14:20 You overpower him once for all, 1
and he departs;
you change 2 his appearance
and send him away.
17:12 These men 3 change 4 night into day;
they say, 5 ‘The light is near
in the face of darkness.’ 6
1 tn D. W. Thomas took נֵצַח (netsakh) here to have a superlative meaning: “You prevail utterly against him” (“Use of netsach as a superlative in Hebrew,” JSS 1 [1956]: 107). Death would be God’s complete victory over him.
2 tn The subject of the participle is most likely God in this context. Some take it to be man, saying “his face changes.” Others emend the text to read an imperfect verb, but this is not necessary.
3 tn The verse simply has the plural, “they change.” But since this verse seems to be a description of his friends, a clarification of the referent in the translation is helpful.
4 tn The same verb שִׂים (sim, “set”) is used this way in Isa 5:20: “…who change darkness into light.”
5 tn The rest of the verse makes better sense if it is interpreted as what his friends say.
6 tn This expression is open to alternative translations: (1) It could mean that they say in the face of darkness, “Light is near.” (2) It could also mean “The light is near the darkness” or “The light is nearer than the darkness.”