Job 5:1

5:1 “Call now! ¹  Is there anyone who will answer you? ² 

To which of the holy ones ³  will you turn? ⁴ 

Job 14:3

14:3 Do you fix your eye ⁵  on such a one? ⁶ 

And do you bring me ⁷  before you for judgment?

Job 35:10

35:10 But no one says, ‘Where is God, my Creator,

who gives songs in the night, ⁸ 

Job 39:30

39:30 And its young ones devour the blood,

and where the dead carcasses ⁹  are,

there it is.”

Job 41:10

41:10 Is it not fierce ¹⁰  when it is awakened?

Who is he, then, who can stand before it? ¹¹ 

[5:1]  ¹ tn Some commentators transpose this verse with the following paragraph, placing it after v. 7 (see E. Dhorme, Job, 62). But the reasons for this are based on the perceived development of the argument and are not that compelling.

[5:1]  ² tn The participle with the suffix could be given a more immediate translation to accompany the imperative: “Call now! Is anyone listening to you?”

[5:1]  ³ tn The LXX has rendered “holy ones” as “holy angels” (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT). The LXX has interpreted the verb in the colon too freely: “if you will see.”

[5:1]  ⁴ sn The point being made is that the angels do not represent the cries of people to God as if mediating for them. But if Job appealed to any of them to take his case against God, there would be no response whatsoever for that.

[14:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “open the eye on,” an idiom meaning to prepare to judge someone.

[14:3]  ⁶ tn The verse opens with אַף־עַל־זֶה (’af-’al-zeh), meaning “even on such a one!” It is an exclamation of surprise.

[14:3]  ⁷ tn The text clearly has “me” as the accusative; but many wish to emend it to say “him” (אֹתוֹ, ’oto). But D. J. A. Clines rightly rejects this in view of the way Job is written, often moving back and forth from his own tragedy and others’ tragedies (Job [WBC], 283).

[35:10]  ⁹ tn There have been several attempts to emend the line, none of which are particularly helpful or interesting. H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 225) says, “It is a pity to rob Elihu of a poetic line when he creates one.”

[39:30]  ¹³ tn The word חֲלָלִים (khalalim) designates someone who is fatally wounded, literally the “pierced one,” meaning anyone or thing that dies a violent death.

[41:10]  ¹⁷ sn The description is of the animal, not the hunter (or fisherman). Leviathan is so fierce that no one can take him on alone.

[41:10]  ¹⁸ tc MT has “before me” and can best be rendered as “Who then is he that can stand before me?” (ESV, NASB, NIV, NLT, NJPS). The following verse (11) favors the MT since both express the lesson to be learned from Leviathan: If a man cannot stand up to Leviathan, how can he stand up to its creator? The translation above has chosen to read the text as “before him” (cf. NRSV, NJB).