Job 7:19

7:19 Will you never ¹  look away from me, ² 

will you not let me alone ³ 

long enough to swallow my spittle?

Job 14:12-14

14:12 so man lies down and does not rise;

until the heavens are no more, ⁴ 

they ⁵  will not awake

nor arise from their sleep.

The Possibility of Another Life

14:13 “O that ⁶  you would hide me in Sheol, ⁷ 

and conceal me till your anger has passed! ⁸ 

O that you would set me a time ⁹ 

and then remember me! ¹⁰ 

14:14 If a man dies, will he live again? ¹¹ 

All the days of my hard service ¹²  I will wait ¹³ 

until my release comes. ¹⁴ 

Job 20:4

20:4 “Surely you know ¹⁵  that it has been from old,

ever since humankind was placed ¹⁶  on the earth,

Job 25:5

25:5 If even the moon is not bright,

and the stars are not pure as far as he is concerned, ¹⁷ 

Job 26:10

26:10 He marks out the horizon ¹⁸  on the surface of the waters

as a boundary between light and darkness.

Job 27:5

27:5 I will never ¹⁹  declare that you three ²⁰  are in the right;

until I die, I will not set aside my integrity!

Job 31:12

31:12 For it is a fire that devours even to Destruction, ²¹ 

and it would uproot ²²  all my harvest.

Job 34:36

34:36 But ²³  Job will be tested to the end,

because his answers are like those of wicked men.

Job 38:11

38:11 when I said, ‘To here you may come ²⁴ 

and no farther, ²⁵ 

here your proud waves will be confined’? ²⁶ 

[7:19]  ¹ tn Heb “according to what [= how long] will you not look away from me.”

[7:19]  ² 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]  ³ tn The Hiphil of רָפָה (rafah) means “to leave someone alone.”

[14:12]  ⁴ tc The Hebrew construction is “until not,” which is unusual if not impossible; it is found in only one other type of context. In its six other occurrences (Num 21:35; Deut 3:3; Josh 8:22; 10:33; 11:8; 2 Kgs 10:11) the context refers to the absence of survivors. Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, Syriac, and Vulgate all have “till the heavens wear out.” Most would emend the text just slightly from עַד־בִּלְתִּי (’ad-bilti, “are no more”) to עַד בְּלוֹת (’ad bÿlot, “until the wearing out of,” see Ps 102:26 [27]; Isa 51:6). Gray rejects emendation here, finding the unusual form of the MT in its favor. Orlinsky (p. 57) finds a cognate Arabic word meaning “will not awake” and translates it “so long as the heavens are not rent asunder” (H. M. Orlinsky, “The Hebrew and Greek Texts of Job 14:12,” JQR 28 [1937/38]: 57-68). He then deletes the last line of the verse as a later gloss.

[14:12]  ⁵ tn The verb is plural because the subject, אִישׁ (’ish), is viewed as a collective: “mankind.” The verb means “to wake up; to awake”; another root, קוּץ (quts, “to split open”) cognate to Arabic qada and Akkadian kasu, was put forward by H. M. Orlinsky (“The Hebrew and Greek Texts of Job 14:12,” JQR 28 [1937-38]: 57-68) and G. R. Driver (“Problems in the Hebrew Text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 72-93).

[14:13]  ⁷ tn The optative mood is introduced here again with מִי יִתֵּן (mi yitten), literally, “who will give?”

[14:13]  ⁸ sn Sheol in the Bible refers to the place where the dead go. But it can have different categories of meaning: death in general, the grave, or the realm of the departed spirits [hell]. A. Heidel shows that in the Bible when hell is in view the righteous are not there – it is the realm of the departed spirits of the wicked. When the righteous go to Sheol, the meaning is usually the grave or death. See chapter 3 in A. Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and the Old Testament Parallels.

[14:13]  ⁹ tn The construction used here is the preposition followed by the infinitive construct followed by the subjective genitive, forming an adverbial clause of time.

[14:13]  ¹⁰ tn This is the same word used in v. 5 for “limit.”

[14:13]  ¹¹ tn The verb זָכַר (zakhar) means more than simply “to remember.” In many cases, including this one, it means “to act on what is remembered,” i.e., deliver or rescue (see Gen 8:1, “and God remembered Noah”). In this sense, a prayer “remember me” is a prayer for God to act upon his covenant promises.

