Job 7:11-21

Job Remonstrates with God

7:11 “Therefore, ¹  I will not refrain my mouth; ² 

I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;

I will complain ³  in the bitterness of my soul.

7:12 Am I the sea, or the creature of the deep, ⁴ 

that you must put ⁵  me under guard? ⁶ 

7:13 If ⁷  I say, ⁸  “My bed will comfort me, ⁹ 

my couch will ease ¹⁰  my complaint,”

7:14 then you scare me ¹¹  with dreams

and terrify ¹²  me with ¹³  visions,

7:15 so that I ¹⁴  would prefer ¹⁵  strangling, ¹⁶ 

and ¹⁷  death ¹⁸  more ¹⁹  than life. ²⁰ 

7:16 I loathe ²¹  it; ²²  I do not want to live forever;

leave me alone, ²³  for my days are a vapor! ²⁴ 

Insignificance of Humans

7:17 “What is mankind ²⁵  that you make so much of them, ²⁶ 

and that you pay attention ²⁷  to them?

7:18 And that you visit ²⁸  them every morning,

and try ²⁹  them every moment? ³⁰ 

7:19 Will you never ³¹  look away from me, ³² 

will you not let me alone ³³ 

long enough to swallow my spittle?

7:20 If ³⁴  I have sinned – what have I done to you, ³⁵ 

O watcher of men? ³⁶ 

Why have you set me as your target? ³⁷ 

Have I become a burden to you? ³⁸ 

7:21 And why do you not pardon my transgression,

and take away my iniquity?

For now I will lie down in the dust, ³⁹ 

and you will seek me diligently, ⁴⁰ 

but I will be gone.”

Job 10:1-2

An Appeal for Revelation

10:1 “I ⁴¹  am weary ⁴²  of my life;

I will complain without restraint; ⁴³ 

I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

10:2 I will say to God, ‘Do not condemn ⁴⁴  me;

tell me ⁴⁵  why you are contending ⁴⁶  with me.’

Job 10:1

An Appeal for Revelation

10:1 “I ⁴⁷  am weary ⁴⁸  of my life;

I will complain without restraint; ⁴⁹ 

I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

Job 1:16

1:16 While this one was still speaking, ⁵⁰  another messenger arrived ⁵¹  and said, “The fire of God ⁵²  has fallen from heaven ⁵³  and has burned up the sheep and the servants – it has consumed them! And I – only I alone – escaped to tell you!”

Psalms 22:1-3

Psalm 22 ⁵⁴ 

For the music director; according to the tune “Morning Doe;” ⁵⁵  a psalm of David.

22:1 My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? ⁵⁶ 

I groan in prayer, but help seems far away. ⁵⁷ 

22:2 My God, I cry out during the day,

but you do not answer,

and during the night my prayers do not let up. ⁵⁸ 

22:3 You are holy;

you sit as king receiving the praises of Israel. ⁵⁹ 

Psalms 77:3-9

77:3 I said, “I will remember God while I groan;

I will think about him while my strength leaves me.” ⁶⁰  (Selah)

77:4 You held my eyelids open; ⁶¹ 

I was troubled and could not speak. ⁶² 

77:5 I thought about the days of old,

about ancient times. ⁶³ 

77:6 I said, “During the night I will remember the song I once sang;

I will think very carefully.”

I tried to make sense of what was happening. ⁶⁴ 

77:7 I asked, ⁶⁵  “Will the Lord reject me forever?

Will he never again show me his favor?

77:8 Has his loyal love disappeared forever?

Has his promise ⁶⁶  failed forever?

77:9 Has God forgotten to be merciful?

Has his anger stifled his compassion?”

Psalms 102:1

Psalm 102 ⁶⁷ 

The prayer of an oppressed man, as he grows faint and pours out his lament before the Lord.

102:1 O Lord, hear my prayer!

Pay attention to my cry for help! ⁶⁸ 

Psalms 142:2-3

142:2 I pour out my lament before him;

I tell him about ⁶⁹  my troubles.

