Psalms 37:25

37:25 I was once young, now I am old.

I have never seen a godly man abandoned,

or his children ¹  forced to search for food. ² 

Genesis 4:12-14

4:12 When you try to cultivate ³  the

ground it will no longer yield ⁴  its best ⁵  for you. You will be a homeless wanderer ⁶  on the earth.” 4:13 Then Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment ⁷  is too great to endure! ⁸  4:14 Look! You are driving me off the land ⁹  today, and I must hide from your presence. ¹⁰  I will be a homeless wanderer on the earth; whoever finds me will kill me.”

Genesis 4:2

4:2 Then she gave birth ¹¹  to his brother Abel. ¹²  Abel took care of the flocks, while Cain cultivated the ground. ¹³ 

Genesis 3:1-2

The Temptation and the Fall

3:1 Now ¹⁴  the serpent ¹⁵  was more shrewd ¹⁶ 

than any of the wild animals ¹⁷  that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Is it really true that ¹⁸  God ¹⁹  said, ‘You must not eat from any tree of the orchard’?” ²⁰  3:2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat ²¹  of the fruit from the trees of the orchard;

Genesis 5:27

5:27 The entire lifetime of Methuselah was 969 years, and then he died.

Job 24:8-12

24:8 They are soaked by mountain rains

and huddle ²²  in the rocks because they lack shelter.

24:9 The fatherless child is snatched ²³  from the breast, ²⁴ 

the infant of the poor is taken as a pledge. ²⁵ 

24:10 They go about naked, without clothing,

and go hungry while they carry the sheaves. ²⁶ 

24:11 They press out the olive oil between the rows of olive trees; ²⁷ 

they tread the winepresses while they are thirsty. ²⁸ 

24:12 From the city the dying ²⁹  groan,

and the wounded ³⁰  cry out for help,

but God charges no one with wrongdoing. ³¹ 

Job 30:3-9

30:3 gaunt ³²  with want and hunger,

they would gnaw ³³  the parched land,

in former time desolate and waste. ³⁴ 

30:4 By the brush ³⁵  they would gather ³⁶  herbs from the salt marshes, ³⁷ 

and the root of the broom tree was their food.

30:5 They were banished from the community ³⁸  –

people ³⁹  shouted at them

like they would shout at thieves ⁴⁰  –

30:6 so that they had to live ⁴¹ 

in the dry stream beds, ⁴² 

in the holes of the ground, and among the rocks.

30:7 They brayed ⁴³  like animals among the bushes

and were huddled together ⁴⁴  under the nettles.

30:8 Sons of senseless and nameless people, ⁴⁵ 

they were driven out of the land with whips. ⁴⁶ 

Job’s Indignities

30:9 “And now I have become their taunt song;

I have become a byword ⁴⁷  among them.

Isaiah 16:2

16:2 At the fords of the Arnon ⁴⁸ 

the Moabite women are like a bird

that flies about when forced from its nest. ⁴⁹ 

[37:25]  ¹ tn Or “offspring”; Heb “seed.”

[37:25]  ² tn Heb “or his offspring searching for food.” The expression “search for food” also appears in Lam 1:11, where Jerusalem’s refugees are forced to search for food and to trade their valuable possessions for something to eat.

[4:12]  ³ tn Heb “work.”

[4:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “it will not again (תֹסֵף, tosef) give (תֵּת, tet),” meaning the ground will no longer yield. In translation the infinitive becomes the main verb, and the imperfect verb form becomes adverbial.

[4:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “its strength.”

[4:12]  ⁶ tn Two similar sounding synonyms are used here: נָע וָנָד (na’ vanad, “a wanderer and a fugitive”). This juxtaposition of synonyms emphasizes the single idea. In translation one can serve as the main description, the other as a modifier. Other translation options include “a wandering fugitive” and a “ceaseless wanderer” (cf. NIV).

[4:13]  ⁷ tn The primary meaning of the Hebrew word עָוֹן (’avon) is “sin, iniquity.” But by metonymy it can refer to the “guilt” of sin, or to “punishment” for sin. The third meaning applies here. Just before this the Lord announces the punishment for Cain’s actions, and right after this statement Cain complains of the severity of the punishment. Cain is not portrayed as repenting of his sin.

[4:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “great is my punishment from bearing.” The preposition מִן (min, “from”) is used here in a comparative sense.

[4:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “from upon the surface of the ground.”

[4:14]  ¹⁰ sn I must hide from your presence. The motif of hiding from the Lord as a result of sin also appears in Gen 3:8-10.

[4:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “And she again gave birth.”