[14:14]  ¹⁰ tc The LXX removes the interrogative and makes the statement affirmative, i.e., that man will live again. This reading is taken by D. H. Gard (“The Concept of the Future Life according to the Greek Translator of the Book of Job,” JBL 73 [1954]: 137-38). D. J. A. Clines follows this, putting both of the expressions in the wish clause: “if a man dies and could live again…” (Job [WBC], 332). If that is the way it is translated, then the verbs in the second half of the verse and in the next verse would all be part of the apodosis, and should be translated “would.” The interpretation would not greatly differ; it would be saying that if there was life after death, Job would long for his release – his death. If the traditional view is taken and the question was raised whether there was life after death (the implication of the question being that there is), then Job would still be longing for his death. The point the line is making is that if there is life after death, that would be all the more reason for Job to eagerly expect, to hope for, his death.

[14:14]  ¹¹ tn See Job 7:1.

[14:14]  ¹² tn The verb אֲיַחֵל (’ayakhel) may be rendered “I will/would wait” or “I will/would hope.” The word describes eager expectation and longing hope.

[14:14]  ¹³ tn The construction is the same as that found in the last verse: a temporal preposition עַד (’ad) followed by the infinitive construct followed by the subjective genitive “release/relief.” Due, in part, to the same verb (חָלַף, khalaf) having the meaning “sprout again” in v. 7, some take “renewal” as the meaning here (J. E. Hartley, Alden, NIV, ESV).

[20:4]  ¹³ tn The MT has “Do you not know?” The question can be interpreted as a rhetorical question affirming that Job must know this. The question serves to express the conviction that the contents are well-known to the audience (see GKC 474 §150.e).

[20:4]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “from the putting of man on earth.” The infinitive is the object of the preposition, which is here temporal. If “man” is taken as the subjective genitive, then the verb would be given a passive translation. Here “man” is a generic, referring to “mankind” or “the human race.”

[25:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “not pure in his eyes.”

[26:10]  ¹⁹ tn The expression חֹק־חָג (khoq-khag) means “he has drawn a limit as a circle.” According to some the form should have been חָק־חוּג (khaq-khug, “He has traced a circle”). But others argues that the text is acceptable as is, and can be interpreted as “a limit he has circled.” The Hebrew verbal roots are חָקַק (khaqaq, “to engrave; to sketch out; to trace”) and חוּג (khug, “describe a circle”) respectively.

[27:5]  ²² tn The text uses חָלִילָה לִּי (khalilah li) meaning “far be it from me,” or more strongly, something akin to “sacrilege.”

[27:5]  ²³ tn In the Hebrew text “you” is plural – a reference to Eliphaz, Zophar, and Bildad. To make this clear, “three” is supplied in the translation.

[31:12]  ²⁵ tn Heb “to Abaddon.”

[31:12]  ²⁶ tn The verb means “to root out,” but this does not fit the parallelism with fire. Wright changed two letters and the vowels in the verb to get the root צָרַף (tsaraf, “to burn”). The NRSV has “burn to the root.”

[34:36]  ²⁸ tc The MT reads אָבִי (’avi, “my father”), which makes no sense. Some follow the KJV and emend the word to make a verb “I desire” or use the noun “my desire of it.” Others follow an Arabic word meaning “entreat, I pray” (cf. ESV, “Would that Job were tried”). The LXX and the Syriac versions have “but” and “surely” respectively. Since this is the only ms support, albeit weak, it may be the best choice. In this sense Elihu would be saying that because of Job’s attitude God will continue to test him.

[38:11]  ³¹ tn The imperfect verb receives the permission nuance here.

[38:11]  ³² tn The text has תֹסִיף (tosif, “and you may not add”), which is often used idiomatically (as in verbal hendiadys constructions).

[38:11]  ³³ tn The MT literally says, “here he will put on the pride of your waves.” The verb has no expressed subject and so is made a passive voice. But there has to be some object for the verb “put,” such as “limit” or “boundary”; the translations “confined; halted; stopped” all serve to paraphrase such an idea. The LXX has “broken” at this point, suggesting the verse might have been confused – but “breaking the pride” of the waves would mean controlling them. Some commentators have followed this, exchanging the verb in v. 11 with this one.