Job 7:6

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

and they come to an end without hope. ⁴ 

Job 9:25

Renewed Complaint

9:25 “My days ⁵  are swifter than a runner, ⁶ 

they speed by without seeing happiness.

Job 12:22

12:22 He reveals the deep things of darkness,

and brings deep shadows ⁷  into the light.

Job 14:11

14:11 As ⁸  water disappears from the sea, ⁹ 

or a river drains away and dries up,

Job 16:16

16:16 my face is reddened ¹⁰  because of weeping, ¹¹ 

and on my eyelids there is a deep darkness, ¹² 

Job 21:16

21:16 But their prosperity is not their own doing. ¹³ 

The counsel of the wicked is far from me! ¹⁴ 

Job 22:18

22:18 But it was he ¹⁵  who filled their houses

with good things –

yet the counsel of the wicked ¹⁶ 

was far from me. ¹⁷ 

Job 30:10

30:10 They detest me and maintain their distance; ¹⁸ 

they do not hesitate to spit in my face.

Job 30:30

30:30 My skin has turned dark on me; ¹⁹ 

my body ²⁰  is hot with fever. ²¹ 

Job 33:18

33:18 He spares a person’s life from corruption, ²² 

his very life from crossing over ²³  the river.

Job 33:30

33:30 to turn back his life from the place of corruption,

that he may be enlightened with the light of life.

[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).

[9:25]  ⁵ tn The text has “and my days” following the thoughts in the previous section.

[9:25]  ⁶ 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.

[12:22]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew word is traditionally rendered “shadow of death” (so KJV, ASV); see comments at Job 3:3.

[14:11]  ¹³ tn The comparative clause may be signaled simply by the context, especially when facts of a moral nature are compared with the physical world (see GKC 499 §161.a).

[14:11]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew word יָם (yam) can mean “sea” or “lake.”

[16:16]  ¹⁷ tn An intensive form, a Qetaltal form of the root חָמַר (khamar, “red”) is used here. This word has as probable derivatives חֹמֶר (khomer, “[red] clay”) and חֲמוֹר (khamor, “[red] ass”) and the like. Because of the weeping, his whole complexion has been reddened (the LXX reads “my belly”).

[16:16]  ¹⁸ sn A. B. Davidson (Job, 122) notes that spontaneous and repeated weeping is one of the symptoms of elephantiasis.

[16:16]  ¹⁹ sn See Job 3:5. Just as joy brings light and life to the eyes, sorrow and suffering bring darkness. The “eyelids” here would be synecdoche, reflecting the whole facial expression as sad and sullen.

[21:16]  ²¹ tn Heb “is not in their hand.”

[21:16]  ²² sn Even though their life seems so good in contrast to his own plight, Job cannot and will not embrace their principles – “far be from me their counsel.”

[22:18]  ²⁵ tn The pronoun is added for this emphasis; it has “but he” before the verb.

[22:18]  ²⁶ tn See Job 10:3.

[22:18]  ²⁷ tc The LXX has “from him,” and this is followed by several commentators. But the MT is to be retained, for Eliphaz is recalling the words of Job. Verses 17 and 18 are deleted by a number of commentators as a gloss because they have many similarities to 21:14-16. But Eliphaz is recalling what Job said, in order to say that the prosperity to which Job alluded was only the prelude to a disaster he denied (H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 156).

[30:10]  ²⁹ tn Heb “they are far from me.”

[30:30]  ³³ tn The MT has “become dark from upon me,” prompting some editions to supply the verb “falls from me” (RSV, NRSV), or “peels” (NIV).

[30:30]  ³⁴ tn The word “my bones” may be taken as a metonymy of subject, the bony framework indicating the whole body.

[30:30]  ³⁵ tn The word חֹרֶב (khorev) also means “heat.” The heat in this line is not that of the sun, but obviously a fever.

[33:18]  ³⁷ tn A number of interpreters and translations take this as “the pit” (see Job 17:14; cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[33:18]  ³⁸ tc Here is another difficult line. The verb normally means “to pass through; to pass over,” and so this word would normally mean “from passing through [or over].” The word שֶׁלַח (shelakh) does at times refer to a weapon, but most commentators look for a parallel with “the pit [or corruption].” One suggestion is שְׁאוֹלָה (shÿ’olah, “to Sheol”), proposed by Duhm. Dhorme thought it was שַׁלַח (shalakh) and referred to the passageway to the underworld (see M. Tsevat, VT 4 [1954]: 43; and Svi Rin, BZ 7 [1963]: 25). See discussion of options in HALOT 1517-18 s.v. IV שֶׁלַח. The idea of crossing the river of death fits the idea of the passage well, although the reading “to perish by the sword” makes sense and was followed by the NIV.