9:23 If a scourge brings sudden death, 1
he mocks 2 at the despair 3 of the innocent. 4
9:28 I dread 5 all my sufferings, 6
for 7 I know that you do not hold me blameless. 8
1 tc The LXX contains a paraphrase: “for the worthless die, but the righteous are laughed to scorn.”
sn The point of these verses is to show – rather boldly – that God does not distinguish between the innocent and the guilty.
2 sn This bold anthropomorphism means that by his treatment of the despair of the innocent, God is in essence mocking them.
3 tn The term מַסַּת (massat), a hapax legomenon, was translated “trial” in the older versions; but it is not from נָסָה (nasah, “to tempt; to test; to try”), but from מָסַס (masas, “to flow”). It is used in the Niphal to speak of the heart “melting” in suffering. So the idea behind this image is that of despair. This is the view that most interpreters adopt; it requires no change of the text whatsoever.
4 sn Job uses this word to refute Eliphaz; cf. 4:7.
5 tn The word was used in Job 3:25; it has the idea of “dread, fear, tremble at.” The point here is that even if Job changes his appearance, he still dreads the sufferings, because he knows that God is treating him as a criminal.
6 sn See Job 7:15; see also the translation by G. Perles, “I tremble in every nerve” (“The Fourteenth Edition of Gesenius-Buhl’s Dictionary,” JQR 18 [1905/06]: 383-90).
7 tn The conjunction “for” is supplied in the translation.
8 sn A. B. Davidson (Job, 73) appropriately notes that Job’s afflictions were the proof of his guilt in the estimation of God. If God held him innocent, he would remove the afflictions.