² tn The form מִתְרַפֶּה (mitrappeh) is the Hitpael participle, “showing oneself slack.” The verb means “to sink; to relax,” and in the causative stem “to let drop” the hands. This is the lazy person who does not even try to work.

³ tn Heb “his mouth” (so KJV, NAB). The term “mouth” is a metonymy for hunger or eating. The idea of the proverb is clear—the need to eat drives people to work.

⁴ sn The noun מַחְסוֹר (makhsor, “need; thing needed; poverty”) comes from the verb “to lack; to be lacking; to decrease; to need.” A person given to idle talk rather than industrious work will have needs that go unmet.

² tn Heb “word of lips.” This construct phrase features a genitive of source (“a word from the lips”) or a subjective genitive (“speaking a word”). Talk without work (which produces nothing) is contrasted with labor that produces something.

³ tn Heb “but doers of truthfulness.” The term “truthfulness” is an objective genitive, meaning: “those who practice truth” or “those who act in good faith.” Their words and works are reliable.

² tn The word כֹּחַ (koakh, “strength”) refers to what laborious toil would produce (so a metonymy of cause). Everything that this person worked for could become the property for others to enjoy.

¹ sn The verb חָרַשׁ (kharash) means “to cut in; to engrave; to plough; to devise.” The idea of plotting is metaphorical for working, practicing or fabricating (BDB 360 s.v.).

¹ tn Heb “may your work be revealed to your servants.” In this context (note v. 17) the verb form יֵרָאֶה (yeraʾeh) is best understood as an unshortened jussive (see Gen 1:9; Isa 47:3).

² sn He…established it upon the ocean currents. The description reflects ancient Israelite prescientific cosmology, which is based on outward appearances. The language also suggests that God’s creative work involved the subjugation of chaos, symbolized by the sea.

¹ tn Heb “when I see your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and stars which you established.” The verb “[and] see” is understood by ellipsis in the second half of the verse.

¹ tn The verb means “to filter; to refine,” and so a plural subject with the drops of water as the subject will not work. So many read the singular, “he distills.”

¹ sn This very lengthy speech can be broken down into the following sections: the discipline of suffering (36:2-25), the work and wisdom of God (36:26-37:24).

³ sn The point is that he is like a thief in that he works during the night, just before the daylight, when the advantage is all his and the victim is most vulnerable.

¹ tn The idea is the fruit of his evil work. The word יָגָע (yagaʿ) occurs only here; it must mean ill-gotten gains. The verb is in 10:3.

¹ sn The idea would be that God would sometime in the future call Job into his fellowship again when he longed for the work of his hands (cf. Job 10:3).

² sn The fact is that humans are the work of God’s hands. They are helpless in the hand of God. But it is also unworthy of God to afflict his people.

¹ tn The relative pronoun introduces the verse as a relative clause, working with the “godless person” of the preceding verse. The relative pronoun is joined to the resumptive pronoun in the translation: “who + his trust” = “whose trust.”

¹ tn The particle כִּי (ki) could also be translated “when,” but “if” might work better to introduce the conditional clause and to parallel the earlier reasoning of Job in v. 4 (using אִם, ʾim). See GKC 336-37 §112.hh.

¹ tn This term עֶבֶד (ʿeved) is the servant or the slave. He is compelled to work through the day in the heat, but he longs for evening when he can rest from the slavery.

² tn The Hebrew has וְאֵין חֵקֶר (v^eʾen kheqer), literally, “and no investigation.” The use of the conjunction on the expression follows a form of the circumstantial clause construction, and so the entire expression describes the great works as “unsearchable.”