[4:2]  ¹² sn The name Abel is not defined here in the text, but the tone is ominous. Abel’s name, the Hebrew word הֶבֶל (hevel), means “breath, vapor, vanity,” foreshadowing Abel’s untimely and premature death.

[4:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “and Abel was a shepherd of the flock, and Cain was a worker of the ground.” The designations of the two occupations are expressed with active participles, רֹעֵה (ro’eh, “shepherd”) and עֹבֵד (’oved, “worker”). Abel is occupied with sheep, whereas Cain is living under the curse, cultivating the ground.

[3:1]  ¹⁴ tn The chapter begins with a disjunctive clause (conjunction + subject + predicate) that introduces a new character and a new scene in the story.

[3:1]  ¹⁵ sn Many theologians identify or associate the serpent with Satan. In this view Satan comes in the disguise of a serpent or speaks through a serpent. This explains the serpent’s capacity to speak. While later passages in the Bible may indicate there was a satanic presence behind the serpent (see, for example, Rev 12:9), the immediate context pictures the serpent as simply one of the animals of the field created by God (see vv. 1, 14). An ancient Jewish interpretation explains the reference to the serpent in a literal manner, attributing the capacity to speak to all the animals in the orchard. This text (Jub. 3:28) states, “On that day [the day the man and woman were expelled from the orchard] the mouth of all the beasts and cattle and birds and whatever walked or moved was stopped from speaking because all of them used to speak to one another with one speech and one language [presumed to be Hebrew, see 12:26].” Josephus, Ant. 1.1.4 (1.41) attributes the serpent’s actions to jealousy. He writes that “the serpent, living in the company of Adam and his wife, grew jealous of the blessings which he supposed were destined for them if they obeyed God’s behests, and, believing that disobedience would bring trouble on them, he maliciously persuaded the woman to taste of the tree of wisdom.”

[3:1]  ¹⁶ tn The Hebrew word עָרוּם (’arum) basically means “clever.” This idea then polarizes into the nuances “cunning” (in a negative sense, see Job 5:12; 15:5), and “prudent” in a positive sense (Prov 12:16, 23; 13:16; 14:8, 15, 18; 22:3; 27:12). This same polarization of meaning can be detected in related words derived from the same root (see Exod 21:14; Josh 9:4; 1 Sam 23:22; Job 5:13; Ps 83:3). The negative nuance obviously applies in Gen 3, where the snake attempts to talk the woman into disobeying God by using half-truths and lies.

[3:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “animals of the field.”

[3:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Indeed that God said.” The beginning of the quotation is elliptical and therefore difficult to translate. One must supply a phrase like “is it true”: “Indeed, [is it true] that God said.”

[3:1]  ¹⁹ sn God. The serpent does not use the expression “Yahweh God” [Lord God] because there is no covenant relationship involved between God and the serpent. He only speaks of “God.” In the process the serpent draws the woman into his manner of speech so that she too only speaks of “God.”

[3:1]  ²⁰ tn Heb “you must not eat from all the tree[s] of the orchard.” After the negated prohibitive verb, מִכֹּל (mikkol, “from all”) has the meaning “from any.” Note the construction in Lev 18:26, where the statement “you must not do from all these abominable things” means “you must not do any of these abominable things.” See Lev 22:25 and Deut 28:14 as well.

[3:2]  ²¹ tn There is a notable change between what the Lord God had said and what the woman says. God said “you may freely eat” (the imperfect with the infinitive absolute, see 2:16), but the woman omits the emphatic infinitive, saying simply “we may eat.” Her words do not reflect the sense of eating to her heart’s content.

[24:8]  ²² tn Heb “embrace” or “hug.”

[24:9]  ²³ tn The verb with no expressed subject is here again taken in the passive: “they snatch” becomes “[child] is snatched.”

[24:9]  ²⁴ tn This word is usually defined as “violence; ruin.” But elsewhere it does mean “breast” (Isa 60:16; 66:11), and that is certainly what it means here.

[24:9]  ²⁵ tc The MT has a very brief and strange reading: “they take as a pledge upon the poor.” This could be taken as “they take a pledge against the poor” (ESV). Kamphausen suggested that instead of עַל (’al, “against”) one should read עוּל (’ul, “suckling”). This is supported by the parallelism. “They take as pledge” is also made passive here.

[24:10]  ²⁶ sn The point should not be missed – amidst abundant harvests, carrying sheaves about, they are still going hungry.

[24:11]  ²⁷ tc The Hebrew term is שׁוּרֹתָם (shurotam), which may be translated “terraces” or “olive rows.” But that would not be the proper place to have a press to press the olives and make oil. E. Dhorme (Job, 360-61) proposes on the analogy of an Arabic word that this should be read as “millstones” (which he would also write in the dual). But the argument does not come from a clean cognate, but from a possible development of words. The meaning of “olive rows” works well enough.

