Job 19:17-19

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 19:17 tn The Hebrew appears to have “my breath is strange to my wife.” This would be the meaning if the verb was from זוּר (zur, “to turn aside; to be a stranger”). But it should be connected to זִיר (zir), cognate to Assyrian zaru, “to feel repugnance toward.” Here it is used in the intransitive sense, “to be repulsive.” L. A. Snijders, following Driver, doubts the existence of this second root, and retains “strange” (“The Meaning of zar in the Old Testament,” OTS 10 [1964]: 1-154).
2. Job 19:17 tn The normal meaning here would be based on the root חָנַן (khanan, “to be gracious”). And so we have versions reading “although I entreated” or “my supplication.” But it seems more likely it is to be connected to another root meaning “to be offensive; to be loathsome.” For the discussion of the connection to the Arabic, see E. Dhorme, Job, 278.
3. Job 19:17 tn The text has “the sons of my belly [= body].” This would normally mean “my sons.” But they are all dead. And there is no suggestion that Job had other sons. The word “my belly” will have to be understood as “my womb,” i.e., the womb I came from. Instead of “brothers,” the sense could be “siblings” (both brothers and sisters; G. R. Driver and G. B. Gray, Job [ICC], 2:168).
4. Job 19:18 sn The use of the verb “rise” is probably fairly literal. When Job painfully tries to get up and walk, the little boys make fun of him.
5. Job 19:18 tn The verb דִּבֵּר (dibber) followed by the preposition ב (bet) indicates speaking against someone, namely, scoffing or railing against someone (see Pss 50:20; 78:19). Some commentators find another root with the meaning “to turn one’s back on; to turn aside from.” The argument is weak philologically because it requires a definition “from” for the preposition ב. See among others I. Eitan, “Studies in Hebrew Roots,” JQR 14 (1923-24): 31-52, especially 38-41.
6. Job 19:19 tn Heb “men of my confidence,” or “men of my council,” i.e., intimate friends, confidants.
7. Job 19:19 tn The pronoun זֶה (zeh) functions here in the place of a nominative (see GKC 447 §138.h).
8. Job 19:19 tn T. Penar translates this “turn away from me” (“Job 19, 19 in the Light of Ben Sira 6, 11, ” Bib 48 [1967]: 293-95).