32:6 So Elihu son of Barakel the Buzite spoke up: 3
“I am young, 4 but you are elderly;
that is why I was fearful, 5
and afraid to explain 6 to you what I know.
1 tn The word כְּאֵב (kÿ’ev) means “pain” – both mental and physical pain. The translation of “grief” captures only part of its emphasis.
2 sn The three friends went into a more severe form of mourning, one that is usually reserved for a death. E. Dhorme says it is a display of grief in its most intense form (Job, 23); for one of them to speak before the sufferer spoke would have been wrong.
3 tn Heb “answered and said.”
4 tn The text has “small in days.”
5 tn The verb זָחַלְתִּי (zakhalti) is found only here in the OT, but it is found in a ninth century Aramaic inscription as well as in Biblical Aramaic. It has the meaning “to be timid” (see H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 208).
6 tn The Piel infinitive with the preposition (מֵחַוֹּת, mekhavvot) means “from explaining.” The phrase is the complement: “explain” what Elihu feared.