4:13 In the troubling thoughts 1 of the dreams 2 in the night
when a deep sleep 3 falls on men,
15:10 The gray-haired 4 and the aged are on our side, 5
men far older than your father. 6
17:12 These men 7 change 8 night into day;
they say, 9 ‘The light is near
in the face of darkness.’ 10
22:16 men 11 who were carried off 12 before their time, 13
when the flood 14 was poured out 15
on their foundations? 16
30:2 Moreover, the strength of their 17 hands –
what use was it to me?
Men whose strength 18 had perished;
31:10 then let my wife turn the millstone 19 for another man,
and may other men have sexual relations with her. 20
V. The Speeches of Elihu (32:1-37:24)
Elihu’s First Speech 2132:1 So these three men refused to answer 22 Job further, because he was righteous in his 23 own eyes.
34:36 But 24 Job will be tested to the end,
because his answers are like those of wicked men.
1 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.
2 tn Heb “visions” of the night.
3 tn The word תַּרְדֵּמָה (tardemah) is a “deep sleep.” It is used in the creation account when the
4 tn The participle שָׂב (sav), from שִׂיב (siv, “to have white hair”; 1 Sam 12:2), only occurs elsewhere in the Bible in the Aramaic sections of Ezra. The word יָשִׁישׁ (yashish, “aged”) occurred in 12:12.
5 tn Heb “with us.”
6 tn The line reads: “[men] greater than your father [in] days.” The expression “in days” underscores their age – they were older than Job’s father, and therefore wiser.
7 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.
8 tn The same verb שִׂים (sim, “set”) is used this way in Isa 5:20: “…who change darkness into light.”
9 tn The rest of the verse makes better sense if it is interpreted as what his friends say.
10 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.”
11 tn The word “men” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied to clarify the relative pronoun “who.”
12 tn The verb קָמַט (qamat) basically means “to seize; to tie together to make a bundle.” So the Pual will mean “to be bundled away; to be carried off.”
13 tn The clause has “and [it was] not the time.” It may be used adverbially here.
14 tn The word is נָהַר (nahar, “river” or “current”); it is taken here in its broadest sense of the waters on the earth that formed the current of the flood (Gen 7:6, 10).
15 tn The verb יָצַק (yatsaq) means “to pour out; to shed; to spill; to flow.” The Pual means “to be poured out” (as in Lev 21:10 and Ps 45:3).
16 tn This word is then to be taken as an adverbial accusative of place. Another way to look at this verse is what A. B. Davidson (Job, 165) proposes “whose foundation was poured away and became a flood.” This would mean that that on which they stood sank away.
17 tn The reference is to the fathers of the scorners, who are here regarded as weak and worthless.
18 tn The word כֶּלַח (kelakh) only occurs in Job 5:26; but the Arabic cognate gives this meaning “strength.” Others suggest כָּלַח (kalakh, “old age”), ֹכּל־חַיִל (kol-khayil, “all vigor”), כֹּל־לֵחַ (kol-leakh, “all freshness”), and the like. But there is no reason for such emendation.
19 tn Targum Job interpreted the verb טָחַן (takhan, “grind”) in a sexual sense, and this has influenced other versions and commentaries. But the literal sense fits well in this line. The idea is that she would be a slave for someone else. The second line of the verse then might build on this to explain what kind of a slave – a concubine (see A. B. Davidson, Job, 215).
20 tn Heb “bow down over her,” an idiom for sexual relations.
sn The idea is that if Job were guilty of adultery it would be an offense against the other woman’s husband, and so by talionic justice another man’s adultery with Job’s wife would be an offense against him. He is not wishing something on his wife; rather, he is simply looking at what would be offenses in kind.
21 sn There are now four speeches from another friend of Job, Elihu. But Job does not reply to any of these, nor does the
22 tn The form is the infinitive construct (“answer”) functioning as the object of the preposition; the phrase forms the complement of the verb “they ceased to answer” (= “they refused to answer further”).
23 tc The LXX, Syriac, and Symmachus have “in their eyes.” This is adopted by some commentators, but it does not fit the argument.
24 tc The MT reads אָבִי (’avi, “my father”), which makes no sense. Some follow the KJV and emend the word to make a verb “I desire” or use the noun “my desire of it.” Others follow an Arabic word meaning “entreat, I pray” (cf. ESV, “Would that Job were tried”). The LXX and the Syriac versions have “but” and “surely” respectively. Since this is the only