14:13 “O that 1 you would hide me in Sheol, 2
and conceal me till your anger has passed! 3
O that you would set me a time 4
and then remember me! 5
30:15 Terrors are turned loose 6 on me;
they drive away 7 my honor like the wind,
and like a cloud my deliverance has passed away.
37:21 But now, the sun 8 cannot be looked at 9 –
it is bright in the skies –
after a wind passed and swept the clouds away. 10
1 tn The optative mood is introduced here again with מִי יִתֵּן (mi yitten), literally, “who will give?”
sn After arguing that man will die without hope, Job expresses his desire that there be a resurrection, and what that would mean. The ancients all knew that death did not bring existence to an end; rather, they passed into another place, but they continued to exist. Job thinks that death would at least give him some respite from the wrath of God; but this wrath would eventually be appeased, and then God would remember the one he had hidden in Sheol just as he remembered Noah. Once that happened, it would be possible that Job might live again.
2 sn Sheol in the Bible refers to the place where the dead go. But it can have different categories of meaning: death in general, the grave, or the realm of the departed spirits [hell]. A. Heidel shows that in the Bible when hell is in view the righteous are not there – it is the realm of the departed spirits of the wicked. When the righteous go to Sheol, the meaning is usually the grave or death. See chapter 3 in A. Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and the Old Testament Parallels.
3 tn The construction used here is the preposition followed by the infinitive construct followed by the subjective genitive, forming an adverbial clause of time.
4 tn This is the same word used in v. 5 for “limit.”
5 tn The verb זָכַר (zakhar) means more than simply “to remember.” In many cases, including this one, it means “to act on what is remembered,” i.e., deliver or rescue (see Gen 8:1, “and God remembered Noah”). In this sense, a prayer “remember me” is a prayer for God to act upon his covenant promises.
6 tn The passive singular verb (Hophal) is used with a plural subject (see GKC 388 §121.b).
7 tc This translation assumes that “terrors” (in the plural) is the subject. Others emend the text in accordance with the LXX, which has, “my hope is gone like the wind.”
8 tn The light here must refer to the sun in the skies that had been veiled by the storm. Then, when the winds blew the clouds away, it could not be looked at because it was so dazzling. Elihu’s analogy will be that God is the same – in his glory one cannot look at him or challenge him.
9 tn The verb has an indefinite subject, and so should be a passive here.
10 tn Heb “and cleaned them.” The referent is the clouds (v. 18), which has been supplied in the translation for clarity. There is another way of reading this verse: the word translated “bright” means “dark; obscured” in Syriac. In this interpretation the first line would mean that they could not see the sun, because it was darkened by the clouds, but then the wind came and blew the clouds away. Dhorme, Gray, and several others take it this way, as does the NAB.