Job 4:18

4:18 If ¹  God ²  puts no trust in ³  his servants ⁴ 

and attributes ⁵  folly ⁶  to his angels,

Job 8:19

8:19 Indeed, this is the joy of his way, ⁷ 

and out of the earth ⁸  others spring up. ⁹ 

Job 12:15

12:15 If he holds back the waters, then they dry up; ¹⁰ 

if he releases them, ¹¹  they destroy ¹²  the land.

Job 13:1

Job Pleads His Cause to God ¹³ 

13:1 “Indeed, my eyes have seen all this, ¹⁴ 

my ears have heard and understood it.

Job 15:15

15:15 If God places no trust in his holy ones, ¹⁵ 

if even the heavens ¹⁶  are not pure in his eyes,

Job 19:7

Job’s Abandonment and Affliction

19:7 “If ¹⁷  I cry out, ¹⁸  ‘Violence!’ ¹⁹ 

I receive no answer; ²⁰ 

I cry for help,

but there is no justice.

Job 21:16

21:16 But their prosperity is not their own doing. ²¹ 

The counsel of the wicked is far from me! ²² 

Job 23:8

The Inaccessibility and Power of God

23:8 “If I go to the east, he is not there,

and to the west, yet I do not perceive him.

Job 27:12

27:12 If you yourselves have all seen this,

Why in the world ²³  do you continue this meaningless talk? ²⁴ 

Job 33:6

33:6 Look, I am just like you in relation to God;

I too have been molded ²⁵  from clay.

Job 33:10

33:10 ²⁶ Yet God ²⁷  finds occasions ²⁸  with me;

he regards me as his enemy!

Job 36:5

36:5 Indeed, God is mighty; and he does not despise people, ²⁹ 

he ³⁰  is mighty, and firm ³¹  in his intent. ³² 

Job 36:22

36:22 Indeed, God is exalted in his power;

who is a teacher ³³  like him?

Job 36:30

36:30 See how he scattered ³⁴  his lightning ³⁵  about him;

he has covered the depths ³⁶  of the sea.

Job 40:4

40:4 “Indeed, I am completely unworthy ³⁷  – how could I reply to you?

I put ³⁸  my hand over my mouth to silence myself. ³⁹ 

Job 41:9

41:9 (41:1) ⁴⁰  See, his expectation is wrong, ⁴¹ 

he is laid low even at the sight of it. ⁴² 

[4:18]  ¹ tn The particle הֵן (hen) introduces a conditional clause here, although the older translations used “behold.” The clause forms the foundation for the point made in the next verse, an argument by analogy – if this be true, then how much more/less the other.

[4:18]  ² tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:18]  ³ tn The verb יַאֲמִין (ya’amin), a Hiphil imperfect from אָמַן (’aman) followed by the preposition בּ (bet), means “trust in.”

[4:18]  ⁴ sn The servants here must be angels in view of the parallelism. The Targum to Job interpreted them to be the prophets. In the book we have already read about the “sons of God” who take their stand as servants before the Lord (1:6; 2:1). And Ps 104:4 identifies the angels as servants (using שָׁרַת, sharat).

[4:18]  ⁵ tn The verb שִׂים (sim, “set”) with the preposition בּ (bet) has the sense of “impute” or “attribute something to someone.”

[4:18]  ⁶ tn The word תָּהֳלָה (toholah) is a hapax legomenon, and so has created some confusion in the various translations. It seems to mean “error; folly.” The word is translated “perverseness” in the LXX; but Symmachus connects it with the word for “madness.” “Some commentators have repointed the word to תְּהִלָּה (tÿhillah, “praise”) making the line read: “he finds no [cause for] praise in his angels.” Others suggest תִּפְלָה (tiflah, “offensiveness, silliness”) a bigger change; this matches the idiom in Job 24:12. But if the etymology of the word is הָלַל (halal, “to be mad”) then that change is not necessary. The feminine noun “madness” still leaves the meaning of the line a little uncertain: “[if] he does not impute madness to his angels.” The point of the verse is that God finds flaws in his angels and does not put his trust in them.

[8:19]  ⁷ tn This line is difficult. If the MT stands as it is, the expression must be ironic. It would be saying that the joy (all the security and prosperity) of its way (its life) is short-lived – that is the way its joy goes. Most commentators are not satisfied with this. Dhorme, for one, changes מְשׂוֹשׂ (mÿsos, “joy”) to מְסוֹס (mÿsos, “rotting”), and gets “behold him lie rotting on the path.” The sibilants can interchange this way. But Dhorme thinks the MT was written the way it was because the word was thought to be “joy,” when it should have been the other way. The word “way” then becomes an accusative of place. The suggestion is rather compelling and would certainly fit the context. The difficulty is that a root סוּס (sus, “to rot”) has to be proposed. E. Dhorme does this by drawing on Arabic sas, “to be eaten by moths or worms,” thus “worm-eaten; decaying; rotting.” Cf. NIV “its life withers away”; also NAB “there he lies rotting beside the road.”

[8:19]  ⁸ tn Heb “dust.”

[8:19]  ⁹ sn As with the tree, so with the godless man – his place will soon be taken by another.

[12:15]  ¹³ tc The LXX has a clarification: “he will dry the earth.”

[12:15]  ¹⁴ sn The verse is focusing on the two extremes of drought and flood. Both are described as being under the power of God.

