Job 22:24-26

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 22:24 tc The form is the imperative. Eliphaz is telling Job to get rid of his gold as evidence of his repentance. Many commentators think that this is too improbable for Eliphaz to have said, and that Job has lost everything anyway, and so they make proposals for the text. Most would follow Theodotion and the Syriac to read וְשָׁתָּ (v^eshatta, “and you will esteem….”). This would mean that he is promising Job restoration of his wealth.tn Heb “place.”
2. Job 22:24 tn The word for “gold” is the rare בֶּצֶר (betser), which may be derived from a cognate of Arabic basara, “to see; to examine.” If this is the case, the word here would refer to refined gold. The word also forms a fine wordplay with בְצוּר (v^etsur, “in the rock”).
3. Job 22:24 tn The Hebrew text simply has “Ophir,” a metonymy for the gold that comes from there.
4. Job 22:25 tn The form for “gold” here is plural, which could be a plural of extension. The LXX and Latin versions have “The Almighty will be your helper against your enemies.”
5. Job 22:25 tn E. Dhorme (Job, 339) connects this word with an Arabic root meaning “to be elevated, steep.” From that he gets “heaps of silver.”
6. Job 22:26 tc This is the same verb as in Ps 37:4. G. R. Driver suggests the word comes from another root that means “abandon oneself to, depend on” (“Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 84).