Job 7:5-7

7:5 My body ¹  is clothed ²  with worms ³  and dirty scabs; ⁴ 

my skin is broken ⁵  and festering.

7:6 My days ⁶  are swifter ⁷  than a weaver’s shuttle ⁸ 

and they come to an end without hope. ⁹ 

7:7 Remember ¹⁰  that my life is but a breath,

that ¹¹  my eyes will never again ¹²  see happiness.

Job 10:20

10:20 Are not my days few? ¹³ 

Cease, ¹⁴  then, and leave ¹⁵  me alone, ¹⁶ 

that I may find a little comfort, ¹⁷ 

Job 13:25

13:25 Do you wish to torment ¹⁸  a windblown ¹⁹  leaf

and chase after dry chaff? ²⁰ 

Job 13:28

13:28 So I ²¹  waste away like something rotten, ²² 

like a garment eaten by moths.

Job 17:1

17:1 My spirit is broken, ²³ 

my days have faded out, ²⁴ 

the grave ²⁵  awaits me.

Job 17:14-16

17:14 If I cry ²⁶  to corruption, ²⁷  ‘You are my father,’

and to the worm, ‘My Mother,’ or ‘My sister,’

17:15 where then ²⁸  is my hope?

And my hope, ²⁹  who sees it?

17:16 Will ³⁰  it ³¹  go down to the barred gates ³²  of death?

Will ³³  we descend ³⁴  together into the dust?”

Psalms 39:5

39:5 Look, you make my days short-lived, ³⁵ 

and my life span is nothing from your perspective. ³⁶ 

Surely all people, even those who seem secure, are nothing but vapor. ³⁷ 

Psalms 90:5-10

90:5 You bring their lives to an end and they “fall asleep.” ³⁸ 

In the morning they are like the grass that sprouts up;

90:6 in the morning it glistens ³⁹  and sprouts up;

at evening time it withers ⁴⁰  and dries up.

90:7 Yes, ⁴¹  we are consumed by your anger;

we are terrified by your wrath.

90:8 You are aware of our sins; ⁴² 

you even know about our hidden sins. ⁴³ 

90:9 Yes, ⁴⁴  throughout all our days we experience your raging fury; ⁴⁵ 

the years of our lives pass quickly, like a sigh. ⁴⁶ 

90:10 The days of our lives add up to seventy years, ⁴⁷ 

or eighty, if one is especially strong. ⁴⁸ 

But even one’s best years are marred by trouble and oppression. ⁴⁹ 

Yes, ⁵⁰  they pass quickly ⁵¹  and we fly away. ⁵² 

Psalms 102:23

102:23 He has taken away my strength in the middle of life; ⁵³ 

he has cut short my days.

Psalms 103:14-16

103:14 For he knows what we are made of; ⁵⁴ 

he realizes ⁵⁵  we are made of clay. ⁵⁶ 

103:15 A person’s life is like grass. ⁵⁷ 

Like a flower in the field it flourishes,

103:16 but when the hot wind ⁵⁸  blows by, it disappears,

and one can no longer even spot the place where it once grew.

[7:5]  ¹ tn Heb “my flesh.”

[7:5]  ² tn The implied comparison is vivid: the dirty scabs cover his entire body like a garment – so he is clothed with them.

[7:5]  ³ sn The word for “worms” (רִמָּה, rimmah, a collective noun), is usually connected with rotten food (Exod 16:24), or the grave (Isa 14:11). Job’s disease is a malignant ulcer of some kind that causes the rotting of the flesh. One may recall that both Antiochus Epiphanes (2 Macc 9:9) and Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:23) were devoured by such worms in their diseases.