[12:15]  ¹⁵ tn The verb הָפַךְ (hafakh) means “to overthrow; to destroy; to overwhelm.” It was used in Job 9:5 for “overturning” mountains. The word is used in Genesis for the destruction of Sodom.

[13:1]  ¹⁹ sn Chapter 13 records Job’s charges against his friends for the way they used their knowledge (1-5), his warning that God would find out their insincerity (6-12), and his pleading of his cause to God in which he begs for God to remove his hand from him and that he would not terrify him with his majesty and that he would reveal the sins that caused such great suffering (13-28).

[13:1]  ²⁰ tn Hebrew has כֹּל (kol, “all”); there is no reason to add anything to the text to gain a meaning “all this.”

[15:15]  ²⁵ tn Eliphaz here reiterates the point made in Job 4:18.

[15:15]  ²⁶ sn The question here is whether the reference is to material “heavens” (as in Exod 24:10 and Job 25:5), or to heavenly beings. The latter seems preferable in this context.

[19:7]  ³¹ tn The particle is used here as in 9:11 (see GKC 497 §159.w).

[19:7]  ³² tc The LXX has “I laugh at reproach.”

[19:7]  ³³ tn The same idea is expressed in Jer 20:8 and Hab 1:2. The cry is a cry for help, that he has been wronged, that there is no justice.

[19:7]  ³⁴ tn The Niphal is simply “I am not answered.” See Prov 21:13b.

[21:16]  ³⁷ tn Heb “is not in their hand.”

[21:16]  ³⁸ sn Even though their life seems so good in contrast to his own plight, Job cannot and will not embrace their principles – “far be from me their counsel.”

[27:12]  ⁴³ tn The interrogative uses the demonstrative pronoun in its emphatic position: “Why in the world…?” (IBHS 312-13 §17.4.3c).

[27:12]  ⁴⁴ tn The text has the noun “vain thing; breath; vapor,” and then a denominative verb from the same root: “to become vain with a vain thing,” or “to do in vain a vain thing.” This is an example of the internal object, or a cognate accusative (see GKC 367 §117.q). The LXX has “you all know that you are adding vanity to vanity.”

[33:6]  ⁴⁹ tn The verb means “nipped off,” as a potter breaks off a piece of clay when molding a vessel.

[33:10]  ⁵⁵ sn See Job 10:13ff.; 19:6ff.; and 13:24.

[33:10]  ⁵⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[33:10]  ⁵⁷ tn The Hebrew means “frustrations” or “oppositions.” The RSV has “displeasure,” NIV “faults,” and NRSV “occasions.” Rashi chose the word found in Judg 14:4 – with metathesis – meaning “pretexts” (תֹּאֲנוֹת, to’anot); this is followed by NAB, NASB.

[36:5]  ⁶¹ tn The object “people” is not in the Hebrew text but is implied.

[36:5]  ⁶² tn The text simply repeats “mighty.”

[36:5]  ⁶³ tn The last two words are simply כֹּחַ לֵב (koakh lev, “strong in heart”), meaning something like “strong; firm in his decisions.”

[36:5]  ⁶⁴ 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”).

[36:22]  ⁶⁷ tn The word מוֹרֶה (moreh) is the Hiphil participle from יָרַה (yarah). It is related to the noun תּוֹרָה (torah, “what is taught” i.e., the law).

[36:30]  ⁷³ tn The word actually means “to spread,” but with lightning as the object, “to scatter” appears to fit the context better.

[36:30]  ⁷⁴ tn The word is “light,” but taken to mean “lightning.” Theodotion had “mist” here, and so most commentators follow that because it is more appropriate to the verb and the context.

[36:30]  ⁷⁵ tn Heb “roots.”

[40:4]  ⁷⁹ tn The word קַלֹּתִי (qalloti) means “to be light; to be of small account; to be unimportant.” From this comes the meaning “contemptible,” which in the causative stem would mean “to treat with contempt; to curse.” Dhorme tries to make the sentence a conditional clause and suggests this meaning: “If I have been thoughtless.” There is really no “if” in Job’s mind.

[40:4]  ⁸⁰ tn The perfect verb here should be classified as an instantaneous perfect; the action is simultaneous with the words.

[40:4]  ⁸¹ tn The words “to silence myself” are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[41:9]  ⁸⁵ sn Job 41:9 in the English Bible is 41:1 in the Hebrew text (BHS). From here to the end of the chapter the Hebrew verse numbers differ from those in the English Bible, with 41:10 ET = 41:2 HT, 41:11 ET = 41:3 HT, etc. See also the note on 41:1.

[41:9]  ⁸⁶ tn The line is difficult. “His hope [= expectation]” must refer to any assailant who hopes or expects to capture the creature. Because there is no antecedent, Dhorme and others transpose it with the next verse. The point is that the man who thought he was sufficient to confront Leviathan soon finds his hope – his expectation – false (a derivative from the verb כָּזַב [kazab, “lie”] is used for a mirage).

[41:9]  ⁸⁷ tn There is an interrogative particle in this line, which most commentators ignore. But others freely emend the MT. Gunkel, following the mythological approach, has “his appearance casts down even a god.” Cheyne likewise has: “even divine beings the fear of him brings low” (JQR 9 [1896/97]: 579). Pope has, “Were not the gods cast down at the sight of him?” There is no need to bring in this mythological element.