Psalms 34:19

34:19 The godly ¹  face many dangers, ² 

but the Lord saves ³  them ⁴  from each one of them.

Psalms 94:12

94:12 How blessed is the one ⁵  whom you instruct, O Lord,

the one whom you teach from your law,

Job 7:3-4

7:3 thus ⁶  I have been made to inherit ⁷ 

months of futility, ⁸ 

and nights of sorrow ⁹ 

have been appointed ¹⁰  to me.

7:4 If I lie down, I say, ¹¹  ‘When will I arise?’,

and the night stretches on ¹² 

and I toss and turn restlessly ¹³ 

until the day dawns.

Job 7:18

7:18 And that you visit ¹⁴  them every morning,

and try ¹⁵  them every moment? ¹⁶ 

Job 10:3

10:3 Is it good for you ¹⁷  to oppress, ¹⁸ 

to ¹⁹  despise the work of your hands,

while ²⁰  you smile ²¹ 

on the schemes of the wicked?

Job 10:17

10:17 You bring new witnesses ²²  against me,

and increase your anger against me;

relief troops ²³  come against me.

Jeremiah 15:18

15:18 Why must I continually suffer such painful anguish?

Why must I endure the sting of their insults like an incurable wound?

Will you let me down when I need you

like a brook one goes to for water, but that cannot be relied on?” ²⁴ 

Amos 3:2

3:2 “I have chosen ²⁵  you alone from all the clans of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all your sins.”

Hebrews 12:5

12:5 And have you forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as sons?

“My son, do not scorn ²⁶  the Lord’s discipline

or give up when he corrects ²⁷  you.

Hebrews 12:1

The Lord’s Discipline

12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, ²⁸  we must get rid of every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and run with endurance the race set out for us,

Hebrews 1:6

1:6 But when he again brings ²⁹  his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all the angels of God worship him!” ³⁰ 

[34:19]  ¹ tn The Hebrew text uses the singular form; the representative or typical godly person is envisioned.

[34:19]  ² tn Or “trials.”

[34:19]  ³ tn The Hebrew imperfect verbal form highlights the generalizing statement and draws attention to the fact that the Lord typically delivers the godly.

[34:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “him,” agreeing with the singular form in the preceding line.

[94:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “[Oh] the happiness [of] the man.” Hebrew wisdom literature often assumes and reflects the male-oriented perspective of ancient Israelite society. The principle of the psalm is certainly applicable to all people, regardless of their gender or age. To facilitate modern application, we translate the gender and age specific “man” with the more neutral “one.” The generic masculine pronoun is used in v. 2.

[7:3]  ⁶ tn “Thus” indicates a summary of vv. 1 and 2: like the soldier, the mercenary, and the slave, Job has labored through life and looks forward to death.

[7:3]  ⁷ tn The form is the Hophal perfect of נָחַל (nakhal): “I have been made to inherit,” or more simply, “I have inherited.” The form occurs only here. The LXX must have confused the letters or sounds, a ו (vav) for the ן (nun), for it reads “I have endured.” As a passive the form technically has two accusatives (see GKC 388 §121.c). Job’s point is that his sufferings have been laid on him by another, and so he has inherited them.

[7:3]  ⁸ tn The word is שָׁוְא (shav’, “vanity, deception, nothingness, futility”). His whole life – marked here in months to show its brevity – has been futile. E. Dhorme (Job, 98) suggests the meaning “disillusionment,” explaining that it marks the deceptive nature of mortal life. The word describes life as hollow, insubstantial.

[7:3]  ⁹ tn “Sorrow” is עָמָל (’amal), used in 3:10. It denotes anxious toil, labor, troublesome effort. It may be that the verse expresses the idea that the nights are when the pains of his disease are felt the most. The months are completely wasted; the nights are agonizing.

[7:3]  ¹⁰ tn The verb is literally “they have appointed”; the form with no expressed subject is to be interpreted as a passive (GKC 460 §144.g). It is therefore not necessary to repoint the verb to make it passive. The word means “to number; to count,” and so “to determine; to allocate.”

[7:4]  ¹¹ tn This is the main clause, and not part of the previous conditional clause; it is introduced by the conjunction אִם (’im) (see GKC 336 §112.gg).

[7:4]  ¹² tn The verb מָדַד (madad) normally means “to measure,” and here in the Piel it has been given the sense of “to extend.” But this is not well attested and not widely accepted. There are many conjectural emendations. Of the most plausible one might mention the view of Gray, who changes מִדַּד (middad, Piel of מָדַּד) to מִדֵּי (midde, comprising the preposition מִן [min] plus the noun דַּי [day], meaning “as often as”): “as often as evening comes.” Dhorme, following the LXX to some extent, adds the word “day” after “when/if” and replaces מִדַּד (middad) with מָתַי (matay, “when”) to read “If I lie down, I say, ‘When comes the morning?’ If I rise up, I say, ‘How long till evening?’” The LXX, however, may be based more on a recollection of Deut 28:67. One can make just as strong a case for the reading adopted here, that the night seems to drag on (so also NIV).

