translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: JOB

label: NET study note

text: Chapter records Job’s charges against his friends for the way they used their knowledge (1-5), his warning that God would find out their insincerity (6-12), and his pleading of his cause to God in which he begs for God to remove his hand from him and that he would not terrify him with his majesty and that he would reveal the sins that caused such great suffering (13-28).


text: Job first will argue with his friends. His cause that he will plead with God begins in v. 13 . The same root יָכַח ( yakhakh , “argue, plead”) is used here as in v. 3 b (see note). Synonymous parallelism between the two halves of this verse supports this translation.


text: The idiom used here is “Will you lift up his face?” Here Job is being very sarcastic, for this expression usually means that a judge is taking a bribe. Job is accusing them of taking God’s side.


text: The use of the word “in secret” or “secretly” suggests that what they do is a guilty action ( 31:27 a).


text: The word translated “his majesty” or “his splendor” ( שְׂאֵתוֹ , sÿ ’ eto ) forms a play on the word “show partiality” ( תִּשָּׂאוּן , tissa ’ un ) in the last verse. They are both from the verb נָשַׂא ( nasa ’, “to lift up”).


text: Any defense made with clay would crumble on impact.


text: The fact that Job will dare to come before God and make his case is evidence – to Job at least – that he is innocent.


text: Job is confident that he will be vindicated. But if someone were to show up and have proof of sin against him, he would be silent and die (literally “keep silent and expire”).


text: This is a common, but bold, anthropomorphism. The fact that the word used is כַּף ( kaf , properly “palm”) rather than יָד ( yad , “hand,” with the sense of power) may stress Job’s feeling of being trapped or confined (see also Ps 139:5, 7 ).


text: Job uses three words for sin here: “iniquities,” which means going astray, erring; “sins,” which means missing the mark or the way; and “transgressions,” which are open rebellions. They all emphasize different kinds of sins and different degrees of willfulness. Job is demanding that any sins be brought up. Both Job and his friends agree that great afflictions would have to indicate great offenses – he wants to know what they are.


text: The anthropomorphism of “hide the face” indicates a withdrawal of favor and an outpouring of wrath (see Ps 30:7 [8]; Isa 54:8 ; Ps 27:9 ). Sometimes God “hides his face” to make himself invisible or aloof (see 34:29 ). In either case, if God covers his face it is because he considers Job an enemy – at least this is what Job thinks.


text: Job acknowledges sins in his youth, but they are trifling compared to the suffering he now endures. Job thinks it unjust of God to persecute him now for those – if that is what is happening.