Job 21:9-11

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 21:9 tn The word שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace, safety”) is here a substantive after a plural subject (see GKC 452 §141.c, n. 3).
2. Job 21:9 tn The form מִפָּחַד (mippakhad) is translated “without fear,” literally “from fear”; the preposition is similar to the alpha privative in Greek. The word “fear, dread” means nothing that causes fear or dread—they are peaceful, secure. See GKC 382 §119.w.
3. Job 21:9 tn Heb “no rod of God.” The words “punishment from” have been supplied in the translation to make the metaphor understandable for the modern reader by stating the purpose of the rod.
4. Job 21:9 sn In 9:34 Job was complaining that there was no umpire to remove God’s rod from him, but here he observes no such rod is on the wicked.
5. Job 21:10 tn Heb “his bull,” but it is meant to signify the bulls of the wicked.
6. Job 21:10 tn The verb used here means “to impregnate,” and not to be confused with the verb עָבַר (ʿavar, “to pass over”).
7. Job 21:10 tn The use of the verb גָּעַר (gaʿar) in this place is interesting. It means “to rebuke; to abhor; to loathe.” In the causative stem it means “to occasion impurity” or “to reject as loathsome.” The rabbinic interpretation is that it does not emit semen in vain, and so the meaning is it does not fail to breed (see E. Dhorme, Job, 311; R. Gordis, Job, 229).
8. Job 21:11 tn The verb שָׁלַח (shalakh) means “to send forth,” but in the Piel “to release; to allow to run free.” The picture of children frolicking in the fields and singing and dancing is symbolic of peaceful, prosperous times.