Job 7:6-7

7:6 My days ¹  are swifter ²  than a weaver’s shuttle ³ 

and they come to an end without hope. ⁴ 

7:7 Remember ⁵  that my life is but a breath,

that ⁶  my eyes will never again ⁷  see happiness.

Job 7:16

7:16 I loathe ⁸  it; ⁹  I do not want to live forever;

leave me alone, ¹⁰  for my days are a vapor! ¹¹ 

Job 8:9

8:9 For we were born yesterday ¹²  and do not have knowledge,

since our days on earth are but a shadow. ¹³ 

Job 9:25-26

Renewed Complaint

9:25 “My days ¹⁴  are swifter than a runner, ¹⁵ 

they speed by without seeing happiness.

9:26 They glide by ¹⁶  like reed ¹⁷  boats,

like an eagle that swoops ¹⁸  down on its prey. ¹⁹ 

Job 14:1

The Brevity of Life

14:1 “Man, born of woman, ²⁰ 

lives but a few days, ²¹  and they are full of trouble. ²² 

Psalms 39:5

39:5 Look, you make my days short-lived, ²³ 

and my life span is nothing from your perspective. ²⁴ 

Surely all people, even those who seem secure, are nothing but vapor. ²⁵ 

Psalms 103:15-16

103:15 A person’s life is like grass. ²⁶ 

Like a flower in the field it flourishes,

103:16 but when the hot wind ²⁷  blows by, it disappears,

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

[7:6]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn The word “that” is supplied in the translation.

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

[7:16]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “cease from me.” This construction means essentially “leave me in peace.”

[7:16]  ¹¹ 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.

[8:9]  ¹² tn The Hebrew has “we are of yesterday,” the adverb functioning as a predicate. Bildad’s point is that they have not had time to acquire great knowledge because they are recent.

[8:9]  ¹³ tn E. Dhorme (Job, 116) observes that the shadow is the symbol of ephemeral things (14:2; 17:7; Ps 144:4). The shadow passes away quickly (116).

[9:25]  ¹⁴ tn The text has “and my days” following the thoughts in the previous section.

[9:25]  ¹⁵ 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.

[9:26]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “they flee.”

[9:26]  ¹⁷ tn The word אֵבֶה (’eveh) means “reed, papyrus,” but it is a different word than was in 8:11. What is in view here is a light boat made from bundles of papyrus that glides swiftly along the Nile (cf. Isa 18:2 where papyrus vessels and swiftness are associated).

[9:26]  ¹⁸ tn The verb יָטוּשׂ (yatus) is also a hapax legomenon; the Aramaic cognate means “to soar; to hover in flight.” The sentence here requires the idea of swooping down while in flight.

[9:26]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “food.”

[14:1]  ²⁰ tn The first of the threefold apposition for אָדָם (’adam, “man”) is “born of a woman.” The genitive (“woman”) after a passive participle denotes the agent of the action (see GKC 359 §116.l).

[14:1]  ²¹ tn The second description is simply “[is] short of days.” The meaning here is that his life is short (“days” being put as the understatement for “years”).

[14:1]  ²² tn The third expression is “consumed/full/sated – with/of – trouble/restlessness.” The latter word, רֹגֶז (rogez), occurred in Job 3:17; see also the idea in 10:15.

[39:5]  ²³ 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]  ²⁴ tn Heb “is like nothing before you.”

[39:5]  ²⁵ 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.”

[103:15]  ²⁶ 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]  ²⁷ tn Heb “[the] wind.” The word “hot” is supplied in the translation for clarification.