142:3 Even when my strength leaves me, ⁷⁰ 

you watch my footsteps. ⁷¹ 

In the path where I walk

they have hidden a trap for me.

Matthew 26:38

26:38 Then he said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, even to the point of death. Remain here and stay awake with me.”

[7:11]  ¹ tn “Also I” has been rendered frequently as “therefore,” introducing a conclusion. BDB 168-69 s.v. גַמּ lists Ps 52:7 [5] as a parallel, but it also could be explained as an adversative.

[7:11]  ² sn “Mouth” here is metonymical for what he says – he will not withhold his complaints. Peake notes that in this section Job comes very close to doing what Satan said he would do. If he does not curse God to his face, he certainly does cast off restraints to his lament. But here Job excuses himself in advance of the lament.

[7:11]  ³ tn The verb is not limited to mental musing; it is used for pouring out a complaint or a lament (see S. Mowinckel, “The Verb si^ah and the Nouns si^ah, siha,” ST 15 [1961]: 1-10).

[7:12]  ⁴ tn The word תַּנִּין (tannin) could be translated “whale” as well as the more mythological “dragon” or “monster of the deep” (see E. Dhorme, Job, 105). To the Hebrews this was part of God’s creation in Gen 1; in the pagan world it was a force to be reckoned with, and so the reference would be polemical. The sea is a symbol of the tumultuous elements of creation; in the sea were creatures that symbolized the powerful forces of chaos – Leviathan, Tannin, and Rahab. They required special attention.

[7:12]  ⁵ tn The imperfect verb here receives the classification of obligatory imperfect. Job wonders if he is such a threat to God that God must do this.

[7:12]  ⁶ tn The word מִשְׁמָר (mishmar) means “guard; barrier.” M. Dahood suggested “muzzle” based on Ugaritic, but that has proven to be untenable (“Mismar, ‘Muzzle,’ in Job 7:12,” JBL 80 [1961]: 270-71).

[7:13]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ tn The verb literally means “say,” but here the connotation must be “think” or “say to oneself” – “when I think my bed….”

[7:13]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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.

[7:14]  ¹¹ tn The Piel of חָתַת (khatat) occurs only here and in Jer 51:56 (where it is doubtful). The meaning is clearly “startle, scare.” The perfect verb with the ו (vav) is fitting in the apodosis of the conditional sentence.

[7:14]  ¹² tn The Piel of בָּעַת (ba’at, “terrify”) is one of the characteristic words in the book of Job; it occurs in 3:5; 9:34; 13:11, 21; 15:24; 18:11; and 33:7.

[7:14]  ¹³ tn The prepositions בּ (bet) and מִן (min) interchange here; they express the instrument of causality. See N. Sarna, “The Interchange of the Prepositions bet and min in Biblical Hebrew,” JBL 78 (1959): 310-16. Emphasis on the instruments of terror in this verse is highlighted by the use of chiasm in which the prepositional phrases comprise the central elements (ab//b’a’). Verse 18 contains another example.

[7:15]  ¹⁴ tn The word נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) is often translated “soul.” But since Hebrew thought does not make such a distinction between body and soul, it is usually better to translate it with “person.” When a suffix is added to the word, then that pronoun would serve as the better translation, as here with “my soul” = “I” (meaning with every fiber of my being).

[7:15]  ¹⁵ tn The verb בָּחַר (bakhar, “choose”) followed by the preposition בּ (bet) can have the sense of “prefer.”

[7:15]  ¹⁶ tn The meaning of the term מַחֲנָק (makhanaq, “strangling”), a hapax legomenon, is clear enough; the verb חָנַק (khanaq) in the Piel means “to strangle” (Nah 2:13), and in the Niphal “to strangle oneself” (2 Sam 17:23). This word has tempted some commentators to take נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) in a very restricted sense of “throat.”

[7:15]  ¹⁷ tn The conjunction “and” is supplied in the translation. “Death” could also be taken in apposition to “strangling,” providing the outcome of the strangling.

