Job 7:1

The Brevity of Life

7:1 “Does not humanity have hard service ¹  on earth?

Are not their days also

like the days of a hired man? ² 

Job 7:6

7:6 My days ³  are swifter ⁴  than a weaver’s shuttle ⁵ 

and they come to an end without hope. ⁶ 

Job 9:25

Renewed Complaint

9:25 “My days ⁷  are swifter than a runner, ⁸ 

they speed by without seeing happiness.

Genesis 47:9

47:9 Jacob said to Pharaoh, “All ⁹  the years of my travels ¹⁰  are 130. All ¹¹  the years of my life have been few and painful; ¹²  the years of my travels are not as long as those of my ancestors.” ¹³ 

Psalms 39:5

39:5 Look, you make my days short-lived, ¹⁴ 

and my life span is nothing from your perspective. ¹⁵ 

Surely all people, even those who seem secure, are nothing but vapor. ¹⁶ 

[7:1]  ¹ tn The word צָבָא (tsava’) is actually “army”; it can be used for the hard service of military service as well as other toil. As a military term it would include the fixed period of duty (the time) and the hard work (toil). Job here is considering the lot of all humans, not just himself.

[7:1]  ² tn The שָׂכִיר (sakhir) is a hired man, either a man who works for wages, or a mercenary soldier (Jer 46:21). The latter sense may be what is intended here in view of the parallelism, although the next verse seems much broader.

[7:6]  ³ sn The first five verses described the painfulness of his malady, his life; now, in vv. 6-10 he will focus on the brevity of his life, and its extinction with death. He introduces the subject with “my days,” a metonymy for his whole life and everything done on those days. He does not mean individual days – they drag on endlessly.

[7:6]  ⁴ tn The verb קָלַל (qalal) means “to be light” (40:4), and then by extension “to be swift; to be rapid” (Jer 4:13; Hab 1:8).

[7:6]  ⁵ sn The shuttle is the part which runs through the meshes of the web. In Judg 16:14 it is a loom (see BDB 71 s.v. אֶרֶג), but here it must be the shuttle. Hezekiah uses the imagery of the weaver, the loom, and the shuttle for the brevity of life (see Isa 38:12). The LXX used, “My life is lighter than a word.”

[7:6]  ⁶ tn The text includes a wonderful wordplay on this word. The noun is תִּקְוָה (tiqvah, “hope”). But it can also have the meaning of one of its cognate nouns, קַו (qav, “thread, cord,” as in Josh 2:18,21). He is saying that his life is coming to an end for lack of thread/for lack of hope (see further E. Dhorme, Job, 101).

[9:25]  ⁷ tn The text has “and my days” following the thoughts in the previous section.

[9:25]  ⁸ sn Job returns to the thought of the brevity of his life (7:6). But now the figure is the swift runner instead of the weaver’s shuttle.

[47:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “the days of.”

[47:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “sojournings.” Jacob uses a term that depicts him as one who has lived an unsettled life, temporarily residing in many different places.

[47:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the days of.”

[47:9]  ¹² tn The Hebrew word רַע (ra’) can sometimes mean “evil,” but that would give the wrong connotation here, where it refers to pain, difficulty, and sorrow. Jacob is thinking back through all the troubles he had to endure to get to this point.

[47:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “and they have not reached the days of the years of my fathers in the days of their sojournings.”

[39:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Look, handbreadths you make my days.” The “handbreadth” (equivalent to the width of four fingers) was one of the smallest measures used by ancient Israelites. See P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 (WBC), 309.

[39:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “is like nothing before you.”

[39:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “surely, all vapor [is] all mankind, standing firm.” Another option is to translate, “Surely, all mankind, though seemingly secure, is nothing but a vapor.”