[7:5]  ⁴ tn The text has “clods of dust.” The word גִּישׁ (gish, “dirty scabs”) is a hapax legomenon from גּוּשׁ (gush, “clod”). Driver suggests the word has a medical sense, like “pustules” (G. R. Driver, “Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 73) or “scabs” (JB, NEB, NAB, NIV). Driver thinks “clods of dust” is wrong; he repoints “dust” to make a new verb “to cover,” cognate to Arabic, and reads “my flesh is clothed with worms, and scab covers my skin.” This refers to the dirty scabs that crusted over the sores all over his body. The LXX links this with the second half of the verse: “And my body has been covered with loathsome worms, and I waste away, scraping off clods of dirt from my eruption.”

[7:5]  ⁵ tn The meaning of רָגַע (raga’) is also debated here. D. J. A. Clines (Job [WBC], 163) does not think the word can mean “cracked” because scabs show evidence of the sores healing. But E. Dhorme (Job, 100) argues that the usage of the word shows the idea of “splitting, separating, making a break,” or the like. Here then it would mean “my skin splits” and as a result festers. This need not be a reference to the scabs, but to new places. Or it could mean that the scabbing never heals, but is always splitting open.

[7:6]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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).

[7:7]  ¹⁰ sn Job is probably turning here to God, as is clear from v. 11 on. The NIV supplies the word “God” for clarification. It was God who breathed breath into man’s nostrils (Gen 2:7), and so God is called to remember that man is but a breath.

[7:7]  ¹¹ tn The word “that” is supplied in the translation.

[7:7]  ¹² tn The verb with the infinitive serves as a verbal hendiadys: “return to see” means “see again.”

[10:20]  ¹³ tn Heb “are not my days few; cease/let it cease….” The versions have “the days of my life” (reading יְמֵי חֶלְדִי [yÿme kheldi] instead of יָמַי וַחֲדָל [yamay vakhadal]). Many commentators and the RSV, NAB, and NRSV accept this reading. The Kethib is an imperfect or jussive, “let it cease/ it will cease.” The Qere is more intelligible for some interpreters – “cease” (as in 7:16). For a discussion of the readings, see D. W. Thomas, “Some Observations on the Hebrew Root hadal,” VTSup 4 [1057]: 14). But the text is not impossible as it stands.

[10:20]  ¹⁴ tn Taking the form as the imperative with the ו (vav), the sentence follows the direct address to God (as in v. 18 as well as 7:16). This requires less changes. See the preceding note regarding the plausibility of the jussive. The point of the verse is clear in either reading – his life is short, and he wants the suffering to stop.

[10:20]  ¹⁵ tn In the different suggestions for the line, the י (yod) of this word is believed to belong to the preceding word making “my life.” That would here leave an imperative rather than an imperfect. But if the Qere is read, then it would be an imperative anyway, and there would be no reason for the change.

[10:20]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “put from me,” an expression found nowhere else. The Qere has a ו (vav) and not a י (yod), forming an imperative rather than an imperfect. H. H. Rowley suggests that there is an ellipsis here, “hand” needing to be supplied. Job wanted God to take his hand away from him. That is plausible, but difficult.

[10:20]  ¹⁷ tn The verb בָּלַג (balag) in the Hiphil means “to have cheer [or joy]” (see 7:27; Ps 39:14). The cohortative following the imperatives shows the purpose or result – “in order that.”

[13:25]  ¹⁸ tn The verb תַּעֲרוֹץ (ta’arots, “you torment”) is from עָרַץ (’arats), which usually means “fear; dread,” but can also mean “to make afraid; to terrify” (Isa 2:19,21). The imperfect is here taken as a desiderative imperfect: “why do you want to”; but it could also be a simple future: “will you torment.”

[13:25]  ¹⁹ tn The word נִדָּף (niddaf) is “driven” from the root נָדַף (nadaf, “drive”). The words “by the wind” or the interpretation “windblown” has to be added for the clarification. Job is comparing himself to this leaf (so an implied comparison, called hypocatastasis) – so light and insubstantial that it is amazing that God should come after him. Guillaume suggests that the word is not from this root, but from a second root נָדַף (nadaf), cognate to Arabic nadifa, “to dry up” (A. Guillaume, “A Note on Isaiah 19:7,” JTS 14 [1963]: 382-83). But as D. J. A. Clines notes (Job [WBC], 283), a dried leaf is a driven leaf – a point Guillaume allows as he says there is ambiguity in the term.

