Job 7:15

7:15 so that I ¹  would prefer ²  strangling, ³ 

and ⁴  death ⁵  more ⁶  than life. ⁷ 

Job 18:13

18:13 It eats away parts of his skin; ⁸ 

the most terrible death ⁹  devours his limbs.

Job 30:23

30:23 I know that you are bringing ¹⁰  me to death,

to the meeting place for all the living.

Job 38:17

38:17 Have the gates of death been revealed to you? ¹¹ 

Have you seen the gates of deepest darkness? ¹² 

[7:15]  ¹ 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]  ² tn The verb בָּחַר (bakhar, “choose”) followed by the preposition בּ (bet) can have the sense of “prefer.”

[7:15]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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.”

[18:13]  ⁸ tn The expression “the limbs of his skin” makes no sense, unless a poetic meaning of “parts” (or perhaps “layers”) is taken. The parallelism has “his skin” in the first colon, and “his limbs” in the second. One plausible suggestion is to take בַּדֵּי (badde, “limbs of”) in the first part to be בִּדְוָי (bidvay, “by a disease”; Dhorme, Wright, RSV). The verb has to be made passive, however. The versions have different things: The LXX has “let the branches of his feet be eaten”; the Syriac has “his cities will be swallowed up by force”; the Vulgate reads “let it devour the beauty of his skin”; and Targum Job has “it will devour the linen garments that cover his skin.”

[18:13]  ⁹ tn The “firstborn of death” is the strongest child of death (Gen 49:3), or the deadliest death (like the “firstborn of the poor, the poorest). The phrase means the most terrible death (A. B. Davidson, Job, 134).

[30:23]  ¹⁵ tn The imperfect verb would be a progressive imperfect, it is future, but it is also already underway.

[38:17]  ²² tn Heb “uncovered to you.”

[38:17]  ²³ tn Some still retain the traditional phrase “shadow of death” in the English translation (cf. NIV). The reference is to the entrance to Sheol (see Job 10:21).