1:18 While this one was still speaking another messenger arrived and said, “Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house,
19:27 whom I will see for myself, 1
and whom my own eyes will behold,
and not another. 2
My heart 3 grows faint within me. 4
33:14 “For God speaks, the first time in one way,
the second time in another,
though a person does not perceive 5 it.
1 tn The emphasis is on “I” and “for myself.” No other will be seeing this vindication, but Job himself will see it. Of that he is confident. Some take לִי (li, “for myself”) to mean favorable to me, or on my side (see A. B. Davidson, Job, 143). But Job is expecting (not just wishing for) a face-to-face encounter in the vindication.
2 tn Hitzig offered another interpretation that is somewhat forced. The “other” (זָר, zar) or “stranger” would refer to Job. He would see God, not as an enemy, but in peace.
3 tn Heb “kidneys,” a poetic expression for the seat of emotions.
4 tn Heb “fail/grow faint in my breast.” Job is saying that he has expended all his energy with his longing for vindication.
5 tn The Syriac and the Vulgate have “and he does not repeat it,” a reading of the text as it is, according to E. Dhorme (Job, 403). But his argument is based on another root with this meaning – a root which does not exist (see L. Dennefeld, RB 48 [1939]: 175). The verse is saying that God does speak to man.