Job 9:11

9:11 If ¹  he passes by me, I cannot see ²  him, ³ 

if he goes by, I cannot perceive him. ⁴ 

Job 11:11

11:11 For he ⁵  knows deceitful ⁶  men;

when he sees evil, will he not ⁷  consider it? ⁸ 

Job 32:12

32:12 Now I was paying you close attention, ⁹ 

yet ¹⁰  there was no one proving Job wrong, ¹¹ 

not one of you was answering his statements!

[9:11]  ¹ tn The NIV has “when” to form a temporal clause here. For the use of “if,” see GKC 497 §159.w.

[9:11]  ² tn The imperfect verbs in this verse are consistent with the clauses. In the conditional clauses a progressive imperfect is used, but in the following clauses the verbs are potential imperfects.

[9:11]  ³ tn The pronoun “him” is supplied here; it is not in MT, but the Syriac and Vulgate have it (probably for translation purposes as well).

[9:11]  ⁴ sn Like the mountains, Job knows that God has passed by and caused him to shake and tremble, but he cannot understand or perceive the reasons.

[11:11]  ⁵ tn The pronoun is emphatic implying that Zophar indicates that God indeed knows Job’s sin even if Job does not.

[11:11]  ⁶ tn The expression is literally “men of emptiness” (see Ps 26:4). These are false men, for שָׁוְא (shavÿ’) can mean “vain, empty, or false, deceitful.”

[11:11]  ⁷ tn E. Dhorme (Job, 162) reads the prepositional phrase “to him” rather than the negative; he translates the line as “he sees iniquity and observes it closely.”

[11:11]  ⁸ tn Some commentators do not take this last clause as a question, but simply as a statement, namely, that when God sees evil he does not need to ponder or consider it – he knows it instantly. In that case it would be a circumstantial clause: “without considering it.” D. J. A. Clines lists quite an array of other interpretations for the line (Job [WBC], 255); for example, “and he is himself unobserved”; taking the word לֹא (lo’) as an emphatic; taking the negative as a noun, “considering them as nothing”; and others that change the verb to “they do not understand it.” But none of these are compelling; they offer no major improvement.

[32:12]  ⁹ tn The verb again is from בִּין (bin, “to perceive; to understand”); in this stem it means to “to pay close attention.”

[32:12]  ¹⁰ tn The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “behold”) has a deictic force here, calling attention to the thought that is now presented.

[32:12]  ¹¹ tn The participle מוֹכִיחַ (mokhiakh) is from the verb יָכַח (yakhakh) that has been used frequently in the book of Job. It means “to argue; to contend; to debate; to prove; to dispute.” The usage of the verb shows that it can focus on the beginning of an argument, the debating itself, or the resolution of the conflict. Here the latter is obviously meant, for they did argue and contend and criticize – but could not prove Job wrong.