Job 4:15

4:15 Then a breath of air ¹  passes ²  by my face;

it makes ³  the hair of my flesh stand up.

Job 8:2

8:2 “How long will you speak these things, ⁴ 

seeing ⁵  that the words of your mouth

are like a great ⁶  wind? ⁷ 

Job 9:18

9:18 He does not allow ⁸  me to recover ⁹  my breath,

for he fills ¹⁰  me with bitterness.

Job 10:12

10:12 You gave me ¹¹  life and favor, ¹² 

and your intervention ¹³  watched over my spirit.

Job 15:2

15:2 “Does a wise man answer with blustery knowledge, ¹⁴ 

or fill his belly ¹⁵  with the east wind? ¹⁶ 

Job 15:13

15:13 when you turn your rage ¹⁷  against God

and allow such words to escape ¹⁸  from your mouth?

Job 16:3

16:3 Will ¹⁹  there be an end to your ²⁰  windy words? ²¹ 

Or what provokes ²²  you that you answer? ²³ 

Job 21:4

21:4 Is my ²⁴  complaint against a man? ²⁵ 

If so, ²⁶  why should I not be impatient? ²⁷ 

Job 21:18

21:18 How often ²⁸  are they like straw before the wind,

and like chaff swept away ²⁹  by a whirlwind?

Job 26:13

26:13 By his breath ³⁰  the skies became fair;

his hand pierced the fleeing serpent. ³¹ 

Job 27:3

27:3 for while ³²  my spirit ³³  is still in me,

and the breath from God is in my nostrils,

Job 32:8

32:8 But it is a spirit in people,

the breath ³⁴  of the Almighty,

that makes them understand.

Job 34:14

34:14 If God ³⁵  were to set his heart on it, ³⁶ 

and gather in his spirit and his breath,

Job 41:16

41:16 each one is so close to the next ³⁷ 

that no air can come between them.

[4:15]  ¹ tn The word רוּחַ (ruakh) can be “spirit” or “breath.” The implication here is that it was something that Eliphaz felt – what he saw follows in v. 16. The commentators are divided on whether this is an apparition, a spirit, or a breath. The word can be used in either the masculine or the feminine, and so the gender of the verb does not favor the meaning “spirit.” In fact, in Isa 21:1 the same verb חָלַף (khalaf, “pass on, through”) is used with the subject being a strong wind or hurricane “blowing across.” It may be that such a wind has caused Eliphaz’s hair to stand on end here. D. J. A. Clines (Job [WBC], 111) also concludes it means “wind,” noting that in Job a spirit or spirits would be called רְפָאִים (rÿfa’im), אֶלֹהִים (’elohim) or אוֹב (’ov).

[4:15]  ² tn The verbs in this verse are imperfects. In the last verse the verbs were perfects when Eliphaz reported the fear that seized him. In this continuation of the report the description becomes vivid with the change in verbs, as if the experience were in progress.

[4:15]  ³ tn The subject of this verb is also רוּחַ (ruakh, “spirit”), since it can assume either gender. The “hair of my flesh” is the complement and not the subject; therefore the Piel is to be retained and not changed to a Qal as some suggest (and compare with Ps 119:120).

[8:2]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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).

[9:18]  ⁷ tn The verb נָתַן (natan) essentially means “to give”; but followed by the infinitive (without the ל [lamed] here) it means “to permit; to allow.”

[9:18]  ⁸ tn The Hiphil of the verb means “to bring back”; with the object “my breath,” it means “get my breath” or simply “breathe.” The infinitive is here functioning as the object of the verb (see GKC 350 §114.m).

[9:18]  ⁹ sn The meaning of the word is “to satiate; to fill,” as in “drink to the full, be satisfied.” Job is satiated – in the negative sense – with bitterness. There is no room for more.

[10:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “you made with me.”

[10:12]  ¹¹ tn E. Dhorme (Job, 150) suggests that the relation between these two words is like a hendiadys. In other words, “life,” which he says is made prominent by the shift of the copula, specifies the nature of the grace. He renders it “the favor of life.” D. J. A. Clines at least acknowledges that the expression “you showed loyal love with me” is primary. There are many other attempts to improve the translation of this unusual combination.

[10:12]  ¹² tn The noun פְּקָָֻדּה (pÿquddah), originally translated “visitation,” actually refers to any divine intervention for blessing on the life. Here it would include the care and overseeing of the life of Job. “Providence” may be too general for the translation, but it is not far from the meaning of this line. The LXX has “your oversight.”

