11:3 Will your idle talk 1 reduce people to silence, 2
and will no one rebuke 3 you when you mock? 4
16:10 People 5 have opened their mouths against me,
they have struck my cheek in scorn; 6
they unite 7 together against me.
17:6 He has made me 8 a byword 9 to people,
I am the one in whose face they spit. 10
18:19 He has neither children nor descendants 11 among his people,
no survivor in those places he once stayed. 12
22:29 When people are brought low 13 and you say
‘Lift them up!’ 14
then he will save the downcast; 15
29:23 They waited for me as people wait 16 for the rain,
and they opened their mouths 17
as for 18 the spring rains.
30:11 Because God has untied 19 my tent cord and afflicted me,
people throw off all restraint in my presence. 20
33:15 In a dream, a night vision,
when deep sleep falls on people
as they sleep in their beds.
36:5 Indeed, God is mighty; and he does not despise people, 21
he 22 is mighty, and firm 23 in his intent. 24
1 tn The word means “chatter, pratings, boastings” (see Isa 16:6; Jer 48:30).
2 tn The verb חָרַשׁ (kharash) in the Hiphil means “to silence” (41:4); here it functions in a causative sense, “reduce to silence.”
3 tn The form מַכְלִם (makhlim, “humiliating, mocking”) is the Hiphil participle. The verb כָּלַם (kalam) has the meaning “cover with shame, insult” (Job 20:3).
4 tn The construction shows the participle to be in the circumstantial clause: “will you mock – and [with] no one rebuking.”
5 tn “People” is supplied; the Hebrew verb is third plural. The colon reads, “they have opened against me with [the preposition is instrumental] their mouth.” The gestures here follow the animal imagery; they reflect destructive opposition and attack (see Ps 22:13 among others).
6 tn This is an “insult” or a “reproach.”
7 tn The verb יִתְמַלָּאוּן (yitmalla’un) is taken from מָלֵא (male’), “to be full,” and in this stem, “to pile up; to press together.” The term has a military connotation, such as “to mobilize” (see D. W. Thomas, “ml'w in Jeremiah 4:5 : a military term,” JJS 3 [1952]: 47-52). Job sees himself surrounded by enemies who persecute him and mock him.
8 tn The verb is the third person, and so God is likely the subject. The LXX has “you have made me.” So most commentators clarify the verb in some such way. However, without an expressed subject it can also be taken as a passive.
9 tn The word “byword” is related to the word translated “proverb” in the Bible (מָשָׁל, mashal). Job’s case is so well known that he is synonymous with afflictions and with abuse by people.
10 tn The word תֹפֶת (tofet) is a hapax legomenon. The expression is “and a spitting in/to the face I have become,” i.e., “I have become one in whose face people spit.” Various suggestions have been made, including a link to Tophet, but they are weak. The verse as it exists in the MT is fine, and fits the context well.
11 tn The two words נִין (nin, “offspring”) and נֶכֶד (nekhed, “posterity”) are always together and form an alliteration. This is hard to capture in English, but some have tried: Moffatt had “son and scion,” and Tur-Sinai had “breed or brood.” But the words are best simply translated as “lineage and posterity” or as in the NIV “offspring or descendants.”
12 tn Heb “in his sojournings.” The verb גּוּר (gur) means “to reside; to sojourn” temporarily, without land rights. Even this word has been selected to stress the temporary nature of his stay on earth.
13 tn There is no expressed subject here, and so the verb is taken as a passive voice again.
14 tn The word גֵּוָה (gevah) means “loftiness; pride.” Here it simply says “up,” or “pride.” The rest is paraphrased. Of the many suggestions, the following provide a sampling: “It is because of pride” (ESV), “he abases pride” (H. H. Rowley); “[he abases] the lofty and the proud” (Beer); “[he abases] the word of pride” [Duhm]; “[he abases] the haughtiness of pride” [Fohrer and others]; “[he abases] the one who speaks proudly” [Weiser]; “[he abases] the one who boasts in pride” [Kissane]; and “God [abases] pride” [Budde, Gray].
15 tn Or “humble”; Heb “the lowly of eyes.”
16 tn The phrase “people wait for” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation.
17 sn The analogy is that they received his words eagerly as the dry ground opens to receive the rains.
18 tn The כּ (kaf) preposition is to be supplied by analogy with the preceding phrase. This leaves a double proposition, “as for” (but see Job 29:2).
19 tn The verb פָּתַח (patakh) means “to untie [or undo]” a rope or bonds. In this verse יִתְרוֹ (yitro, the Kethib, LXX, and Vulgate) would mean “his rope” (see יֶתֶר [yeter] in Judg 16:7-9). The Qere would be יִתְרִי (yitri, “my rope [or cord]”), meaning “me.” The word could mean “rope,” “cord,” or “bowstring.” If the reading “my cord” is accepted, the cord would be something like “my tent cord” (as in Job 29:20), more than K&D 12:147 “cord of life.” This has been followed in the present translation. If it were “my bowstring,” it would give the sense of disablement. If “his cord” is taken, it would signify that the restraint that God had in afflicting Job was loosened – nothing was held back.
20 sn People throw off all restraint in my presence means that when people saw how God afflicted Job, robbing him of his influence and power, then they turned on him with unrestrained insolence (H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 193).
21 tn The object “people” is not in the Hebrew text but is implied.
22 tn The text simply repeats “mighty.”
23 tn The last two words are simply כֹּחַ לֵב (koakh lev, “strong in heart”), meaning something like “strong; firm in his decisions.”
24 tc There are several problems in this verse: the repetition of “mighty,” the lack of an object for “despise,” and the meaning of “strength of heart.” Many commentators reduce the verse to a single line, reading something like “Lo, God does not reject the pure in heart” (Kissane). Dhorme and Pope follow Nichols with: “Lo, God is mighty in strength, and rejects not the pure in heart.” This reading moved “mighty” to the first line and took the second to be בַּר (bar, “pure”).