Job 4:6

4:6 Is not your piety ¹  your confidence, ² 

and your blameless ways your hope? ³ 

Job 10:10

10:10 Did you not pour ⁴  me out like milk,

and curdle ⁵  me like cheese? ⁶ 

Job 10:14

10:14 If I sinned, then you would watch me

and you would not acquit me of my iniquity.

Job 12:25

12:25 They grope about in darkness ⁷  without light;

he makes them stagger ⁸  like drunkards.

Job 14:4

14:4 Who can make ⁹  a clean thing come from an unclean? ¹⁰ 

No one!

Job 15:18

15:18 what wise men declare,

hiding nothing,

from the tradition of ¹¹  their ancestors, ¹² 

Job 16:17

16:17 although ¹³  there is no violence in my hands

and my prayer is pure.

Job 22:5

22:5 Is not your wickedness great ¹⁴ 

and is there no end to your iniquity?

Job 27:15

27:15 Those who survive him are buried by the plague, ¹⁵ 

and their ¹⁶  widows do not mourn for them.

Job 31:3

31:3 Is it not misfortune for the unjust,

and disaster for those who work iniquity?

Job 32:9

32:9 It is not the aged ¹⁷  who are wise,

nor old men who understand what is right.

Job 36:6

36:6 He does not allow the wicked to live, ¹⁸ 

but he gives justice to the poor.

[4:6]  ¹ tn The word יִרְאָה (yir’ah, “fear”) in this passage refers to Job’s fear of the Lord, his reverential devotion to God. H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 46) says that on the lips of Eliphaz the word almost means “your religion.” He refers to Moffatt’s translation, “Let your religion reassure you.”

[4:6]  ² tn The word כִּסְלָתֶךָ (kislatekha, “your confidence”) is rendered in the LXX by “founded in folly.” The word כֶּסֶל (kesel) is “confidence” (see 8:14) and elsewhere “folly.” Since it is parallel to “your hope” it must mean confidence here.

[4:6]  ³ tn This second half of the verse simply has “your hope and the integrity of your ways.” The expression “the perfection of your ways” is parallel to “your fear,” and “your hope” is parallel to “your confidence.” This sentence is an example of casus pendens or extraposition: “as for your hope, it is the integrity of your ways” (see GKC 458 §143.d).

[10:10]  ⁴ tn The verb נָתַךְ (natakh) means “to flow,” and in the Hiphil, “to cause to flow.”

[10:10]  ⁵ tn This verb קָפָא (qafa’) means “to coagulate.” In the Hiphil it means “to stiffen; to congeal.”

[10:10]  ⁶ tn The verbs in v. 10 are prefixed conjugations; since the reference is to the womb, these would need to be classified as preterites.

[12:25]  ⁷ tn The word is an adverbial accusative.

[12:25]  ⁸ tn The verb is the same that was in v. 24, “He makes them [the leaders still] wander” (the Hiphil of תָּעָה, ta’ah). But in this passage some commentators emend the text to a Niphal of the verb and put it in the plural, to get the reading “they reel to and fro.” But even if the verse closes the chapter and there is no further need for a word of divine causation, the Hiphil sense works well here – causing people to wander like a drunken man would be the same as making them stagger.

[14:4]  ¹⁰ tn The expression is מִי־יִתֵּן (mi-yitten, “who will give”; see GKC 477 §151.b). Some commentators (H. H. Rowley and A. B. Davidson) wish to take this as the optative formula: “O that a clean might come out of an unclean!” But that does not fit the verse very well, and still requires the addition of a verb. The exclamation here simply implies something impossible – man is unable to attain purity.

[14:4]  ¹¹ sn The point being made is that the entire human race is contaminated by sin, and therefore cannot produce something pure. In this context, since man is born of woman, it is saying that the woman and the man who is brought forth from her are impure. See Ps 51:5; Isa 6:5; and Gen 6:5.

[15:18]  ¹³ tn The word “tradition” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation.

[15:18]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “their fathers.” Some commentators change one letter and follow the reading of the LXX: “and their fathers have not hidden.” Pope tries to get the same reading by classifying the מ (mem) as an enclitic mem. The MT on first glance would read “and did not hide from their fathers.” Some take the clause “and they did not hide” as adverbial and belonging to the first part of the verse: “what wise men declare, hiding nothing, according to the tradition of their fathers.”

[16:17]  ¹⁶ tn For the use of the preposition עַל (’al) to introduce concessive clauses, see GKC 499 §160.c.

[22:5]  ¹⁹ tn The adjective רַבָּה (rabbah) normally has the idea of “great” in quantity (“abundant,” ESV) rather than “great” in quality.

[27:15]  ²² tn The text says “will be buried in/by death.” A number of passages in the Bible use “death” to mean the plague that kills (see Jer 15:2; Isa 28:3; and BDB 89 s.v. בְּ 2.a). In this sense it is like the English expression for the plague, “the Black Death.”

[27:15]  ²³ tc The LXX has “their widows” to match the plural, and most commentators harmonize in the same way.

[32:9]  ²⁵ tn The MT has “the great” or “the many,” meaning great in years according to the parallelism.

[36:6]  ²⁸ tn Or “he does not keep the wicked alive.”