[15:2]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew is דַעַת־רוּחַ (da’at-ruakh). This means knowledge without any content, vain knowledge.

[15:2]  ¹⁴ tn The image is rather graphic. It is saying that he puffs himself up with the wind and then brings out of his mouth blasts of this wind.

[15:2]  ¹⁵ tn The word for “east wind,” קָדִים (qadim), is parallel to “spirit/wind” also in Hos 12:2. The east wind is maleficent, but here in the parallelism it is so much hot air.

[15:13]  ¹⁶ tn The Hebrew is רוּחֶךָ (rukhekha, “your spirit” or “your breath”). But the fact that this is turned “against God,” means that it must be given a derived meaning, or a meaning that is metonymical. It is used in the Bible in the sense of anger – what the spirit vents (see Judg 8:3; Prov 16:32; and Job 4:9 with “blast”).

[15:13]  ¹⁷ tn The verb is a Hiphil perfect of yasa’, “to go out, proceed, issue forth.”

[16:3]  ¹⁹ tn Disjunctive questions are introduced with the sign of the interrogative; the second part is introduced with אוֹ (’o, see GKC 475 §150.g).

[16:3]  ²⁰ tn In v. 3 the second person singular is employed rather than the plural as in vv. 2 and 4. The singular might be an indication that the words of v. 3 were directed at Eliphaz specifically.

[16:3]  ²¹ tn Heb “words of wind.”

[16:3]  ²² tn The Hiphil of מָרַץ (marats) does not occur anywhere else. The word means “to compel; to force” (see 6:25).

[16:3]  ²³ tn The LXX seems to have gone a different way: “What, is there any reason in vain words, or what will hinder you from answering?”

[21:4]  ²² tn The addition of the independent pronoun at the beginning of the sentence (“Is it I / against a man / my complaint”) strengthens the pronominal suffix on “complaint” (see GKC 438 §135.f).

[21:4]  ²³ sn The point seems to be that if his complaint were merely against men he might expect sympathy from other men; but no one dares offer him sympathy when his complaint is against God. So he will give free expression to his spirit (H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 147).

[21:4]  ²⁴ tn On disjunctive interrogatives, see GKC 475 §150.g.

[21:4]  ²⁵ tn Heb “why should my spirit/breath not be short” (see Num 21:4; Judg 16:16).

[21:18]  ²⁵ tn To retain the sense that the wicked do not suffer as others, this verse must either be taken as a question or a continuation of the question in v. 17.

[21:18]  ²⁶ tn The verb used actually means “rob.” It is appropriate to the image of a whirlwind suddenly taking away the wisp of straw.

[26:13]  ²⁸ tn Or “wind”; or perhaps “Spirit.” The same Hebrew word, רוּחַ (ruakh), may be translated as “wind,” “breath,” or “spirit/Spirit” depending on the context.

[26:13]  ²⁹ sn Here too is a reference to pagan views indirectly. The fleeing serpent was a designation for Leviathan, whom the book will simply describe as an animal, but the pagans thought to be a monster of the deep. God’s power over nature is associated with defeat of pagan gods (see further W. F. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan; idem, BASOR 53 [1941]: 39).

[27:3]  ³¹ tn The adverb עוֹד (’od) was originally a noun, and so here it could be rendered “all the existence of my spirit.” The word comes between the noun in construct and its actual genitive (see GKC 415 §128.e).

[27:3]  ³² tn The word נְשָׁמָה (nÿshamah) is the “breath” that was breathed into Adam in Gen 2:7. Its usage includes the animating breath, the spiritual understanding, and the functioning conscience – so the whole spirit of the person. The other word in this verse, רוּחַ (ruakh), may be translated as “wind,” “breath,” or “spirit/Spirit” depending on the context. Here, since it talks about the nostrils, it should be translated “breath.”

[32:8]  ³⁴ 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.

[34:14]  ³⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:14]  ³⁸ tc This is the reading following the Qere. The Kethib and the Syriac and the LXX suggest a reading יָשִׂים (yasim, “if he [God] recalls”). But this would require leaving out “his heart,” and would also require redividing the verse to make “his spirit” the object. It makes better parallelism, but may require too many changes.

[41:16]  ⁴⁰ tn The expression “each one…to the next” is literally “one with one.”