Job 8:20

8:20 “Surely, God does not reject a blameless man, ¹ 

nor does he grasp the hand ² 

of the evildoers.

Job 9:24

9:24 If a land ³  has been given

into the hand of a wicked man, ⁴ 

he covers ⁵  the faces of its judges; ⁶ 

if it is not he, then who is it? ⁷ 

Job 27:11

27:11 I will teach you ⁸  about the power ⁹  of God;

What is on the Almighty’s mind ¹⁰  I will not conceal.

Job 34:20

34:20 In a moment they die, in the middle of the night, ¹¹ 

people ¹²  are shaken ¹³  and they pass away.

The mighty are removed effortlessly. ¹⁴ 

[8:20]  ¹ sn This is the description that the book gave to Job at the outset, a description that he deserved according to God’s revelation. The theme “God will not reject the blameless man” becomes Job’s main point (see 9:20,21; 10:3).

[8:20]  ² sn The idiom “to grasp the hand” of someone means to support or help the person.

[9:24]  ³ tn Some would render this “earth,” meaning the whole earth, and having the verse be a general principle for all mankind. But Job may have in mind the more specific issue of individual land.

[9:24]  ⁴ sn The details of the verse are not easy to explain, but the meaning of the whole verse seems to be about the miscarriage of justice in the courts and the failure of God to do anything about it.

[9:24]  ⁵ tn The subject of the verb is God. The reasoning goes this way: it is the duty of judges to make sure that justice prevails, that restitution and restoration are carried through; but when the wicked gain control of the land of other people, and the judges are ineffective to stop it, then God must be veiling their eyes.

[9:24]  ⁶ sn That these words are strong, if not wild, is undeniable. But Job is only taking the implications of his friends’ speeches to their logical conclusion – if God dispenses justice in the world, and there is no justice, then God is behind it all. The LXX omitted these words, perhaps out of reverence for God.

[9:24]  ⁷ tn This seems to be a broken-off sentence (anacoluthon), and so is rather striking. The scribes transposed the words אֵפוֹא (’efo’) and הוּא (hu’) to make the smoother reading: “If it is not he, who then is it?”

[27:11]  ⁵ tn The object suffix is in the plural, which gives some support to the idea Job is speaking to them.

[27:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “the hand of.”

[27:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “[what is] with Shaddai.”

[34:20]  ⁷ tn Dhorme transposes “in the middle of the night” with “they pass away” to get a smoother reading. But the MT emphasizes the suddenness by putting both temporal ideas first. E. F. Sutcliffe leaves the order as it stands in the text, but adds a verb “they expire” after “in the middle of the night” (“Notes on Job, textual and exegetical,” Bib 30 [1949]: 79ff.).

[34:20]  ⁸ tn R. Gordis (Job, 389) thinks “people” here mean the people who count, the upper class.

[34:20]  ⁹ tn The verb means “to be violently agitated.” There is no problem with the word in this context, but commentators have made suggestions for improving the idea. The proposal that has the most to commend it, if one were inclined to choose a new word, is the change to יִגְוָעוּ (yigva’u, “they expire”; so Ball, Holscher, Fohrer, and others).

[34:20]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “not by hand.” This means without having to use force.