7:7 Remember 1 that my life is but a breath,
that 2 my eyes will never again 3 see happiness.
10:9 Remember that you have made me as with 4 the clay;
will 5 you return me to dust?
11:16 For you 6 will forget your trouble; 7
you will remember it
like water that 8 has flowed away.
36:24 Remember to extol 9 his work,
which people have praised in song.
1 sn Job is probably turning here to God, as is clear from v. 11 on. The NIV supplies the word “God” for clarification. It was God who breathed breath into man’s nostrils (Gen 2:7), and so God is called to remember that man is but a breath.
2 tn The word “that” is supplied in the translation.
3 tn The verb with the infinitive serves as a verbal hendiadys: “return to see” means “see again.”
4 tn The preposition “like” creates a small tension here. So some ignore the preposition and read “clay” as an adverbial accusative of the material (GKC 371 §117.hh but cf. 379 §119.i with reference to beth essentiae: “as it were, by clay”). The NIV gets around the problem with a different meaning for the verb: “you molded me like clay.” Some suggest the meaning was “as [with] clay” (in the same manner that we have “as [in] the day of Midian” [Isa 9:4]).
5 tn The text has a conjunction: “and to dust….”
6 tn For a second time (see v. 13) Zophar employs the emphatic personal pronoun. Could he be providing a gentle reminder that Job might have forgotten the sin that has brought this trouble? After all, there will come a time when Job will not remember this time of trial.
7 sn It is interesting to note in the book that the resolution of Job’s trouble did not come in the way that Zophar prescribed it.
8 tn The perfect verb forms an abbreviated relative clause (without the pronoun) modifying “water.”
9 tn The expression is “that you extol,” serving as an object of the verb.