eyes are on the ways of an individual,

he observes all a person’s ¹³  steps.

Job 36:17

36:17 But now you are preoccupied with the judgment due the wicked,

judgment and justice take hold of you.

Job 37:12

37:12 The clouds ¹⁴  go round in circles,

wheeling about according to his plans,

to carry out ¹⁵  all that he commands them

over the face of the whole inhabited world.

Job 39:18

39:18 But as soon as she springs up, ¹⁶ 

she laughs at the horse and its rider.

Job 40:11

40:11 Scatter abroad ¹⁷  the abundance ¹⁸  of your anger.

Look at every proud man ¹⁹  and bring him low;

Job 41:5

41:5 Can you play ²⁰  with it, like a bird,

or tie it on a leash ²¹  for your girls?

[3:3]  ¹ tn The relative clause is carried by the preposition with the resumptive pronoun: “the day [which] I was born in it” meaning “the day on which I was born” (see GKC 486-88 §155.f, i).

[3:3]  ² tn The verb is the Niphal imperfect. It may be interpreted in this dependent clause (1) as representing a future event from some point of time in the past – “the day on which I was born” or “would be born” (see GKC 316 §107.k). Or (2) it may simply serve as a preterite indicating action that is in the past.

[3:3]  ³ tn The MT simply has “and the night – it said….” By simple juxtaposition with the parallel construction (“on which I was born”) the verb “it said” must be a relative clause explaining “the night.” Rather than supply “in which” and make the verb passive (which is possible since no specific subject is provided, but leaves open the question of who said it), it is preferable to take the verse as a personification. First Job cursed the day; now he cursed the night that spoke about what it witnessed. See A. Ehrman, “A Note on the Verb ‘amar,” JQR 55 (1964/65): 166-67.

[3:3]  ⁴ tn The word is גֶּבֶר (gever, “a man”). The word usually distinguishes a man as strong, distinct from children and women. Translations which render this as “boy” (to remove the apparent contradiction of an adult being “conceived” in the womb) miss this point.

[3:3]  ⁵ sn The announcement at birth is to the fact that a male was conceived. The same parallelism between “brought forth/born” and “conceived” may be found in Ps 51:7 HT (51:5 ET). The motifs of the night of conception and the day of birth will be developed by Job. For the entire verse, which is more a wish or malediction than a curse, see S. H. Blank, “‘Perish the Day!’ A Misdirected Curse (Job 3:3),” Prophetic Thought, 61-63.

[16:10]  ⁶ tn “People” is supplied; the Hebrew verb is third plural. The colon reads, “they have opened against me with [the preposition is instrumental] their mouth.” The gestures here follow the animal imagery; they reflect destructive opposition and attack (see Ps 22:13 among others).

[16:10]  ⁷ tn This is an “insult” or a “reproach.”

[16:10]  ⁸ tn The verb יִתְמַלָּאוּן (yitmalla’un) is taken from מָלֵא (male’), “to be full,” and in this stem, “to pile up; to press together.” The term has a military connotation, such as “to mobilize” (see D. W. Thomas, “ml'w in Jeremiah 4:5 : a military term,” JJS 3 [1952]: 47-52). Job sees himself surrounded by enemies who persecute him and mock him.

[29:24]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² tn The meaning, according to Gordis, is that they did nothing to provoke Job’s displeasure.

[33:7]  ¹⁶ tc The noun means “my pressure; my burden” in the light of the verb אָכֲף (’akhaf, “to press on; to grip tightly”). In the parallel passages the text used “hand” and “rod” in the hand to terrify. The LXX has “hand” here for this word. But simply changing it to “hand” is ruled out because the verb is masculine.

[33:7]  ¹⁷ tn See Job 9:34 and 13:21.

[34:21]  ²¹ tn Heb “his”; the referent (a person) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[37:12]  ²⁶ tn The words “the clouds” are supplied from v. 11; the sentence itself actually starts: “and it goes round,” referring to the cloud.

[37:12]  ²⁷ tn Heb “that it may do.”

[39:18]  ³¹ tn The colon poses a slight problem here. The literal meaning of the Hebrew verb translated “springs up” (i.e., “lifts herself on high”) might suggest flight. But some of the proposals involve a reading about readying herself to run.

[40:11]  ³⁶ tn The verb was used for scattering lightning (Job 37:11). God is challenging Job to unleash his power and judge wickedness in the world.

[40:11]  ³⁷ tn Heb “the overflowings.”

[40:11]  ³⁸ tn The word was just used in the positive sense of excellence or majesty; now the exalted nature of the person refers to self-exaltation, or pride.

[41:5]  ⁴¹ tn The Hebrew verb is שָׂחַק (sakhaq, “to sport; to trifle; to play,” Ps 104:26).

[41:5]  ⁴² tn The idea may include putting Leviathan on a leash. D. W. Thomas suggested on the basis of an Arabic cognate that it could be rendered “tie him with a string like a young sparrow” (VT 14 [1964]: 114ff.).