Psalms 39:5-6

39:5 Look, you make my days short-lived, ¹ 

and my life span is nothing from your perspective. ² 

Surely all people, even those who seem secure, are nothing but vapor. ³ 

39:6 Surely people go through life as mere ghosts. ⁴ 

Surely they accumulate worthless wealth

without knowing who will eventually haul it away.” ⁵ 

Psalms 119:84

119:84 How long must your servant endure this? ⁶ 

When will you judge those who pursue me?

Job 7:7

7:7 Remember ⁷  that my life is but a breath,

that ⁸  my eyes will never again ⁹  see happiness.

Job 9:25-26

Renewed Complaint

9:25 “My days ¹⁰  are swifter than a runner, ¹¹ 

they speed by without seeing happiness.

9:26 They glide by ¹²  like reed ¹³  boats,

like an eagle that swoops ¹⁴  down on its prey. ¹⁵ 

Job 10:9

10:9 Remember that you have made me as with ¹⁶  the clay;

will ¹⁷  you return me to dust?

[39:5]  ¹ tn Heb “Look, handbreadths you make my days.” The “handbreadth” (equivalent to the width of four fingers) was one of the smallest measures used by ancient Israelites. See P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 (WBC), 309.

[39:5]  ² tn Heb “is like nothing before you.”

[39:5]  ³ tn Heb “surely, all vapor [is] all mankind, standing firm.” Another option is to translate, “Surely, all mankind, though seemingly secure, is nothing but a vapor.”

[39:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “surely, as an image man walks about.” The preposition prefixed to “image” indicates identity here.

[39:6]  ⁵ tc Heb “Surely [in] vain they strive, he accumulates and does not know who gathers them.” The MT as it stands is syntactically awkward. The verb forms switch from singular (“walks about”) to plural (“they strive”) and then back to singular (“accumulates and does not know”), even though the subject (generic “man”) remains the same. Furthermore there is no object for the verb “accumulates” and no plural antecedent for the plural pronoun (“them”) attached to “gathers.” These problems can be removed if one emends the text from הֶבֶל יֶהֱמָיוּן (hevel yehemaun, “[in] vain they strive”) to הֶבְלֵי הָמוֹן (hevley hamon, “vain things of wealth”). This assumes a misdivision in the MT and a virtual dittography of vav (ו) between the mem and nun of המון. The present translation follows this emendation.

[119:84]  ⁶ tn Heb “How long are the days of your servant?”

[7:7]  ⁷ sn Job is probably turning here to God, as is clear from v. 11 on. The NIV supplies the word “God” for clarification. It was God who breathed breath into man’s nostrils (Gen 2:7), and so God is called to remember that man is but a breath.

[7:7]  ⁸ tn The word “that” is supplied in the translation.

[7:7]  ⁹ tn The verb with the infinitive serves as a verbal hendiadys: “return to see” means “see again.”

[9:25]  ¹⁰ tn The text has “and my days” following the thoughts in the previous section.

[9:25]  ¹¹ sn Job returns to the thought of the brevity of his life (7:6). But now the figure is the swift runner instead of the weaver’s shuttle.

[9:26]  ¹² tn Heb “they flee.”

[9:26]  ¹³ tn The word אֵבֶה (’eveh) means “reed, papyrus,” but it is a different word than was in 8:11. What is in view here is a light boat made from bundles of papyrus that glides swiftly along the Nile (cf. Isa 18:2 where papyrus vessels and swiftness are associated).

[9:26]  ¹⁴ tn The verb יָטוּשׂ (yatus) is also a hapax legomenon; the Aramaic cognate means “to soar; to hover in flight.” The sentence here requires the idea of swooping down while in flight.

[9:26]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “food.”

[10:9]  ¹⁶ tn The preposition “like” creates a small tension here. So some ignore the preposition and read “clay” as an adverbial accusative of the material (GKC 371 §117.hh but cf. 379 §119.i with reference to beth essentiae: “as it were, by clay”). The NIV gets around the problem with a different meaning for the verb: “you molded me like clay.” Some suggest the meaning was “as [with] clay” (in the same manner that we have “as [in] the day of Midian” [Isa 9:4]).

[10:9]  ¹⁷ tn The text has a conjunction: “and to dust….”