Job 26:2

“How you have helped ¹  the powerless! ²  How you have saved the person who has no strength! ³ 

1Ki 18:27; Job 4:3,4; Job 6:25; Job 12:2; Job 16:4,5; Isa 35:3,4; Isa 40:14; Isa 41:5-7

¹ tn The interrogative clause is used here as an exclamation, and sarcastic at that. Job is saying “you have in no way helped the powerless.” The verb uses the singular form, for Job is replying to Bildad.

² tn The “powerless” is expressed here by the negative before the word for “strength; power” – “him who has no power” (see GKC 482 §152.u, v).

³ tn Heb “the arm [with] no strength.” Here too the negative expression is serving as a relative clause to modify “arm,” the symbol of strength and power, which by metonymy stands for the whole person. “Man of arm” denoted the strong in 22:8.