[13:25]  ²⁰ tn The word קַשׁ (qash) means “chaff; stubble,” or a wisp of straw. It is found in Job 41:20-21 for that which is so worthless and insignificant that it is hardly worth mentioning. If dried up or withered, it too will be blown away in the wind.

[13:28]  ²¹ tn Heb “and he.” Some of the commentators move the verse and put it after Job 14:2, 3 or 6.

[13:28]  ²² tn The word רָקָב (raqav) is used elsewhere in the Bible of dry rot in a house, or rotting bones in a grave. It is used in parallelism with “moth” both here and in Hos 5:12. The LXX has “like a wineskin.” This would be from רֹקֶב (roqev, “wineskin”). This word does not occur in the Hebrew Bible, but is attested in Sir 43:20 and in Aramaic. The change is not necessary.

[17:1]  ²³ tn The verb חָבַל (khaval, “to act badly”) in the Piel means “to ruin.” The Pual translation with “my spirit” as the subject means “broken” in the sense of finished (not in the sense of humbled as in Ps 51).

[17:1]  ²⁴ tn The verb זָעַךְ (za’aq, equivalent of Aramaic דָעַק [da’aq]) means “to be extinguished.” It only occurs here in the Hebrew.

[17:1]  ²⁵ tn The plural “graves” could be simply an intensification, a plural of extension (see GKC 397 §124.c), or a reference to the graveyard. Coverdale had: “I am harde at deathes dore.” The Hebrew expression simply reads “graves for me.” It probably means that graves await him.

[17:14]  ²⁶ tn This is understood because the conditional clauses seem to run to the apodosis in v. 15.

[17:14]  ²⁷ tn The word שַׁחַת (shakhat) may be the word “corruption” from a root שָׁחַת (shakhat, “to destroy”) or a word “pit” from שׁוּחַ (shuakh, “to sink down”). The same problem surfaces in Ps 16:10, where it is parallel to “Sheol.” E. F. Sutcliffe, The Old Testament and the Future Life, 76ff., defends the meaning “corruption.” But many commentators here take it to mean “the grave” in harmony with “Sheol.” But in this verse “worms” would suggest “corruption” is better.

[17:15]  ²⁸ tn The adverb אֵפוֹ (’efo, “then”) plays an enclitic role here (see Job 4:7).

[17:15]  ²⁹ tn The repetition of “my hope” in the verse has thrown the versions off, and their translations have led commentators also to change the second one to something like “goodness,” on the assumption that a word cannot be repeated in the same verse. The word actually carries two different senses here. The first would be the basic meaning “hope,” but the second a metonymy of cause, namely, what hope produces, what will be seen.

[17:16]  ³⁰ sn It is natural to assume that this verse continues the interrogative clause of the preceding verse.

[17:16]  ³¹ tn The plural form of the verb probably refers to the two words, or the two senses of the word in the preceding verse. Hope and what it produces will perish with Job.

[17:16]  ³² tn The Hebrew word בַּדִּים (baddim) describes the “bars” or “bolts” of Sheol, referring (by synecdoche) to the “gates of Sheol.” The LXX has “with me to Sheol,” and many adopt that as “by my side.”

[17:16]  ³³ tn The conjunction אִם (’im) confirms the interrogative interpretation.

[17:16]  ³⁴ tn The translation follows the LXX and the Syriac versions with the change of vocalization in the MT. The MT has the noun “rest,” yielding, “will our rest be together in the dust?” The verb נָחַת (nakhat) in Aramaic means “to go down; to descend.” If that is the preferred reading – and it almost is universally accepted here – then it would be spelled נֵחַת (nekhat). In either case the point of the verse is clearly describing death and going to the grave.