[7:15]  ¹⁸ tn This is one of the few words recognizable in the LXX: “You will separate life from my spirit, and yet keep my bones from death.”

[7:15]  ¹⁹ tn The comparative min (מִן) after the verb “choose” will here have the idea of preferring something before another (see GKC 429-30 §133.b).

[7:15]  ²⁰ tn The word מֵעַצְמוֹתָי (me’atsmotay) means “more than my bones” (= life or being). The line is poetic; “bones” is often used in scripture metonymically for the whole living person, so there is no need here for conjectural emendation. Nevertheless, there have been several suggestions made. The simplest and most appealing for those who desire a change is the repointing to מֵעַצְּבוֹתָי (me’atsÿvotay, “my sufferings,” adopted by NAB, JB, Moffatt, Driver-Gray, E. Dhorme, H. H. Rowley, and others). Driver obtains this idea by positing a new word based on Arabic without changing the letters; it means “great” – but he has to supply the word “sufferings.”

[7:16]  ²¹ tn E. Dhorme (Job, 107-8) thinks the idea of loathing or despising is problematic since there is no immediate object. He notes that the verb מָאַס (ma’as, “loathe”) is parallel to מָסַס (masas, “melt”) in the sense of “flow, drip” (Job 42:6). This would give the idea “I am fading away” or “I grow weaker,” or as Dhorme chooses, “I am pining away.”

[7:16]  ²² tn There is no object for the verb in the text. But the most likely object would be “my life” from the last verse, especially since in this verse Job will talk about not living forever. Some have thought the object should be “death,” meaning that Job despised death more than the pains. But that is a forced meaning; besides, as H. H. Rowley points out, the word here means to despise something, to reject it. Job wanted death.

[7:16]  ²³ tn Heb “cease from me.” This construction means essentially “leave me in peace.”

[7:16]  ²⁴ tn This word הֶבֶל (hevel) is difficult to translate. It means “breath; puff of air; vapor” and then figuratively, “vanity.” Job is saying that his life is but a breath – it is brief and fleeting. Compare Ps 144:4 for a similar idea.

[7:17]  ²⁵ tn The verse is a rhetorical question; it is intended to mean that man is too little for God to be making so much over him in all this.

[7:17]  ²⁶ tn The Piel verb is a factitive meaning “to magnify.” The English word “magnify” might not be the best translation here, for God, according to Job, is focusing inordinately on him. It means to magnify in thought, appreciate, think highly of. God, Job argues, is making too much of mankind by devoting so much bad attention on them.

[7:17]  ²⁷ tn The expression “set your heart on” means “concentrate your mind on” or “pay attention to.”

[7:18]  ²⁸ tn The verb פָּקַד (paqad) is a very common one in the Bible; while it is frequently translated “visit,” the “visit” is never comparable to a social call. When God “visits” people it always means a divine intervention for blessing or cursing – but the visit always changes the destiny of the one visited. Here Job is amazed that God Almighty would be so involved in the life of mere human beings.

[7:18]  ²⁹ tn Now the verb “to test” is introduced and gives further explanation to the purpose of the “visit” in the parallel line (see the same parallelism in Ps 17:3). The verb בָּחַן (bakhan) has to do with passing things through the fire or the crucible to purify the metal (see Job 23:10; Zech 13:3); metaphorically it means “to examine carefully” and “to purify by testing.”

[7:18]  ³⁰ sn The amazing thing is the regularity of the testing. Job is at first amazed that God would visit him; but even more is he amazed that God is testing him every moment. The employment of a chiasm with the two temporal adverbial phrases as the central elements emphasizes the regularity.

[7:19]  ³¹ tn Heb “according to what [= how long] will you not look away from me.”

[7:19]  ³² tn The verb שָׁעָה (sha’ah, “to look”) with the preposition מִן (min) means “to look away from; to avert one’s gaze.” Job wonders if God would not look away from him even briefly, for the constant vigilance is killing him.