[24:11]  ²⁸ tn The final verb, a preterite with the ו (vav) consecutive, is here interpreted as a circumstantial clause.

[24:12]  ²⁹ tc The MT as pointed reads “from the city of men they groan.” Most commentators change one vowel in מְתִים (mÿtim) to get מֵתִים (metim) to get the active participle, “the dying.” This certainly fits the parallelism better, although sense could be made out of the MT.

[24:12]  ³⁰ tn Heb “the souls of the wounded,” which here refers to the wounded themselves.

[24:12]  ³¹ tc The MT has the noun תִּפְלָה (tiflah) which means “folly; tastelessness” (cf. 1:22). The verb, which normally means “to place; to put,” would then be rendered “to impute; to charge.” This is certainly a workable translation in the context. Many commentators have emended the text, changing the noun to תְּפִלָּה (tÿfillah, “prayer”), and so then also the verb יָשִׂים (yasim, here “charges”) to יִשְׁמַע (yishma’, “hears”). It reads: “But God does not hear the prayer” – referring to the groans.

[30:3]  ³² tn This word, גַּלְמוּד (galmud), describes something as lowly, desolate, bare, gaunt like a rock.

[30:3]  ³³ tn The form is the plural participle with the definite article – “who gnaw.” The article, joined to the participle, joins on a new statement concerning a preceding noun (see GKC 404 §126.b).

[30:3]  ³⁴ tn The MT has “yesterday desolate and waste.” The word “yesterday” (אֶמֶשׁ, ’emesh) is strange here. Among the proposals for אֶמֶשׁ (’emesh), Duhm suggested יְמַשְּׁשׁוּ (yÿmashÿshu, “they grope”), which would require darkness; Pope renders “by night,” instead of “yesterday,” which evades the difficulty; and Fohrer suggested with more reason אֶרֶץ (’erets), “a desolate and waste land.” R. Gordis (Job, 331) suggests יָמִישׁוּ / יָמֻשׁוּ (yamishu/yamushu), “they wander off.”

[30:4]  ³⁵ tn Or “the leaves of bushes” (ESV), a possibility dating back to Saadia and discussed by G. R. Driver and G. B. Gray (Job [ICC], 2:209) in their philological notes.

[30:4]  ³⁶ tn Here too the form is the participle with the article.

[30:4]  ³⁷ tn Heb “gather mallow,” a plant which grows in salt marshes.

[30:5]  ³⁸ tn The word גֵּו (gev) is an Aramaic term meaning “midst,” indicating “midst [of society].” But there is also a Phoenician word that means “community” (DISO 48).

[30:5]  ³⁹ tn The form simply is the plural verb, but it means those who drove them from society.

[30:5]  ⁴⁰ tn The text merely says “as thieves,” but it obviously compares the poor to the thieves.

[30:6]  ⁴¹ tn This use of the infinitive construct expresses that they were compelled to do something (see GKC 348-49 §114.h, k).

[30:6]  ⁴² tn The adjectives followed by a partitive genitive take on the emphasis of a superlative: “in the most horrible of valleys” (see GKC 431 §133.h).

[30:7]  ⁴³ tn The verb נָהַק (nahaq) means “to bray.” It has cognates in Arabic, Aramaic, and Ugaritic, so there is no need for emendation here. It is the sign of an animal’s hunger. In the translation the words “like animals” are supplied to clarify the metaphor for the modern reader.

[30:7]  ⁴⁴ tn The Pual of the verb סָפַח (safakh, “to join”) also brings out the passivity of these people – “they were huddled together” (E. Dhorme, Job, 434).

[30:8]  ⁴⁵ tn The “sons of the senseless” (נָבָל, naval) means they were mentally and morally base and defective; and “sons of no-name” means without honor and respect, worthless (because not named).

[30:8]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “they were whipped from the land” (cf. ESV) or “they were cast out from the land” (HALOT 697 s.v. נכא). J. E. Hartley (Job [NICOT], 397) follows Gordis suggests that the meaning is “brought lower than the ground.”

[30:9]  ⁴⁷ tn The idea is that Job has become proverbial, people think of misfortune and sin when they think of him. The statement uses the ordinary word for “word” (מִלָּה, millah), but in this context it means more: “proverb; byword.”

[16:2]  ⁴⁸ tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[16:2]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “like a bird fleeing, thrust away [from] a nest, the daughters of Moab are [at] the fords of Arnon.”