2:4 But 6 Satan answered the Lord, “Skin for 7 skin! 8 Indeed, a man will give up 9 all that he has to save his life! 10
13:27 And you put my feet in the stocks 11
and you watch all my movements; 12
you put marks 13 on the soles of my feet.
14:14 If a man dies, will he live again? 14
All the days of my hard service 15 I will wait 16
until my release comes. 17
15:20 All his days 18 the wicked man suffers torment, 19
throughout the number of the years
that 20 are stored up for the tyrant. 21
34:19 who shows no partiality to princes,
and does not take note of 22 the rich more than the poor,
because all of them are the work of his hands?
37:12 The clouds 23 go round in circles,
wheeling about according to his plans,
to carry out 24 all that he commands them
over the face of the whole inhabited world.
42:10 So the Lord 25 restored what Job had lost 26 after he prayed for his friends, 27 and the Lord doubled 28 all that had belonged to Job.
1 tn The LXX has “the spoilers spoiled them” instead of “the Sabeans swooped down.” The translators might have connected the word to שְָׁבָה (shavah, “to take captive”) rather than שְׁבָא (shÿva’, “Sabeans”), or they may have understood the name as general reference to all types of Bedouin invaders from southern Arabia (HALOT 1381 s.v. שְׁבָא 2.c).
sn The name “Sheba” is used to represent its inhabitants, or some of them. The verb is feminine because the name is a place name. The Sabeans were a tribe from the Arabian peninsula. They were traders mostly (6:19). The raid came from the south, suggesting that this band of Sabeans were near Edom. The time of the attack seems to be winter since the oxen were plowing.
2 tn The Hebrew is simply “fell” (from נָפַל, nafal). To “fall upon” something in war means to attack quickly and suddenly.
3 sn Job’s servants were probably armed and gave resistance, which would be the normal case in that time. This was probably why they were “killed with the sword.”
4 tn Heb “the edge/mouth of the sword”; see T. J. Meek, “Archaeology and a Point of Hebrew Syntax,” BASOR 122 (1951): 31-33.
5 tn The pleonasms in the verse emphasize the emotional excitement of the messenger.
6 tn The form is the simply preterite with the vav (ו) consecutive. However, the speech of Satan is in contrast to what God said, even though in narrative sequence.
7 tn The preposition בְּעַד (bÿ’ad) designates interest or advantage arising from the idea of protection for (“for the benefit of”); see IBHS 201-2 §11.2.7a.
8 sn The meaning of the expression is obscure. It may come from the idea of sacrificing an animal or another person in order to go free, suggesting the expression that one type of skin that was worth less was surrendered to save the more important life. Satan would then be saying that Job was willing for others to die for him to go free, but not himself. “Skin” would be a synecdoche of the part for the whole (like the idiomatic use of skin today for a person in a narrow escape). The second clause indicates that God has not even scratched the surface because Job has been protected. His “skin” might have been scratched, but not his flesh and bone! But if his life had been put in danger, he would have responded differently.
9 tc The LXX has “make full payment, pay a full price” (LSJ 522 s.v. ἐκτίνω).
10 tn Heb “Indeed, all that a man has he will give for his life.”
11 tn The word occurs here and in Job 33:11. It could be taken as “stocks,” in which the feet were held fast; or it could be “shackles,” which allowed the prisoner to move about. The parallelism favors the latter, if the two lines are meant to be referring to the same thing.
12 tn The word means “ways; roads; paths,” but it is used here in the sense of the “way” in which one goes about his activities.
13 tn The verb תִּתְחַקֶּה (titkhaqqeh) is a Hitpael from the root חָקָה (khaqah, parallel to חָקַק, khaqaq). The word means “to engrave” or “to carve out.” This Hitpael would mean “to imprint something on oneself” (E. Dhorme [Job, 192] says on one’s mind, and so derives the meaning “examine.”). The object of this is the expression “on the roots of my feet,” which would refer to where the feet hit the ground. Since the passage has more to do with God’s restricting Job’s movement, the translation “you set a boundary to the soles of my feet” would be better than Dhorme’s view. The image of inscribing or putting marks on the feet is not found elsewhere. It may be, as Pope suggests, a reference to marking the slaves to make tracking them easier. The LXX has “you have penetrated to my heels.”
