Job 8:6-7

8:6 if you become ¹  pure ²  and upright, ³ 

even now he will rouse himself ⁴  for you,

and will restore ⁵  your righteous abode. ⁶ 

8:7 Your beginning ⁷  will seem so small,

since your future will flourish. ⁸ 

Job 22:24-25

22:24 and throw ⁹  your gold ¹⁰  in the dust –

your gold ¹¹  of Ophir

among the rocks in the ravines –

22:25 then the Almighty himself will be your gold, ¹² 

and the choicest ¹³  silver for you.

Deuteronomy 8:18

8:18 You must remember the Lord your God, for he is the one who gives ability to get wealth; if you do this he will confirm his covenant that he made by oath to your ancestors, ¹⁴  even as he has to this day.

Deuteronomy 8:1

The Lord’s Provision in the Desert

8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments ¹⁵  I am giving ¹⁶  you today so that you may live, increase in number, ¹⁷  and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. ¹⁸ 

Deuteronomy 2:7

2:7 All along the way I, the Lord your God, ¹⁹  have blessed your every effort. ²⁰  I have ²¹  been attentive to ²²  your travels through this great wasteland. These forty years I have ²³  been with you; you have lacked for nothing.’”

Deuteronomy 2:2

2:2 At this point the Lord said to me,

Deuteronomy 25:9

25:9 then his sister-in-law must approach him in view of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. ²⁴  She will then respond, “Thus may it be done to any man who does not maintain his brother’s family line!” ²⁵ 

Proverbs 22:4

22:4 The reward ²⁶  for humility ²⁷  and fearing the Lord ²⁸ 

is riches and honor and life.

Haggai 2:8

2:8 ‘The silver and gold will be mine,’ says the Lord who rules over all.

[8:6]  ¹ tn A verb form needs to be supplied here. Bildad is not saying to Job, “If you are pure [as you say you are].” Bildad is convinced that Job is a sinner. Therefore, “If you become pure” makes more sense here.

[8:6]  ² tn Or “innocent” (i.e., acquitted).

[8:6]  ³ tn Many commentators delete this colon as a moralizing gloss on v. 5; but the phrase makes good sense, and simply serves as another condition. Besides, the expression is in the LXX.

[8:6]  ⁴ tn The verb יָעִיר (ya’ir, “rouse, stir up”) is a strong anthropomorphism. The LXX has “he will answer your prayer” (which is probably only the LXX’s effort to avoid the anthropomorphism [D. J. A. Clines, Job (WBC), 198]). A reading of “watch over you” has been adopted because of parallel texts (see H. L. Ginsberg, “Two North Canaanite Letters from Ugarit,” BASOR 72 [1938]: 18-19; and H. N. Richardson, “A Ugaritic Letter of a King to His Mother,” JBL 66 [1947]: 321-24). Others suggest “his light will shine on you” or “he will bestow health on you.” But the idea of “awake” is common enough in the Bible to be retained here.

[8:6]  ⁵ tn The Piel of שָׁלַם (shalam) means “to make good; to repay; to restore something to its wholeness; to reestablish.” The best understanding here would be “restore [Job] to his place.” Some take the verb in the sense of “reward [Job himself] with a righteous habitation.”

[8:6]  ⁶ tn The construct נְוַת (nÿvat) is feminine; only the masculine occurs in Hebrew. But the meaning “abode of your righteousness” is clear enough. The righteousness of Job is pictured as inhabiting an estate, or it pictures the place where Job lives as a righteous man. A translation “rightful habitation” would mean “the habitation that you deserve” – if you are righteous.

[8:7]  ⁷ tn The reference to “your beginning” is a reference to Job’s former estate of wealth and peace. The reference to “latter end” is a reference to conditions still in the future. What Job had before will seem so small in comparison to what lies ahead.

[8:7]  ⁸ tn The verb has the idea of “to grow”; here it must mean “to flourish; to grow considerably” or the like. The statement is not so much a prophecy; rather Bildad is saying that “if Job had recourse to God, then….” This will be fulfilled, of course, at the end of the book.

[22:24]  ⁹ tc The form is the imperative. Eliphaz is telling Job to get rid of his gold as evidence of his repentance. Many commentators think that this is too improbable for Eliphaz to have said, and that Job has lost everything anyway, and so they make proposals for the text. Most would follow Theodotion and the Syriac to read וְשָׁתָּ (vÿshatta, “and you will esteem….”). This would mean that he is promising Job restoration of his wealth.

[22:24]  ¹⁰ tn The word for “gold” is the rare בֶּצֶר (betser), which may be derived from a cognate of Arabic basara, “to see; to examine.” If this is the case, the word here would refer to refined gold. The word also forms a fine wordplay with בְצוּר (bÿtsur, “in the rock”).

[22:24]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew text simply has “Ophir,” a metonymy for the gold that comes from there.

[22:25]  ¹² tn The form for “gold” here is plural, which could be a plural of extension. The LXX and Latin versions have “The Almighty will be your helper against your enemies.”

[22:25]  ¹³ tn E. Dhorme (Job, 339) connects this word with an Arabic root meaning “to be elevated, steep.” From that he gets “heaps of silver.”

[8:18]  ¹⁴ tc Smr and Lucian add “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” the standard way of rendering this almost stereotypical formula (cf. Deut 1:8; 6:10; 9:5, 27; 29:13; 30:20; 34:4). The MT’s harder reading presumptively argues for its originality, however.

[8:1]  ¹⁵ tn The singular term (מִצְוָה, mitsvah) includes the whole corpus of covenant stipulations, certainly the book of Deuteronomy at least (cf. Deut 5:28; 6:1, 25; 7:11; 11:8, 22; 15:5; 17:20; 19:9; 27:1; 30:11; 31:5). The plural (מִצְוֹת, mitsot) refers to individual stipulations (as in vv. 2, 6).

[8:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in v. 11).

[8:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”

[8:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 16, 18).

[2:7]  ¹⁹ tn The Hebrew text does not have the first person pronoun; it has been supplied for purposes of English style (the Lord is speaking here).

[2:7]  ²⁰ tn Heb “all the work of your hands.”

[2:7]  ²¹ tn Heb “he has.” This has been converted to first person in the translation in keeping with English style.

[2:7]  ²² tn Heb “known” (so ASV, NASB); NAB “been concerned about.”

[2:7]  ²³ tn Heb “the Lord your God has.” This has been replaced in the translation by the first person pronoun (“I”) in keeping with English style.

[25:9]  ²⁴ sn The removal of the sandal was likely symbolic of the relinquishment by the man of any claim to his dead brother’s estate since the sandal was associated with the soil or land (cf. Ruth 4:7-8). Spitting in the face was a sign of utmost disgust or disdain, an emotion the rejected widow would feel toward her uncooperative brother-in-law (cf. Num 12:14; Lev 15:8). See W. Bailey, NIDOTTE 2:544.

[25:9]  ²⁵ tn Heb “build the house of his brother”; TEV “refuses to give his brother a descendant”; NLT “refuses to raise up a son for his brother.”

[22:4]  ²⁶ tn The Hebrew term עֵקֶב (’eqev, “reward”) is related to the term meaning “heel”; it refers to the consequences or the reward that follows (akin to the English expression “on the heels of”).

[22:4]  ²⁷ tn “Humility” is used here in the religious sense of “piety”; it is appropriately joined with “the fear of the Lord.” Some commentators, however, make “the fear of the Lord” the first in the series of rewards for humility, but that arrangement is less likely here.

[22:4]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the fear of the Lord.” This is an objective genitive; the Lord is the object of the fear.