[7:19]  ³³ tn The Hiphil of רָפָה (rafah) means “to leave someone alone.”

[7:20]  ³⁴ tn The simple perfect verb can be used in a conditional sentence without a conditional particle present (see GKC 494 §159.h).

[7:20]  ³⁵ sn Job is not here saying that he has sinned; rather, he is posing the hypothetical condition – if he had sinned, what would that do to God? In other words, he has not really injured God.

[7:20]  ³⁶ sn In the Bible God is often described as watching over people to protect them from danger (see Deut 32:10; Ps 31:23). However, here it is a hostile sense, for God may detect sin and bring it to judgment.

[7:20]  ³⁷ tn This word is a hapax legomenon from the verb פָּגָע (paga’, “meet, encounter”); it would describe what is hit or struck (as nouns of this pattern can indicate the place of the action) – the target.

[7:20]  ³⁸ tn In the prepositional phrase עָלַי (’alay) the results of a scribal change is found (these changes were called tiqqune sopherim, “corrections of the scribes” made to avoid using improper language about God). The prepositional phrase would have been עָלֶךָ (’alekha, “to you,” as in the LXX). But it offended the Jews to think of Job’s being burdensome to God. Job’s sin could have repercussions on him, but not on God.

[7:21]  ³⁹ tn The LXX has, “for now I will depart to the earth.”

[7:21]  ⁴⁰ tn The verb שָׁחַר (shakhar) in the Piel has been translated “to seek early in the morning” because of the possible link with the word “dawn.” But the verb more properly means “to seek diligently” (by implication).

[10:1]  ⁴¹ tn The Hebrew has נַפְשִׁי (nafshi), usually rendered “my soul.”

[10:1]  ⁴² tn The verb is pointed like a Qal form but is originally a Niphal from קוּט (qut). Some wish to connect the word to Akkadian cognates for a meaning “I am in anguish”; but the meaning “I am weary” fits the passage well.

[10:1]  ⁴³ tn The verb עָזַב (’azav) means “to abandon.” It may have an extended meaning of “to let go” or “to let slip.” But the expression “abandon to myself” means to abandon all restraint and give free course to the complaint.

[10:2]  ⁴⁴ tn The negated jussive is the Hiphil jussive of רָשַׁע (rasha’); its meaning then would be literally “do not declare me guilty.” The negated jussive stresses the immediacy of the request.

[10:2]  ⁴⁵ tn The Hiphil imperative of יָדַע (yada’) would more literally be “cause me to know.” It is a plea for God to help him understand the afflictions.

[10:2]  ⁴⁶ tn The verb is רִיב (riv), meaning “to dispute; to contend; to strive; to quarrel” – often in the legal sense. The precise words chosen in this verse show that the setting is legal. The imperfect verb here is progressive, expressing what is currently going on.

[10:1]  ⁴⁷ tn The Hebrew has נַפְשִׁי (nafshi), usually rendered “my soul.”

[10:1]  ⁴⁸ tn The verb is pointed like a Qal form but is originally a Niphal from קוּט (qut). Some wish to connect the word to Akkadian cognates for a meaning “I am in anguish”; but the meaning “I am weary” fits the passage well.

[10:1]  ⁴⁹ tn The verb עָזַב (’azav) means “to abandon.” It may have an extended meaning of “to let go” or “to let slip.” But the expression “abandon to myself” means to abandon all restraint and give free course to the complaint.

[1:16]  ⁵⁰ tn The particle עוֹד (’od, “still”) is used with the participle to express the past circumstances when something else happened (IBHS 625-26 §37.6d).

[1:16]  ⁵¹ tn The Hebrew expression is literally “yet/this/speaking/and this/ arrived.” The sentence uses the two demonstratives as a contrasting pair. It means “this one was still speaking when that one arrived” (IBHS 308-9 §17.3c). The word “messenger” has been supplied in the translation in vv. 16, 17, and 18 for clarity and for stylistic reasons.

