Footnotes

1. Job 17:10 tn The form says “all of them.” Several editors would change it to “all of you,” but the lack of concord is not surprising; the vocative elsewhere uses the third person (see Mic 1:2; see also GKC 441 §135.r).
2. Job 17:10 tn The first verb, the jussive, means “to return”; the second verb, the imperative, means “to come.” The two could be taken as a hendiadys, the first verb becoming adverbial: “to come again.”
3. Job 17:10 tn Instead of the exact correspondence between coordinate verbs, other combinations occur—here we have a jussive and an imperative (see GKC 386 §120.e).
4. Job 17:11 tn This term usually means “plans; devices” in a bad sense, although it can be used of God’s plans (see e.g., Zech 8:15).
5. Job 17:11 tn Although not in the Hebrew text, “even” is supplied in the translation, because this line is in apposition to the preceding.
6. Job 17:11 tn This word has been linked to the root יָרַשׁ (yarash, “to inherit”) yielding a meaning “the possessions of my heart.” But it is actually to be connected to אָרַשׁ (ʾarash, “to desire”) cognate to the Akkadian eresu, “desire.” The LXX has “limbs,” which may come from an Aramaic word for “ropes.” An emendation based on the LXX would be risky.
7. Job 17:12 tn The verse simply has the plural, “they change.” But since this verse seems to be a description of his friends, a clarification of the referent in the translation is helpful.
8. Job 17:12 tn The same verb שִׂים (sim, “set”) is used this way in Isa 5:20: “…who change darkness into light.”
9. Job 17:12 tn The rest of the verse makes better sense if it is interpreted as what his friends say.
10. Job 17:12 tn This expression is open to alternative translations: (1) It could mean that they say in the face of darkness, “Light is near.” (2) It could also mean “The light is near the darkness” or “The light is nearer than the darkness.”
11. Job 17:13 tn The clause begins with אִם (ʾim) which here has more of the sense of “since.” E. Dhorme (Job, 253) takes a rather rare use of the word to get “Can I hope again” (see also GKC 475 §150.f for the caveat).
12. Job 17:14 tn This is understood because the conditional clauses seem to run to the apodosis in v. 15.
13. Job 17:14 tn The word שַׁחַת (shakhat) may be the word “corruption” from a root שָׁחַת (shakhat, “to destroy”) or a word “pit” from שׁוּחַ (shuakh, “to sink down”). The same problem surfaces in Ps 16:10, where it is parallel to “Sheol.” E. F. Sutcliffe, The Old Testament and the Future Life, 76ff., defends the meaning “corruption.” But many commentators here take it to mean “the grave” in harmony with “Sheol.” But in this verse “worms” would suggest “corruption” is better.
14. Job 17:15 tn The adverb אֵפוֹ (ʾefo, “then”) plays an enclitic role here (see Job 4:7).
15. Job 17:15 tn The repetition of “my hope” in the verse has thrown the versions off, and their translations have led commentators also to change the second one to something like “goodness,” on the assumption that a word cannot be repeated in the same verse. The word actually carries two different senses here. The first would be the basic meaning “hope,” but the second a metonymy of cause, namely, what hope produces, what will be seen.
16. Job 17:16 sn It is natural to assume that this verse continues the interrogative clause of the preceding verse.
17. Job 17:16 tn The plural form of the verb probably refers to the two words, or the two senses of the word in the preceding verse. Hope and what it produces will perish with Job.
18. Job 17:16 tn The Hebrew word בַּדִּים (baddim) describes the “bars” or “bolts” of Sheol, referring (by synecdoche) to the “gates of Sheol.” The LXX has “with me to Sheol,” and many adopt that as “by my side.”
19. Job 17:16 tn The conjunction אִם (ʾim) confirms the interrogative interpretation.
20. Job 17:16 tn The translation follows the LXX and the Syriac versions with the change of vocalization in the MT. The MT has the noun “rest,” yielding, “will our rest be together in the dust?” The verb נָחַת (nakhat) in Aramaic means “to go down; to descend.” If that is the preferred reading—and it almost is universally accepted here—then it would be spelled נֵחַת (nekhat). In either case the point of the verse is clearly describing death and going to the grave.