1:17 While this one was still speaking another messenger arrived and said, “The Chaldeans 1 formed three bands and made a raid 2 on the camels and carried them all away, and they killed the servants with the sword! 3 And I – only I alone – escaped to tell you!”
2:11 When Job’s three friends heard about all this calamity that had happened to him, each of them came from his own country 5 – Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. 6 They met together 7 to come to show sympathy 8 for him and to console 9 him.
1 sn The name may have been given to the tribes that roamed between the Euphrates and the lands east of the Jordan. These are possibly the nomadic Kaldu who are part of the ethnic Aramaeans. The LXX simply has “horsemen.”
2 tn The verb פָּשַׁט (pashat) means “to hurl themselves” upon something (see Judg 9:33, 41). It was a quick, plundering raid to carry off the camels.
3 tn Heb “with the edge/mouth of the sword.”
4 sn See N. C. Habel, “‘Only the Jackal is My Friend,’ On Friends and Redeemers in Job,” Int 31 (1977): 227-36.
5 tn Heb “a man from his place”; this is the distributive use, meaning “each man came from his place.”
6 sn Commentators have tried to analyze the meanings of the names of the friends and their locations. Not only has this proven to be difficult (Teman is the only place that is known), it is not necessary for the study of the book. The names are probably not symbolic of the things they say.
7 tn The verb can mean that they “agreed together”; but it also (and more likely) means that they came together at a meeting point to go visit Job together.
8 tn The verb “to show grief” is נוּד (nud), and literally signifies “to shake the head.” It may be that his friends came to show the proper sympathy and express the appropriate feelings. They were not ready for what they found.
9 tn The second infinitive is from נָחָם (nakham, “to comfort, console” in the Piel). This word may be derived from a word with a meaning of sighing deeply.