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.

Esther 8:14

8:14 The couriers who were riding the royal horses went forth with the king’s edict without delay. ⁸  And the law was presented in Susa the citadel as well.

[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.”

[8:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “making haste and hurrying”; KJV, ASV “being hastened and pressed.”