22:4 Is it because of your piety 1 that he rebukes you
and goes to judgment with you? 2
39:21 It 3 paws the ground in the valley, 4
exulting mightily, 5
it goes out to meet the weapons.
1 tn The word “your fear” or “your piety” refers to Job’s reverence – it is his fear of God (thus a subjective genitive). When “fear” is used of religion, it includes faith and adoration on the positive side, fear and obedience on the negative.
2 sn Of course the point is that God does not charge Job because he is righteous; the point is he must be unrighteous.
3 tc The Hebrew text has a plural verb, “they paw.” For consistency and for stylistic reasons this is translated as a singular.
4 tn The armies would prepare for battles that were usually fought in the valleys, and so the horse was ready to charge. But in Ugaritic the word `mk means “force” as well as “valley.” The idea of “force” would fit the parallelism here well (see M. Dahood, “Value of Ugaritic for textual criticism,” Bib 40 [1959]: 166).
5 tn Or “in strength.”