Job 4:13

4:13 In the troubling thoughts ¹  of the dreams ²  in the night

when a deep sleep ³  falls on men,

Job 6:27

6:27 Yes, you would gamble ⁴  for the fatherless,

and auction off ⁵  your friend.

Job 13:2

13:2 What you know, ⁶  I ⁷  know also;

I am not inferior ⁸  to you!

Job 13:11

13:11 Would not his splendor ⁹  terrify ¹⁰  you

and the fear he inspires ¹¹  fall on you?

Job 14:18

14:18 But as ¹²  a mountain falls away and crumbles, ¹³ 

and as a rock will be removed from its place,

Job 29:24

29:24 If I smiled at them, they hardly believed it; ¹⁴ 

and they did not cause the light of my face to darken. ¹⁵ 

[4:13]  ¹ tn Here too the word is rare. The form שְׂעִפִּים (sÿ’ippim, “disquietings”) occurs only here and in 20:2. The form שַׂרְעַפִּים (sar’appim, “disquieting thoughts”), possibly related by dissimilation, occurs in Pss 94:19 and 139:23. There seems to be a connection with סְעִפִּים (sÿ’ippim) in 1 Kgs 18:21 with the meaning “divided opinion”; this is related to the idea of סְעִפָּה (sÿ’ippah, “bough”). H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 47) concludes that the point is that like branches the thoughts lead off into different and bewildering places. E. Dhorme (Job, 50) links the word to an Arabic root (“to be passionately smitten”) for the idea of “intimate thoughts.” The idea here and in Ps 139 has more to do with anxious, troubling, disquieting thoughts, as in a nightmare.

[4:13]  ² tn Heb “visions” of the night.

[4:13]  ³ tn The word תַּרְדֵּמָה (tardemah) is a “deep sleep.” It is used in the creation account when the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam; and it is used in the story of Jonah when the prophet was asleep during the storm. The LXX interprets it to mean “fear,” rendering the whole verse “but terror falls upon men with dread and a sound in the night.”

[6:27]  ⁴ tn The word “lots” is not in the text; the verb is simply תַּפִּילוּ (tappilu, “you cast”). But the word “lots” is also omitted in 1 Sam 14:42. Some commentators follow the LXX and repoint the word and divide the object of the preposition to read “and fall upon the blameless one.” Fohrer deletes the verse. Peake transfers it to come after v. 23. Even though it does not follow quite as well here, it nonetheless makes sense as a strong invective against their lack of sympathy, and the lack of connection could be the result of emotional speech. He is saying they are the kind of people who would cast lots over the child of a debtor, who, after the death of the father, would be sold to slavery.

[6:27]  ⁵ tn The verb תִכְרוּ (tikhru) is from כָּרָה (karah), which is found in 40:30 with עַל (’al), to mean “to speculate” on an object. The form is usually taken to mean “to barter for,” which would be an expression showing great callousness to a friend (NIV). NEB has “hurl yourselves,” perhaps following the LXX “rush against.” but G. R. Driver thinks that meaning is very precarious. As for the translation, “to speculate about [or “over”] a friend” could be understood to mean “engage in speculation concerning,” so the translation “auction off” has been used instead.

[13:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “Like your knowledge”; in other words Job is saying that his knowledge is like their knowledge.

[13:2]  ⁸ tn The pronoun makes the subject emphatic and stresses the contrast: “I know – I also.”

[13:2]  ⁹ tn The verb “fall” is used here as it was in Job 4:13 to express becoming lower than someone, i.e., inferior.

[13:11]  ¹⁰ sn The word translated “his majesty” or “his splendor” (שְׂאֵתוֹ, sÿ’eto) forms a play on the word “show partiality” (תִּשָּׂאוּן, tissa’un) in the last verse. They are both from the verb נָשַׂא (nasa’, “to lift up”).

[13:11]  ¹¹ tn On this verb in the Piel, see 7:14.

[13:11]  ¹² tn Heb “His dread”; the suffix is a subjective genitive.

[14:18]  ¹³ tn The indication that this is a simile is to be obtained from the conjunction beginning 19c (see GKC 499 §161.a).

[14:18]  ¹⁴ tn The word יִבּוֹל (yibbol) usually refers to a flower fading and so seems strange here. The LXX and the Syriac translate “and will fall”; most commentators accept this and repoint the preceding word to get “and will surely fall.” Duhm retains the MT and applies the image of the flower to the falling mountain. The verb is used of the earth in Isa 24:4, and so NIV, RSV, and NJPS all have the idea of “crumble away.”

[29:24]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ tn The meaning, according to Gordis, is that they did nothing to provoke Job’s displeasure.