[39:5]  ³⁵ 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]  ³⁶ tn Heb “is like nothing before you.”

[39:5]  ³⁷ 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.”

[90:5]  ³⁸ tn Heb “you bring them to an end [with] sleep.” The Hebrew verb זָרַם (zaram) has traditionally been taken to mean “flood” or “overwhelm” (note the Polel form of a root זרם in Ps 77:17, where the verb is used of the clouds pouring down rain). However, the verb form here is Qal, not Polel, and is better understood as a homonym meaning “to make an end [of life].” The term שֵׁנָה (shenah, “sleep”) can be taken as an adverbial accusative; it is a euphemism here for death (see Ps 76:5-6).

[90:6]  ³⁹ tn Or “flourishes.” The verb is used of a crown shining in Ps 132:18. Perhaps here in Ps 90:6 it refers to the glistening of the grass in the morning dew.

[90:6]  ⁴⁰ tn The Polel form of this verb occurs only here. Perhaps the form should be emended to a Qal (which necessitates eliminating the final lamed [ל] as dittographic). See Ps 37:2.

[90:7]  ⁴¹ tn Or “for.”

[90:8]  ⁴² tn Heb “you set our sins in front of you.”

[90:8]  ⁴³ tn Heb “what we have hidden to the light of your face.” God’s face is compared to a light or lamp that exposes the darkness around it.

[90:9]  ⁴⁴ tn Or “for.”

[90:9]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “all our days pass by in your anger.”

[90:9]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “we finish our years like a sigh.” In Ezek 2:10 the word הֶגֶה (hegeh) elsewhere refers to a grumbling or moaning sound. Here a brief sigh or moan is probably in view. If so, the simile pictures one’s lifetime as transient. Another option is that the simile alludes to the weakness that characteristically overtakes a person at the end of one’s lifetime. In this case the phrase could be translated, “we end our lives with a painful moan.”

[90:10]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “the days of our years, in them [are] seventy years.”

[90:10]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “or if [there is] strength, eighty years.”

[90:10]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “and their pride [is] destruction and wickedness.” The Hebrew noun רֹהַב (rohav) occurs only here. BDB 923 s.v. assigns the meaning “pride,” deriving the noun from the verbal root רהב (“to act stormily [boisterously, arrogantly]”). Here the “pride” of one’s days (see v. 9) probably refers to one’s most productive years in the prime of life. The words translated “destruction and wickedness” are also paired in Ps 10:7. They also appear in proximity in Pss 7:14 and 55:10. The oppressive and abusive actions of evil men are probably in view (see Job 4:8; 5:6; 15:35; Isa 10:1; 59:4).

[90:10]  ⁵⁰ tn or “for.”

[90:10]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “it passes quickly.” The subject of the verb is probably “their pride” (see the preceding line). The verb גּוּז (guz) means “to pass” here; it occurs only here and in Num 11:31.

[90:10]  ⁵² sn We fly away. The psalmist compares life to a bird that quickly flies off (see Job 20:8).

[102:23]  ⁵³ tn Heb “he has afflicted my strength in the way.” The term “way” refers here to the course of the psalmist’s life, which appears to be ending prematurely (vv. 23b-24).

[103:14]  ⁵⁴ tn Heb “our form.”

[103:14]  ⁵⁵ tn Heb “remembers.”

[103:14]  ⁵⁶ tn Heb “we [are] clay.”

[103:15]  ⁵⁷ tn Heb “[as for] mankind, like grass [are] his days.” The Hebrew noun אֱנוֹשׁ (’enosh) is used here generically of human beings. What is said is true of all mankind.

[103:16]  ⁵⁸ tn Heb “[the] wind.” The word “hot” is supplied in the translation for clarification.