Job 8:16

Context

8:16 He is a well-watered plant¹ in² the sun,

its shoots spread³ over its garden.⁴

Job 15:26

Context

15:26 defiantly charging against him⁵

with a thick, strong shield!⁶

Job 16:2

Context

16:2 “I have heard many things like these before.

What miserable comforters⁷ are you all!

Job 41:27

Context

41:27 It regards iron as straw

and bronze as rotten wood.

[8:16] ¹tn The figure now changes to a plant that is flourishing and spreading and then suddenly cut off. The word רָטַב (ratav) means “to be moist; to be watered.” The word occurs in Arabic, Aramaic, and Akkadian, but only twice in the Bible: here as the adjective and in 24:8 as the verb.

[8:16] ²tn The Hebrew is לִפְנֵי (lifne, “before”). Does this mean “in the presence of the sun,” i.e., under a sweltering sun, or “before” the sun rises? It seems more natural to take לִפְנֵי (lifne) as “in the presence of” or “under.”

[8:16] ³tn Heb “its shoot goes out.”

[8:16] ⁴tc Some have emended this phrase to obtain “over the roofs.” The LXX has “out of his corruption.” H. M. Orlinsky has shown that this reading arose from an internal LXX change, saprias having replaced prasias, “garden” (JQR 26 [1935/36]: 134-35).

[15:26] ⁵tn Heb “he runs against [or upon] him with the neck.” The RSV takes this to mean “with a stiff neck.” Several commentators, influenced by the LXX’s “insolently,” have attempted to harmonize with some idiom for neck (“outstretched neck,” for example). Others have made more extensive changes. Pope and Anderson follow Tur-Sinai in accepting “with full battle armor.” But the main idea seems to be that of a headlong assault on God.

[15:26] ⁶tn Heb “with the thickness of the bosses of his shield.” The bosses are the convex sides of the bucklers, turned against the foe. This is a defiant attack on God.

[16:2] ⁹tn The expression uses the Piel participle in construct: מְנַחֲמֵי עָמָל (mÿnahame ’amal, “comforters of trouble”), i.e., comforters who increase trouble instead of relieving it. D. W. Thomas translates this “breathers out of trouble” (“A Note on the Hebrew Root naham,” ExpTim 44 [1932/33]: 192).