Job 16:5

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 16:5 tn “But” has been added in the translation to strengthen the contrast.
2. Job 16:5 tn The Piel of אָמַץ (ʾamats) means “to strengthen, fortify.”
3. Job 16:5 tn Heb “my mouth.”
4. Job 16:5 tn The verb יַחְשֹׂךְ (yakhsokh) means “to restrain; to withhold.” There is no object, so many make it first person subject, “I will not restrain.” The LXX and the Syriac have a different person—“I would not restrain.” G. R. Driver, arguing that the verb is intransitive here, made it “the solace of my lips would not [added] be withheld” (see JTS 34 [1933]: 380). D. J. A. Clines says that what is definitive is the use of the verb in the next line, where it clearly means “soothed, assuaged.”