Job 9:16

9:16 If I summoned him, and he answered me, ¹ 

I would not believe ² 

that he would be listening to my voice –

Job 11:10

11:10 If he comes by ³  and confines ⁴  you ⁵ 

and convenes a court, ⁶ 

then who can prevent ⁷  him?

Job 42:14

42:14 The first daughter he named Jemimah, ⁸  the second Keziah, ⁹  and the third Keren-Happuch. ¹⁰ 

[9:16]  ¹ sn The idea of “answer” in this line is that of responding to the summons, i.e., appearing in court. This preterite and the perfect before it have the nuance of hypothetical perfects since they are in conditional clauses (GKC 330 §111.x). D. J. A. Clines (Job [WBC], 219) translates literally, “If I should call and he should answer.”

[9:16]  ² tn The Hiphil imperfect in the apodosis of this conditional sentence expresses what would (not) happen if God answered the summons.

[11:10]  ³ tn The verb יַחֲלֹף (yakhalof) is literally “passes by/through” (NIV “comes along” in the sense of “if it should so happen”). Many accept the emendation to יַחְתֹּף (yakhtof, “he seizes,” cf. Gordis, Driver), but there is not much support for these.

[11:10]  ⁴ tn The verb is the Hiphil of סָגַר (sagar, “to close; to shut”) and so here in this context it probably means something like “to shut in; to confine.” But this is a difficult meaning, and the sentence is cryptic. E. Dhorme (Job, 162) thinks this word and the next have to be antithetical, and so he suggests from a meaning “to keep confined” the idea of keeping a matter secret; and with the next verb, “to convene an assembly,” he offers “to divulge it.”

[11:10]  ⁵ tn The pronoun “you” is not in the Hebrew text but has been supplied in the translation.

[11:10]  ⁶ tn The denominative Hiphil of קָהָל (qahal, “an assembly”) has the idea of “to convene an assembly.” In this context there would be the legal sense of convening a court, i.e., calling Job to account (D. J. A. Clines, Job [WBC], 255). See E. Ullendorff, “The Meaning of QHLT,” VT 12 (1962): 215; he defines the verb also as “argue, rebuke.”

[11:10]  ⁷ tn The verb means “turn him back.” Zophar uses Job’s own words (see 9:12).

[42:14]  ⁵ sn The Hebrew name Jemimah means “dove.”

[42:14]  ⁶ sn The Hebrew name Keziah means “cassia.”

[42:14]  ⁷ sn The Hebrew name Keren-Happuch means “horn of eye-paint.”