14 tc The LXX removes the interrogative and makes the statement affirmative, i.e., that man will live again. This reading is taken by D. H. Gard (“The Concept of the Future Life according to the Greek Translator of the Book of Job,” JBL 73 [1954]: 137-38). D. J. A. Clines follows this, putting both of the expressions in the wish clause: “if a man dies and could live again…” (Job [WBC], 332). If that is the way it is translated, then the verbs in the second half of the verse and in the next verse would all be part of the apodosis, and should be translated “would.” The interpretation would not greatly differ; it would be saying that if there was life after death, Job would long for his release – his death. If the traditional view is taken and the question was raised whether there was life after death (the implication of the question being that there is), then Job would still be longing for his death. The point the line is making is that if there is life after death, that would be all the more reason for Job to eagerly expect, to hope for, his death.
15 tn See Job 7:1.
16 tn The verb אֲיַחֵל (’ayakhel) may be rendered “I will/would wait” or “I will/would hope.” The word describes eager expectation and longing hope.
17 tn The construction is the same as that found in the last verse: a temporal preposition עַד (’ad) followed by the infinitive construct followed by the subjective genitive “release/relief.” Due, in part, to the same verb (חָלַף, khalaf) having the meaning “sprout again” in v. 7, some take “renewal” as the meaning here (J. E. Hartley, Alden, NIV, ESV).
18 tn Heb “all the days of the wicked, he suffers.” The word “all” is an adverbial accusative of time, stating along with its genitives (“of the days of a wicked man”) how long the individual suffers. When the subject is composed of a noun in construct followed by a genitive, the predicate sometimes agrees with the genitive (see GKC 467 §146.a).
19 tn The Hebrew term מִתְחוֹלֵל (mitkholel) is a Hitpolel participle from חִיל (khil, “to tremble”). It carries the idea of “torment oneself,” or “be tormented.” Some have changed the letter ח (khet) for a letter ה (he), and obtained the meaning “shows himself mad.” Theodotion has “is mad.” Syriac (“behave arrogantly,” apparently confusing Hebrew חול with חלל; Heidi M. Szpek, Translation Technique in the Peshitta to Job [SBLDS], 277), Symmachus, and Vulgate have “boasts himself.” But the reading of the MT is preferable.
20 tn It is necessary, with Rashi, to understand the relative pronoun before the verb “they are stored up/reserved.”
21 tn This has been translated with the idea of “oppressor” in Job 6:23; 27:13.
22 tn The verb means “to give recognition; to take note of” and in this passage with לִפְנֵי (lifne, “before”) it means to show preferential treatment to the rich before the poor. The word for “rich” here is an unusual word, found parallel to “noble” (Isa 32:2). P. Joüon thinks it is a term of social distinction (Bib 18 [1937]: 207-8).
23 tn The words “the clouds” are supplied from v. 11; the sentence itself actually starts: “and it goes round,” referring to the cloud.
24 tn Heb “that it may do.”
25 tn The paragraph begins with the disjunctive vav, “Now as for the
26 sn The expression here is interesting: “he returned the captivity of Job,” a clause used elsewhere in the Bible of Israel (see e.g., Ps 126). Here it must mean “the fortunes of Job,” i.e., what he had lost. There is a good deal of literature on this; for example, see R. Borger, “Zu sub sb(i)t,” ZAW 25 (1954): 315-16; and E. Baumann, ZAW 6 (1929): 17ff.
27 tn This is a temporal clause, using the infinitive construct with the subject genitive suffix. By this it seems that this act of Job was also something of a prerequisite for restoration – to pray for them.
28 tn The construction uses the verb “and he added” with the word “repeat” (or “twice”).