Job 31:16-20

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 31:16 tn Heb “kept the poor from [their] desire.”
2. Job 31:17 tn Heb “and an orphan did not eat from it.”
3. Job 31:18 tn Heb “he grew up with me.” Several commentators have decided to change the pronoun to “I,” and make it causative.
4. Job 31:18 tn The expression “from my mother’s womb” is obviously hyperbolic. It is a way of saying “all his life.”
5. Job 31:18 tn Heb “I guided her,” referring to the widow mentioned in v. 16.
6. Job 31:20 tn The MT has simply “if his loins did not bless me.” In the conditional clause this is another protasis. It means, “if I saw someone dying and if he did not thank me for clothing them.” It is Job’s way of saying that whenever he saw a need he met it, and he received his share of thanks—which prove his kindness. G. R. Driver has it “without his loins having blessed me,” taking “If…not” as an Aramaism, meaning “except” (AJSL 52 [1935/36]: 164f.).
7. Job 31:20 tn This clause is interpreted here as a subordinate clause to the first half of the verse. It could also be a separate clause: “was he not warmed…?”