Job 7:11-13 New English Translation
Job Remonstrates with God
11 “Therefore,[a] I will not refrain my mouth;[b]
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain[c] in the bitterness of my soul.
12 Am I the sea, or the creature of the deep,[d]
that you must put[e] me under guard?[f]
13 If[g] I say,[h] ‘My bed will comfort me,[i]
my couch will ease[j] my complaint,’
Footnotes
- Job 7:11 tn “Also I” has been rendered frequently as “therefore,” introducing a conclusion. BDB 168-69 s.v. גַּם lists Ps 52:7 [5] as a parallel, but it also could be explained as an adversative.
- Job 7:11 sn “Mouth” here is metonymical for what he says—he will not withhold his complaints. Peake notes that in this section Job comes very close to doing what Satan said he would do. If he does not curse God to his face, he certainly does cast off restraints to his lament. But here Job excuses himself in advance of the lament.
- Job 7:11 tn The verb is not limited to mental musing; it is used for pouring out a complaint or a lament (see S. Mowinckel, “The Verb siah and the Nouns siah, siha,” ST 15 [1961]: 1-10).
- Job 7:12 tn The word תַּנִּין (tannin) could be translated “whale” as well as the more mythological “dragon” or “monster of the deep” (see E. Dhorme, Job, 105). To the Hebrews this was part of God’s creation in Gen 1; in the pagan world it was a force to be reckoned with, and so the reference would be polemical. The sea is a symbol of the tumultuous elements of creation; in the sea were creatures that symbolized the powerful forces of chaos—Leviathan, Tannin, and Rahab. They required special attention.
- Job 7:12 tn The imperfect verb here receives the classification of obligatory imperfect. Job wonders if he is such a threat to God that God must do this.
- Job 7:12 tn The word מִשְׁמָר (mishmar) means “guard; barrier.” M. Dahood suggested “muzzle” based on Ugaritic, but that has proven to be untenable (“Mismar, ‘Muzzle,’ in Job 7:12, ” JBL 80 [1961]: 270-71).
- Job 7:13 tn The particle כִּי (ki) could also be translated “when,” but “if” might work better to introduce the conditional clause and to parallel the earlier reasoning of Job in v. 4 (using אִם, ʾim). See GKC 336-37 §112.hh.
- Job 7:13 tn The verb literally means “say,” but here the connotation must be “think” or “say to oneself”—“when I think my bed….”
- Job 7:13 sn Sleep is the recourse of the troubled and unhappy. Here “bed” is metonymical for sleep. Job expects sleep to give him the comfort that his friends have not.
- Job 7:13 tn The verb means “to lift up; to take away” (נָשָׂא, nasaʾ). When followed by the preposition ב (bet) with the complement of the verb, the idea is “to bear a part; to take a share,” or “to share in the burden” (cf. Num 11:7). The idea then would be that the sleep would ease the complaint. It would not end the illness, but the complaining for a while.
New English Translation (NET)
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