Job 6:22

Friends’ Fears

6:22 “Have I ¹  ever said, ²  ‘Give me something,

and from your fortune ³  make gifts ⁴  in my favor’?

Job 7:13

7:13 If ⁵  I say, ⁶  “My bed will comfort me, ⁷ 

my couch will ease ⁸  my complaint,”

Job 31:24

31:24 “If I have put my confidence in gold

or said to pure gold,

‘You are my security!’

Job 32:7

32:7 I said to myself, ‘Age ⁹  should speak, ¹⁰ 

and length of years ¹¹  should make wisdom known.’

Job 32:10

32:10 Therefore I say, ‘Listen ¹²  to me.

I, even I, will explain what I know.’

Job 9:22

Accusation of God’s Justice

9:22 “It is all one! ¹³  That is why I say, ¹⁴ 

‘He destroys the blameless and the guilty.’

[6:22]  ¹ tn The Hebrew הֲכִי (hakhi) literally says “Is it because….”

[6:22]  ² sn For the next two verses Job lashes out in sarcasm against his friends. If he had asked for charity, for their wealth, he might have expected their cold response. But all he wanted was sympathy and understanding (H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 63).

[6:22]  ³ tn The word כֹּחַ (koakh) basically means “strength, force”; but like the synonym חַיִל (khayil), it can also mean “wealth, fortune.” E. Dhorme notes that to the Semitic mind, riches bring power (Job, 90).

[6:22]  ⁴ tn Or “bribes.” The verb שִׁחֲדוּ (shikhadu) means “give a שֹׁחַד (shokhad, “bribe”).” The significance is simply “make a gift” (especially in the sense of corrupting an official [Ezek 16:33]). For the spelling of the form in view of the guttural, see GKC 169 §64.a.

[7:13]  ⁵ tn The particle כִּי (ki) could also be translated “when,” but “if” might work better to introduce the conditional clause and to parallel the earlier reasoning of Job in v. 4 (using אִם, ’im). See GKC 336-37 §112.hh.

[7:13]  ⁶ tn The verb literally means “say,” but here the connotation must be “think” or “say to oneself” – “when I think my bed….”

[7:13]  ⁷ sn Sleep is the recourse of the troubled and unhappy. Here “bed” is metonymical for sleep. Job expects sleep to give him the comfort that his friends have not.

[7:13]  ⁸ tn The verb means “to lift up; to take away” (נָשָׂא, nasa’). When followed by the preposition בּ (bet) with the complement of the verb, the idea is “to bear a part; to take a share,” or “to share in the burden” (cf. Num 11:7). The idea then would be that the sleep would ease the complaint. It would not end the illness, but the complaining for a while.

[32:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “days.”

[32:7]  ¹⁰ tn The imperfect here is to be classified as an obligatory imperfect.

[32:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “abundance of years.”

[32:10]  ¹³ tc In most Hebrew mss this imperative is singular, and so addressed to Job. But two Hebrew mss and the versions have the plural. Elihu was probably addressing all of them.

[9:22]  ¹⁷ tc The LXX omits the phrase “It is all one.” Modern scholars either omit it or transpose it for clarity.

[9:22]  ¹⁸ tn The relationships of these clauses is in some question. Some think that the poet has inverted the first two, and so they should read, “That is why I have said: ‘It is all one.’” Others would take the third clause to be what was said.