translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: JOB

label: NET textual note

text: This last purpose clause has been omitted in some Greek versions.


label: NET translator note

text: Heb “answered the Lord and said” (also in v. 4 ). The words “and said” here and in v. 9 have not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.


text: See the note on this phrase in 1:7 .


text: The form is the Hiphil participle, “make strong, seize, hold fast.” It is the verbal use here; joined with עֹדֶנּוּ (’ odennu , “yet he”) it emphasizes that “he is still holding firmly.” The testing has simply strengthened Job in his integrity.


text: This is the same word used to describe Job as “blameless, pure.” Here it carries the idea of “integrity”; Job remained blameless, perfect.


text: The vav ( ו ) with the preterite is used here to express the logical conclusion or consequence of what was stated previously. God is saying that Job has maintained his integrity, so that now it is clear that Satan moved against him groundlessly (GKC 328 §111. l ).


text: The verb literally means “to swallow”; it forms an implied comparison in the line, indicating the desire of Satan to ruin him completely. See A Guillaume, “A Note on the Root bala` ,” JTS 13 (1962): 320-23; and N. M. Sarna, “Epic Substratum in the Prose of Job,” JBL 76 (1957): 13-25, for a discussion of the Ugaritic deity Mot swallowing up the enemy.


text: The form is the simply preterite with the vav ( ו ) consecutive. However, the speech of Satan is in contrast to what God said, even though in narrative sequence.


text: The preposition בְּעַד ( bÿ ’ ad ) designates interest or advantage arising from the idea of protection for (“for the benefit of”); see IBHS 201-2 §11.2.7a.


text: The LXX has “make full payment, pay a full price” (LSJ 522 s.v. ἐκτίνω ).


text: Heb “Indeed, all that a man has he will give for his life.”


text: The particle הִנּוֹ ( hinno ) is literally, “here he is!” God presents Job to Satan, with the restriction on preserving Job’s life.


text: The LXX has “I deliver him up to you.”


text: Heb “hand.”


text: The verb is נָכָה ( nakhah , “struck, smote”); it can be rendered in this context as “afflicted.”


text: Heb “crown.”


text: The verb גָּרַד ( garad ) is a hapax legomenon (only occurring here). Modern Hebrew has retained a meaning “to scrape,” which is what the cognate Syriac and Arabic indicate. In the Hitpael it would mean “scrape himself.”


text: The construction uses the disjunctive vav ( ו ) with the independent pronoun with the active participle. The construction connects this clause with what has just been said, making this a circumstantial clause.


text: The versions have some information here that is interesting, albeit fanciful. The Targum calls her “Dinah.” The LXX has “when a long time had passed.” But the whole rendering of the LXX is paraphrastic: “How long will you hold out, saying, ‘Behold, I wait yet a little while, expecting the hope of my deliverance?’ for behold, your memorial is abolished from the earth, even your sons and daughters, the pangs and pains of my womb which I bore in vain with sorrows, and you yourself sit down to spend the night in the open air among the corruption of worms, and I am a wanderer and a servant from place to place and house to house, waiting for the setting sun, that I may rest from my labors and pains that now beset me, but say some word against the Lord and die.”


text: The verb is literally בָּרַךְ , ( barakh , “bless”). As in the earlier uses, the meaning probably has more to do with renouncing God than of speaking a curse. The actual word may be taken as a theological euphemism for the verb קִלֵּל ( qillel , “curse”). If Job’s wife had meant that he was trying to justify himself rather than God, “bless God” might be translated “speak well of God,” the resolution accepted by God in 42:7-8 following Job’s double confession of having spoken wrongly of God ( 40:3-5; 42:1-6 ). sn The church fathers were quick to see here again the role of the wife in the temptation – she acts as the intermediary between Satan and Job, pressing the cause for him. However, Job’s wife has been demonized falsely. Job did not say that she was a foolish woman, only that she was speaking like one of them ( 2:10 ). Also, Job did not exclude her from sharing in his suffering (“should we receive”). He evidently recognized that her words were the result of her personal loss and pain as well as the desire to see her husband’s suffering ended. When God gave instructions for the restoration of Job’s friends because of their foolish words ( 42:7-9 ), no mention is made of any need for Job’s wife to be restored.


text: The imperative with the conjunction in this expression serves to express the certainty that will follow as the result or consequence of the previous imperative (GKC 324-25 §110. f ).


text: Heb “he said to her.”


text: The word “foolish” ( נָבָל , naval ) has to do with godlessness more than silliness ( Ps 14:1 ). To be foolish in this sense is to deny the nature and the work of God in life its proper place. See A. Phillips, “NEBALA – A Term for Serious Disorderly Unruly Conduct,” VT 25 (1975): 237-41; and W. M. W. Roth, “NBL,” VT 10 (1960): 394-409.


text: The verb קִבֵּל ( qibbel ) means “to accept, receive.” It is attested in the Amarna letters with the meaning “receive meekly, patiently.”


text: The adverb גָּם ( gam , “also, even”) is placed here before the first clause, but belongs with the second. It intensifies the idea (see GKC 483 §153). See also C. J. Labuschagne, “The Emphasizing Particle GAM and Its Connotations,” Studia Biblica et Semitica , 193-203.


text: The two verbs in this sentence, Piel imperfects, are deliberative imperfects; they express the reasoning or deliberating in the interrogative sentences.


text: A question need not be introduced by an interrogative particle or adverb. The natural emphasis on the words is enough to indicate it is a question (GKC 473 §150. a ). sn The Hebrew words טוֹב ( tov , “good”) and רַע ( ra ’, “evil”) have to do with what affects life. That which is good benefits people because it produces, promotes and protects life; that which is evil brings calamity and disaster, it harms, pains, or destroys life.


text: Heb “sin with his lips,” an idiom meaning he did not sin by what he said.


text: Heb “a man from his place”; this is the distributive use, meaning “each man came from his place.”


text: The verb can mean that they “agreed together”; but it also (and more likely) means that they came together at a meeting point to go visit Job together.


text: The verb “to show grief” is נוּד ( nud ), and literally signifies “to shake the head.” It may be that his friends came to show the proper sympathy and express the appropriate feelings. They were not ready for what they found.


text: Heb “they lifted up their eyes.” The idiom “to lift up the eyes” (or “to lift up the voice”) is intended to show a special intensity in the effort. Here it would indicate that they were trying to see Job from a great distance away.


text: The Hiphil perfect here should take the nuance of potential perfect – they were not able to recognize him. In other words, this does not mean that they did not know it was Job, only that he did not look anything like the Job they knew.


text: Heb “they tossed dust skyward over their heads.”


text: The word כְּאֵב ( kÿ ’ ev ) means “pain” – both mental and physical pain. The translation of “grief” captures only part of its emphasis.