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 9:19

9:19 If it is a matter of strength, ³ 

most certainly ⁴  he is the strong one!

And if it is a matter of justice,

he will say, ‘Who will summon me?’ ⁵ 

Job 13:22

13:22 Then call, ⁶  and I will answer,

or I will speak, and you respond to me.

Job 19:16

19:16 I summon ⁷  my servant, but he does not respond,

even though I implore ⁸  him with my own mouth.

Job 11:10

11:10 If he comes by ⁹  and confines ¹⁰  you ¹¹ 

and convenes a court, ¹² 

then who can prevent ¹³  him?

[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.

[9:19]  ³ tn The MT has only “if of strength.”

[9:19]  ⁴ tn “Most certainly” translates the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh).

[9:19]  ⁵ tn The question could be taken as “who will summon me?” (see Jer 49:19 and 50:44). This does not make immediate sense. Some have simply changed the suffix to “who will summon him.” If the MT is retained, then supplying something like “he will say” could make the last clause fit the whole passage. Another option is to take it as “Who will reveal it to me?” – i.e., Job could be questioning his friends’ qualifications for being God’s emissaries to bring God’s charges against him (cf. KJV, NKJV; and see 10:2 where Job uses the same verb in the Hiphil to request that God reveal what his sin has been that has led to his suffering).

[13:22]  ⁵ tn The imperatives in the verse function like the future tense in view of their use for instruction or advice. The chiastic arrangement of the verb forms is interesting: imperative + imperfect, imperfect + imperative. The imperative is used for God, but the imperfect is used when Job is the subject. Job is calling for the court to convene – he will be either the defendant or the prosecutor.

[19:16]  ⁷ tn The verb קָרָא (qara’) followed by the ל (lamed) preposition means “to summon.” Contrast Ps 123:2.

[19:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “plead for grace” or “plead for mercy” (ESV).

[11:10]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ tn The pronoun “you” is not in the Hebrew text but has been supplied in the translation.

[11:10]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ tn The verb means “turn him back.” Zophar uses Job’s own words (see 9:12).