Job 8:9-11

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 8:9 tn The Hebrew has “we are of yesterday,” the adverb functioning as a predicate. Bildad’s point is that they have not had time to acquire great knowledge because they are recent.
2. Job 8:9 tn E. Dhorme (Job, 116) observes that the shadow is the symbol of ephemeral things (14:2; 17:7; Ps 144:4). The shadow passes away quickly (116).
3. Job 8:10 tn The sentence begins emphatically: “Is it not they.”
4. Job 8:10 tn The “and” is not present in the line. The second clause seems to be in apposition to the first, explaining it more thoroughly: “Is it not they [who] will instruct you, [who] will speak to you.”
5. Job 8:10 tn The noun may have been left indeterminate for the sake of emphasis (GKC 401-2 §125.c), meaning “important words.”
6. Job 8:10 tn Heb “from their heart.”
7. Job 8:11 sn H. H. Rowley observes the use of the words for plants that grow in Egypt and suspects that Bildad either knew Egypt or knew that much wisdom came from Egypt. The first word refers to papyrus, which grows to a height of six feet (so the verb means “to grow tall; to grow high”). The second word refers to the reed grass that grows on the banks of the river (see Gen 41:2, 18).
8. Job 8:11 tn The two verbs, גָּאָה (gaʾah) and שָׂגָה (sagah), have almost the same meanings of “flourish, grow, become tall.”