Footnotes

1. Job 16:22 tn The expression is “years of number,” meaning that they can be counted, and so “the years are few.” The verb simply means “comes” or “lie ahead.”
2. Job 16:22 tn The verbal expression “I will not return” serves here to modify the journey that he will take. It is “the road [of] I will not return.”
3. Job 17:1 tn The verb חָבַל (khaval, “to act badly”) in the Piel means “to ruin.” The Pual translation with “my spirit” as the subject means “broken” in the sense of finished (not in the sense of humbled as in Ps 51).
4. Job 17:1 tn The verb זָעַךְ (zaʿaq, equivalent of Aramaic דָעַק [daʿaq]) means “to be extinguished.” It only occurs here in the Hebrew.
5. Job 17:1 tn The plural “graves” could be simply an intensification, a plural of extension (see GKC 397 §124.c), or a reference to the graveyard. Coverdale had: “I am harde at deathes dore.” The Hebrew expression simply reads “graves for me.” It probably means that graves await him.
6. Job 17:2 tn The noun is the abstract noun, “mockery.” It indicates that he is the object of derision. But many commentators either change the word to “mockers” (Tur-Sinai, NEB), or argue that the form in the text is a form of the participle (Gordis).
7. Job 17:2 tn E. Dhorme (Job, 243) interprets the preposition to mean “aimed at me.”
8. Job 17:2 tn The meaning of הַמְּרוֹתָם (hamm^erotam) is unclear, and the versions offer no help. If the MT is correct, it would probably be connected to מָרָה (marah, “to be rebellious”) and the derived form something like “hostility; provocation.” But some commentators suggest it should be related to מָרֹרוֹת (marorot, “bitter things”). Others have changed both the noun and the verb to obtain something like “My eye is weary of their contentiousness” (Holscher), or “mine eyes are wearied by your stream of peevish complaints” (G. R. Driver, “Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 78). There is no alternative suggestion that is compelling.
9. Job 17:3 tc The MT has two imperatives: “Set (down), pledge me, with you.” Most commentators think that the second imperative, עָרְבֵנִי (ʿar^eveni, “pledge security for), should be repointed as a noun, עֵרְבֹנִי (ʿer^evoni, “my pledge of security”) and take it to say, “Set my pledge beside you.” A. B. Davidson (Job, 126) suggests that the first verb means “give a pledge,” and so the two similar verbs would be emphatic: “Give a pledge, be my surety.” However, the verb שִׂים (sim, “set”) does not work with other verbs in this manner in any other contexts.sn Job shows his desperation in lacking anyone to act as a guarantor on his behalf by asking God to accept himself as his own guarantor, a somewhat self-contradictory notion.
10. Job 17:3 sn The idiom is “to strike the hand.” Here the wording is a little different, “Who is he that will strike himself into my hand?”
11. Job 17:4 tn This half-verse gives the reason for the next half-verse.
12. Job 17:4 sn The pronoun their refers to Job’s friends. They have not pledged security for him because God has hidden or sealed off their understanding.
13. Job 17:4 tn The object “them” is supplied. This is the simplest reading of the line, taking the verb as an active Polel. Some suggest that the subject is “their hand” and the verb is to be translated “is not raised.” This would carry through the thought of the last verse, but it is not necessary to the point.
14. Job 17:5 tn Heb “for a portion.” This verse is rather obscure. The words are not that difficult, but the sense of them in this context is. Some take the idea to mean “he denounces his friends for a portion,” and others have a totally different idea of “he invites his friends to share with him.” The former fits the context better, indicating that Job’s friends speak out against him for some personal gain. The second half of the verse then promises that his children will suffer loss for this attempt at gain. The line is surely proverbial. A number of other interpretations can be found in the commentaries.
15. Job 17:6 tn The verb is the third person, and so God is likely the subject. The LXX has “you have made me.” So most commentators clarify the verb in some such way. However, without an expressed subject it can also be taken as a passive.
16. Job 17:6 tn The word “byword” is related to the word translated “proverb” in the Bible (מָשָׁל, mashal). Job’s case is so well known that he is synonymous with afflictions and with abuse by people.
17. Job 17:6 tn The word תֹפֶת (tofet) is a hapax legomenon. The expression is “and a spitting in/to the face I have become,” i.e., “I have become one in whose face people spit.” Various suggestions have been made, including a link to Tophet, but they are weak. The verse as it exists in the MT is fine, and fits the context well.
18. Job 17:7 tn See the usage of this verb in Gen 27:1 and Deut 34:7. Usually it is age that causes the failing eyesight, but here it is the grief.
19. Job 17:7 tn The word יְצֻרִים (y^etsurim), here with a suffix, occurs only here in the Bible. The word is related to יָצַר (yatsar, “to form, fashion”). And so Targum Job has “my forms,” and the Vulgate “my members.” The Syriac uses “thoughts” to reflect יֵצֶר (yetser). Some have followed this to interpret, “all my thoughts have dissolved into shadows.” But the parallel with “eye” would suggest “form.” The plural “my forms, all of them” would refer to the whole body.
20. Job 17:8 tn This verb שָׁמַם (shamam, “appalled”) is the one found in Isa 52:14, translated there “astonished.”
21. Job 17:8 tn The verb means “to rouse oneself to excitement.” It naturally means “to be agitated; to be stirred up.”
22. Job 17:9 tn The last two words are the imperfect verb יֹסִיף (yosif) which means “he adds,” and the abstract noun “energy, strength.” This noun is not found elsewhere; its Piel verb occurs in Job 4:4 and 16:5. “he increases strength.”