Job 16:5

But ¹  I would strengthen ²  you with my words; ³  comfort from my lips would bring ⁴  you relief.

Job 4:3,4; Job 6:14; Job 29:25; Ps 27:14; Pr 27:9,17; Isa 35:3,4; Ga 6:1

¹ tn “But” has been added in the translation to strengthen the contrast.

² tn The Piel of אָמַץ (’amats) means “to strengthen, fortify.”

³ tn Heb “my mouth.”

⁴ tn The verb יַחְשֹׂךְ (yakhsokh) means “to restrain; to withhold.” There is no object, so many make it first person subject, “I will not restrain.” The LXX and the Syriac have a different person – “I would not restrain.” G. R. Driver, arguing that the verb is intransitive here, made it “the solace of my lips would not [added] be withheld” (see JTS 34 [1933]: 380). D. J. A. Clines says that what is definitive is the use of the verb in the next line, where it clearly means “soothed, assuaged.”