Job 36:5

36:5 Indeed, God is mighty; and he does not despise people, ¹ 

he ²  is mighty, and firm ³  in his intent. ⁴ 

Job 8:2

8:2 “How long will you speak these things, ⁵ 

seeing ⁶  that the words of your mouth

are like a great ⁷  wind? ⁸ 

Job 15:10

15:10 The gray-haired ⁹  and the aged are on our side, ¹⁰ 

men far older than your father. ¹¹ 

Job 34:17

34:17 Do you really think ¹² 

that one who hates justice can govern? ¹³ 

And will you declare guilty

the supremely righteous ¹⁴  One,

Job 31:25

31:25 if I have rejoiced because of the extent of my wealth,

or because of the great wealth my hand had gained,

[36:5]  ¹ tn The object “people” is not in the Hebrew text but is implied.

[36:5]  ² tn The text simply repeats “mighty.”

[36:5]  ³ tn The last two words are simply כֹּחַ לֵב (koakh lev, “strong in heart”), meaning something like “strong; firm in his decisions.”

[36:5]  ⁴ tc There are several problems in this verse: the repetition of “mighty,” the lack of an object for “despise,” and the meaning of “strength of heart.” Many commentators reduce the verse to a single line, reading something like “Lo, God does not reject the pure in heart” (Kissane). Dhorme and Pope follow Nichols with: “Lo, God is mighty in strength, and rejects not the pure in heart.” This reading moved “mighty” to the first line and took the second to be בַּר (bar, “pure”).

[8:2]  ⁵ sn “These things” refers to all of Job’s speech, the general drift of which seems to Bildad to question the justice of God.

[8:2]  ⁶ tn The second colon of the verse simply says “and a strong wind the words of your mouth.” The simplest way to treat this is to make it an independent nominal sentence: “the words of your mouth are a strong wind.” Some have made it parallel to the first by apposition, understanding “how long” to do double duty. The line beginning with the ו (vav) can also be subordinated as a circumstantial clause, as here.

[8:2]  ⁷ tn The word כַּבִּיר (kabbir, “great”) implies both abundance and greatness. Here the word modifies “wind”; the point of the analogy is that Job’s words are full of sound but without solid content.

[8:2]  ⁸ tn See, however, G. R. Driver’s translation, “the breath of one who is mighty are the words of your mouth” (“Hebrew Studies,” JRAS 1948: 170).

[15:10]  ⁹ tn The participle שָׂב (sav), from שִׂיב (siv, “to have white hair”; 1 Sam 12:2), only occurs elsewhere in the Bible in the Aramaic sections of Ezra. The word יָשִׁישׁ (yashish, “aged”) occurred in 12:12.

[15:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “with us.”

[15:10]  ¹¹ tn The line reads: “[men] greater than your father [in] days.” The expression “in days” underscores their age – they were older than Job’s father, and therefore wiser.

[34:17]  ¹³ tn The force of הַאַף (ha’af) is “Is it truly the case?” The point is being made that if Job were right God could not be judging the world.

[34:17]  ¹⁴ tn The verb חָבַשׁ (khavash) has the basic idea of “to bind,” as in binding on the yoke, and then in the sense of subduing people under authority (cf. Assyrian absanu). The imperfect verb here is best expressed with the potential nuance.

[34:17]  ¹⁵ tn The two words could be taken separately, but they seem to form a fine nominal hendiadys, because the issue is God’s justice. So the word for power becomes the modifier.