Job 13:27

And you put my feet in the stocks ¹  and you watch all my movements; ²  you put marks ³  on the soles of my feet.

You fasten my feet in shackles; you keep close watch on all my paths by putting marks on the soles of my feet.

"You put my feet in the stocks And watch all my paths; You set a limit for the soles of my feet,

You put my feet in stocks. You watch all my paths. You trace all my footprints.

You hobble me so I can't move about. You watch every move I make, and brand me as a dangerous character.

And you put chains on my feet, watching all my ways, and making a limit for my steps;

You put my feet in the stocks, and watch all my paths; you set a bound to the soles of my feet.

You put my feet in the stocks, And watch closely all my paths. You set a limit for the soles of my feet.

And you put my feet in the stocks ¹  and you watch all my movements; ²  you put marks ³  on the soles of my feet.

¹ tn The word occurs here and in Job 33:11. It could be taken as “stocks,” in which the feet were held fast; or it could be “shackles,” which allowed the prisoner to move about. The parallelism favors the latter, if the two lines are meant to be referring to the same thing.

² tn The word means “ways; roads; paths,” but it is used here in the sense of the “way” in which one goes about his activities.

³ tn The verb תִּתְחַקֶּה (titkhaqqeh) is a Hitpael from the root חָקָה (khaqah, parallel to חָקַק, khaqaq). The word means “to engrave” or “to carve out.” This Hitpael would mean “to imprint something on oneself” (E. Dhorme [Job, 192] says on one’s mind, and so derives the meaning “examine.”). The object of this is the expression “on the roots of my feet,” which would refer to where the feet hit the ground. Since the passage has more to do with God’s restricting Job’s movement, the translation “you set a boundary to the soles of my feet” would be better than Dhorme’s view. The image of inscribing or putting marks on the feet is not found elsewhere. It may be, as Pope suggests, a reference to marking the slaves to make tracking them easier. The LXX has “you have penetrated to my heels.”