[7:4]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew term נְדֻדִים (nÿdudim, “tossing”) refers to the restless tossing and turning of the sick man at night on his bed. The word is a hapax legomenon derived from the verb נָדַד (nadad, “to flee; to wander; to be restless”). The plural form here sums up the several parts of the actions (GKC 460 §144.f). E. Dhorme (Job, 99) argues that because it applies to both his waking hours and his sleepless nights, it may have more of the sense of wanderings of the mind. There is no doubt truth to the fact that the mind wanders in all this suffering; but there is no need to go beyond the contextually clear idea of the restlessness of the night.

[7:18]  ¹⁴ tn The verb פָּקַד (paqad) is a very common one in the Bible; while it is frequently translated “visit,” the “visit” is never comparable to a social call. When God “visits” people it always means a divine intervention for blessing or cursing – but the visit always changes the destiny of the one visited. Here Job is amazed that God Almighty would be so involved in the life of mere human beings.

[7:18]  ¹⁵ tn Now the verb “to test” is introduced and gives further explanation to the purpose of the “visit” in the parallel line (see the same parallelism in Ps 17:3). The verb בָּחַן (bakhan) has to do with passing things through the fire or the crucible to purify the metal (see Job 23:10; Zech 13:3); metaphorically it means “to examine carefully” and “to purify by testing.”

[7:18]  ¹⁶ sn The amazing thing is the regularity of the testing. Job is at first amazed that God would visit him; but even more is he amazed that God is testing him every moment. The employment of a chiasm with the two temporal adverbial phrases as the central elements emphasizes the regularity.

[10:3]  ¹⁷ tn Or “Does it give you pleasure?” The expression could also mean, “Is it profitable for you?” or “Is it fitting for you?”

[10:3]  ¹⁸ tn The construction uses כִּי (ki) with the imperfect verb – “that you oppress.” Technically, this clause serves as the subject, and “good” is the predicate adjective. In such cases one often uses an English infinitive to capture the point: “Is it good for you to oppress?” The LXX changes the meaning considerably: “Is it good for you if I am unrighteous, for you have disowned the work of your hands.”

[10:3]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “that you despise.”

[10:3]  ²⁰ tn Now, in the second half of the verse, there is a change in the structure. The conjunction on the preposition followed by the perfect verb represents a circumstantial clause.

[10:3]  ²¹ tn The Hiphil of the verb יָפַע (yafa’) means “shine.” In this context the expression “you shine upon” would mean “have a glowing expression,” be radiant, or smile.

[10:17]  ²² tn The text has “you renew/increase your witnesses.” This would probably mean Job’s sufferings, which were witness to his sins. But some suggested a different word here, one that is cognate to Arabic ’adiya, “to be an enemy; to be hostile”: thus “you renew your hostility against me.” Less convincing are suggestions that the word is cognate to Ugaritic “troops” (see W. G. E. Watson, “The Metaphor in Job 10,17,” Bib 63 [1982]: 255-57).

[10:17]  ²³ tn The Hebrew simply says “changes and a host are with me.” The “changes and a host” is taken as a hendiadys, meaning relieving troops (relief troops of the army). The two words appear together again in 14:14, showing that emendation is to be avoided. The imagery depicts blow after blow from God – always fresh attacks.

[15:18]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Will you be to me like a deceptive (brook), like waters which do not last [or are not reliable].”

[3:2]  ²⁵ tn Heb “You only have I known.” The Hebrew verb יָדַע (yada’) is used here in its covenantal sense of “recognize in a special way.”

[12:5]  ²⁶ tn Or “disregard,” “think little of.”

[12:5]  ²⁷ tn Or “reproves,” “rebukes.” The Greek verb ἐλέγχω (elencw) implies exposing someone’s sin in order to bring correction.

[12:1]  ²⁸ tn Grk “having such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us.”

[1:6]  ²⁹ tn Or “And again when he brings.” The translation adopted in the text looks forward to Christ’s second coming to earth. Some take “again” to introduce the quotation (as in 1:5) and understand this as Christ’s first coming, but this view does not fit well with Heb 2:7. Others understand it as his exaltation/ascension to heaven, but this takes the phrase “into the world” in an unlikely way.

[1:6]  ³⁰ sn A quotation combining themes from Deut 32:43 and Ps 97:7.