Job 9:18

9:18 He does not allow ¹  me to recover ²  my breath,

for he fills ³  me with bitterness.

Job 14:1

The Brevity of Life

14:1 “Man, born of woman, ⁴ 

lives but a few days, ⁵  and they are full of trouble. ⁶ 

Job 19:22

19:22 Why do you pursue me like God does? ⁷ 

Will you never be satiated with my flesh? ⁸ 

[9:18]  ¹ tn The verb נָתַן (natan) essentially means “to give”; but followed by the infinitive (without the ל [lamed] here) it means “to permit; to allow.”

[9:18]  ² tn The Hiphil of the verb means “to bring back”; with the object “my breath,” it means “get my breath” or simply “breathe.” The infinitive is here functioning as the object of the verb (see GKC 350 §114.m).

[9:18]  ³ sn The meaning of the word is “to satiate; to fill,” as in “drink to the full, be satisfied.” Job is satiated – in the negative sense – with bitterness. There is no room for more.

[14:1]  ⁴ tn The first of the threefold apposition for אָדָם (’adam, “man”) is “born of a woman.” The genitive (“woman”) after a passive participle denotes the agent of the action (see GKC 359 §116.l).

[14:1]  ⁵ tn The second description is simply “[is] short of days.” The meaning here is that his life is short (“days” being put as the understatement for “years”).

[14:1]  ⁶ tn The third expression is “consumed/full/sated – with/of – trouble/restlessness.” The latter word, רֹגֶז (rogez), occurred in Job 3:17; see also the idea in 10:15.

[19:22]  ⁷ sn Strahan comments, “The whole tragedy of the book is packed into these extraordinary words.”

[19:22]  ⁸ sn The idiom of eating the pieces of someone means “slander” in Aramaic (see Dan 3:8), Arabic and Akkadian.