3:3 “Let the day on which 1 I was born 2 perish,
and the night that said, 3
‘A man 4 has been conceived!’ 5
4:13 In the troubling thoughts 6 of the dreams 7 in the night
when a deep sleep 8 falls on men,
5:14 They meet with darkness in the daytime, 9
and grope about 10 in the noontime as if it were night. 11
17:12 These men 12 change 13 night into day;
they say, 14 ‘The light is near
in the face of darkness.’ 15
31:32 But 16 no stranger had to spend the night outside,
for I opened my doors to the traveler 17 –
33:15 In a dream, a night vision,
when deep sleep falls on people
as they sleep in their beds.
39:9 Is the wild ox willing to be your servant?
Will it spend the night at your feeding trough?
39:28 It lives on a rock and spends the night there,
on a rocky crag 18 and a fortress. 19
1 tn The relative clause is carried by the preposition with the resumptive pronoun: “the day [which] I was born in it” meaning “the day on which I was born” (see GKC 486-88 §155.f, i).
2 tn The verb is the Niphal imperfect. It may be interpreted in this dependent clause (1) as representing a future event from some point of time in the past – “the day on which I was born” or “would be born” (see GKC 316 §107.k). Or (2) it may simply serve as a preterite indicating action that is in the past.
3 tn The MT simply has “and the night – it said….” By simple juxtaposition with the parallel construction (“on which I was born”) the verb “it said” must be a relative clause explaining “the night.” Rather than supply “in which” and make the verb passive (which is possible since no specific subject is provided, but leaves open the question of who said it), it is preferable to take the verse as a personification. First Job cursed the day; now he cursed the night that spoke about what it witnessed. See A. Ehrman, “A Note on the Verb ‘amar,” JQR 55 (1964/65): 166-67.
4 tn The word is גֶּבֶר (gever, “a man”). The word usually distinguishes a man as strong, distinct from children and women. Translations which render this as “boy” (to remove the apparent contradiction of an adult being “conceived” in the womb) miss this point.
5 sn The announcement at birth is to the fact that a male was conceived. The same parallelism between “brought forth/born” and “conceived” may be found in Ps 51:7 HT (51:5 ET). The motifs of the night of conception and the day of birth will be developed by Job. For the entire verse, which is more a wish or malediction than a curse, see S. H. Blank, “‘Perish the Day!’ A Misdirected Curse (Job 3:3),” Prophetic Thought, 61-63.
6 tn Here too the word is rare. The form שְׂעִפִּים (sÿ’ippim, “disquietings”) occurs only here and in 20:2. The form שַׂרְעַפִּים (sar’appim, “disquieting thoughts”), possibly related by dissimilation, occurs in Pss 94:19 and 139:23. There seems to be a connection with סְעִפִּים (sÿ’ippim) in 1 Kgs 18:21 with the meaning “divided opinion”; this is related to the idea of סְעִפָּה (sÿ’ippah, “bough”). H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 47) concludes that the point is that like branches the thoughts lead off into different and bewildering places. E. Dhorme (Job, 50) links the word to an Arabic root (“to be passionately smitten”) for the idea of “intimate thoughts.” The idea here and in Ps 139 has more to do with anxious, troubling, disquieting thoughts, as in a nightmare.
7 tn Heb “visions” of the night.
8 tn The word תַּרְדֵּמָה (tardemah) is a “deep sleep.” It is used in the creation account when the
9 sn God so confuses the crafty that they are unable to fulfill their plans – it is as if they encounter darkness in broad daylight. This is like the Syrians in 2 Kgs 6:18-23.
10 tn The verb מָשַׁשׁ (mashash) expresses the idea of groping about in the darkness. This is part of the fulfillment of Deut 28:29, which says, “and you shall grope at noonday as the blind grope in darkness.” This image is also in Isa 59:10.
11 sn The verse provides a picture of the frustration and bewilderment in the crafty who cannot accomplish their ends because God thwarts them.
12 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.
13 tn The same verb שִׂים (sim, “set”) is used this way in Isa 5:20: “…who change darkness into light.”
14 tn The rest of the verse makes better sense if it is interpreted as what his friends say.
15 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.”
16 tn This verse forms another parenthesis. Job stops almost at every point now in the conditional clauses to affirm his purity and integrity.
17 tn The word in the MT, אֹרחַ (’orakh, “way”), is a contraction from אֹרֵחַ (’oreakh, “wayfarer”); thus, “traveler.” The same parallelism is found in Jer 14:8. The reading here “on/to the road” is meaningless otherwise.
18 tn Heb “upon the tooth of a rock.”
19 tn The word could be taken as the predicate, but because of the conjunction it seems to be adding another description of the place of its nest.