Job 23:8-12

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 23:9 sn The text has “the left hand,” the Semitic idiom for directions. One faces the rising sun, and so left is north, right is south.
2. Job 23:9 tc The form בַּעֲשֹׂתוֹ (baʿasoto) would be the temporal clause using the infinitive construct with a pronoun (subject genitive). This would be “when he works.” Several follow the Syriac with “I seek him.” The LXX has “[when] he turns.” R. Gordis (Job, 261) notes that there is no need to emend the text; he shows a link to the Arabic cognate ghasa, “to cover.” To him this is a perfect parallel to יַעְטֹף (yaʿtof, “covers himself”).
3. Job 23:9 tn The verb is the apocopated form of the imperfect. The object is supplied.
4. Job 23:9 tn The MT has “he turns,” but the Syriac and Vulgate have “I turn.”
5. Job 23:10 tn The expression דֶּרֶךְ עִמָּדִי (derekh ʿimmadi) means “the way with me,” i.e., “the way that I take.” The Syriac has “my way and my standing.” Several commentators prefer “the way of my standing,” meaning where to look for me. J. Reider offers “the way of my life” (“Some notes to the text of the scriptures,” HUCA 3 [1926]: 115). Whatever the precise wording, Job knows that God can always find him.
6. Job 23:10 tn There is a perfect verb followed by an imperfect in this clause with the protasis and apodosis relationship (see GKC 493 §159.b).
7. Job 23:11 tn Heb “my foot.”
8. Job 23:11 tn Heb “held fast.”
9. Job 23:11 tn The last clause, “and I have not turned aside,” functions adverbially in the sentence. The form אָט (ʾat) is a pausal form of אַתֶּה (ʾatteh), the Hiphil of נָטָה (natah, “stretch out”).
10. Job 23:12 tc The form in the MT (מֵחֻקִּי, mekhuqqi) means “more than my portion” or “more than my law.” An expanded meaning results in “more than my necessary food” (cf. Prov 30:8). HALOT 346 s.v. חֹק 1 indicates that חֹק (khoq) has the meaning of “portion” and is here a reference to “what is appointed for me.” The LXX and the Latin versions, along with many commentators, have בְּחֵקִי (b^ekheqi, “in my bosom”).