Job 39:18

39:18 But as soon as she springs up, ¹ 

she laughs at the horse and its rider.

Job 41:5

41:5 Can you play ²  with it, like a bird,

or tie it on a leash ³  for your girls?

Job 5:22

5:22 You will laugh at destruction and famine ⁴ 

and need not ⁵  be afraid of the beasts of the earth.

Job 29:24

29:24 If I smiled at them, they hardly believed it; ⁶ 

and they did not cause the light of my face to darken. ⁷ 

Job 39:7

39:7 It scorns the tumult in the town;

it does not hear the shouts of a driver. ⁸ 

Job 39:22

39:22 It laughs at fear and is not dismayed;

it does not shy away from the sword.

Job 41:29

41:29 A club is counted ⁹  as a piece of straw;

it laughs at the rattling of the lance.

Job 40:20

40:20 For the hills bring it food, ¹⁰ 

where all the wild animals play.

Job 30:1

Job’s Present Misery

30:1 “But now they mock me, those who are younger ¹¹  than I,

whose fathers I disdained too much ¹² 

to put with my sheep dogs. ¹³ 

[39:18]  ¹ 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.

[41:5]  ² tn The Hebrew verb is שָׂחַק (sakhaq, “to sport; to trifle; to play,” Ps 104:26).

[41:5]  ³ 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.).

[5:22]  ³ tc The repetition of “destruction” and “famine” here has prompted some scholars to delete the whole verse. Others try to emend the text. The LXX renders them as “the unrighteous and the lawless.” But there is no difficulty in having the repetition of the words as found in the MT.

[5:22]  ⁴ tn The negated jussive is used here to express the conviction that something cannot or should not happen (GKC 322 §109.e).

[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.

[39:7]  ⁵ sn The animal is happier in open countryside than in a busy town, and on its own rather than being driven by a herdsman.

[41:29]  ⁶ tn The verb is plural, but since there is no expressed subject it is translated as a passive here.

[40:20]  ⁷ tn The word בּוּל (bul) probably refers to food. Many take it as an abbreviated form of יְבוּל (yÿvul, “produce of the field”). The vegetation that is produced on the low hills is what is meant.

[30:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “smaller than I for days.”

[30:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “who I disdained their fathers to set…,” meaning “whose fathers I disdained to set.” The relative clause modifies the young fellows who mock; it explains that Job did not think highly enough of them to put them with the dogs. The next verse will explain why.

[30:1]  ¹⁰ sn Job is mocked by young fellows who come from low extraction. They mocked their elders and their betters. The scorn is strong here – dogs were despised as scavengers.