Job 4:16

4:16 It stands still, ¹ 

but I cannot recognize ²  its appearance;

an image is before my eyes,

and I hear a murmuring voice: ³ 

Job 11:20

11:20 But the eyes of the wicked fail, ⁴ 

and escape ⁵  eludes them;

their one hope ⁶  is to breathe their last.” ⁷ 

Job 30:1

Job’s Present Misery

30:1 “But now they mock me, those who are younger ⁸  than I,

whose fathers I disdained too much ⁹ 

to put with my sheep dogs. ¹⁰ 

[4:16]  ¹ tc The LXX has the first person of the verb: “I arose and perceived it not, I looked and there was no form before my eyes; but I only heard a breath and a voice.”

[4:16]  ² tn The imperfect verb is to be classified as potential imperfect. Eliphaz is unable to recognize the figure standing before him.

[4:16]  ³ sn The colon reads “a silence and a voice I hear.” Some have rendered it “there is a silence, and then I hear.” The verb דָּמַם (damam) does mean “remain silent” (Job 29:21; 31:34) and then also “cease.” The noun דְּמָמָה (dÿmamah, “calm”) refers to the calm after the storm in Ps 107:29. Joined with the true object of the verb, “voice,” it probably means something like stillness or murmuring or whispering here. It is joined to “voice” with a conjunction, indicating that it is a hendiadys, “murmur and a voice” or a “murmuring voice.”

[11:20]  ⁴ tn The verb כָּלָה (kalah) means “to fail, cease, fade away.” The fading of the eyes, i.e., loss of sight, loss of life’s vitality, indicates imminent death.

[11:20]  ⁵ tn Heb a “place of escape” (with this noun pattern). There is no place to escape to because they all perish.

[11:20]  ⁶ tn The word is to be interpreted as a metonymy; it represents what is hoped for.

[11:20]  ⁷ tn Heb “the breathing out of the soul”; cf. KJV, ASV “the giving up of the ghost.” The line is simply saying that the brightest hope that the wicked have is death.

[30:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “smaller than I for days.”

[30:1]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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.