34:29 But if God 3 is quiet, who can condemn 4 him?
If he hides his face, then who can see him?
Yet 5 he is over the individual and the nation alike, 6
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 “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
4 tn The verb in this position is somewhat difficult, although it does make good sense in the sentence – it is just not what the parallelism would suggest. So several emendations have been put forward, for which see the commentaries.
5 tn The line simply reads “and over a nation and over a man together.” But it must be the qualification for the points being made in the previous lines, namely, that even if God hides himself so no one can see, yet he is still watching over them all (see H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 222).
6 tn The word translated “alike” (Heb “together”) has bothered some interpreters. In the reading taken here it is acceptable. But others have emended it to gain a verb, such as “he visits” (Beer), “he watches over” (Duhm), “he is compassionate” (Kissane), etc. But it is sufficient to say “he is over.”