[1:16]  ⁵² sn The “fire of God” would refer to lightning (1 Kgs 18:38; 2 Kgs 1:12; cf. NAB, NCV, TEV). The LXX simply has “fire.” The first blow came from enemies; the second from heaven, which might have confused Job more as to the cause of his troubles. The use of the divine epithet could also be an indication of the superlative degree; see D. W. Thomas, “A Consideration of Some Unusual Ways of Expressing the Superlative in Hebrew,” VT 3 (1953): 209-24.

[1:16]  ⁵³ tn Or “from the sky.” The Hebrew word שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven[s]” or “sky” depending on the context.

[22:1]  ⁵⁴ sn Psalm 22. The psalmist cries out to the Lord for deliverance from his dangerous enemies, who have surrounded him and threaten his life. Confident that the Lord will intervene, he then vows to thank the Lord publicly for his help and anticipates a time when all people will recognize the Lord’s greatness and worship him.

[22:1]  ⁵⁵ tn Heb “according to the doe of the dawn.” Apparently this refers to a particular musical tune or style.

[22:1]  ⁵⁶ sn From the psalmist’s perspective it seems that God has abandoned him, for he fails to answer his cry for help (vv. 1b-2).

[22:1]  ⁵⁷ tn Heb “far from my deliverance [are] the words of my groaning.” The Hebrew noun שְׁאָגָה (shÿ’agah) and its related verb שָׁאַג (sha’ag) are sometimes used of a lion’s roar, but they can also describe human groaning (see Job 3:24 and Pss 32:3 and 38:8.

[22:2]  ⁵⁸ tn Heb “there is no silence to me.”

[22:3]  ⁵⁹ tn Heb “[O] one who sits [on] the praises of Israel.” The verb “receiving” is supplied in the translation for clarity. The metaphorical language pictures the Lord as sitting enthroned as king in his temple, receiving the praises that his people Israel offer up to him.

[77:3]  ⁶⁰ tn Heb “I will remember God and I will groan, I will reflect and my spirit will grow faint.” The first three verbs are cohortatives, the last a perfect with vav (ו) consecutive. The psalmist’s statement in v. 4 could be understood as concurrent with v. 1, or, more likely, as a quotation of what he had said earlier as he prayed to God (see v. 2). The words “I said” are supplied in the translation at the beginning of the verse to reflect this interpretation (see v. 10).

[77:4]  ⁶¹ tn Heb “you held fast the guards of my eyes.” The “guards of the eyes” apparently refers to his eyelids. The psalmist seems to be saying that God would not bring him relief, which would have allowed him to shut his eyes and get some sleep (see v. 2).

[77:4]  ⁶² tn The imperfect is used in the second clause to emphasize that this was an ongoing condition in the past.

[77:5]  ⁶³ tn Heb “the years of antiquity.”

[77:6]  ⁶⁴ tn Heb “I will remember my song in the night, with my heart I will reflect. And my spirit searched.” As in v. 4, the words of v. 6a are understood as what the psalmist said earlier. Consequently the words “I said” are supplied in the translation for clarification (see v. 10). The prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive at the beginning of the final line is taken as sequential to the perfect “I thought” in v. 6.

[77:7]  ⁶⁵ tn As in vv. 4 and 6a, the words of vv. 7-9 are understood as a quotation of what the psalmist said earlier. Therefore the words “I asked” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[77:8]  ⁶⁶ tn Heb “word,” which may refer here to God’s word of promise (note the reference to “loyal love” in the preceding line).

[102:1]  ⁶⁷ sn Psalm 102. The psalmist laments his oppressed state, but longs for a day when the Lord will restore Jerusalem and vindicate his suffering people.

[102:1]  ⁶⁸ tn Heb “and may my cry for help come to you.”

[142:2]  ⁶⁹ tn Heb “my trouble before him I declare.”

[142:3]  ⁷⁰ tn Heb “my spirit grows faint.”

[142:3]  ⁷¹ tn Heb “you know my path.”