Job 29:1-3

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 29:1 sn Now that the debate with his friends is over, Job concludes with a soliloquy, just as he had begun with one. Here he does not take into account his friends or their arguments. The speech has three main sections: Job’s review of his former circumstances (29:1-25); Job’s present misery (30:1-31); and Job’s vindication of his life (31:1-40).
2. Job 29:1 tn The verse uses a verbal hendiadys: “and he added (וַיֹּסֶף, vayyosef)…to raise (שְׂאֵת, s^eʾet) his speech.” The expression means that he continued, or he spoke again.
3. Job 29:2 tn The optative is here expressed with מִי־יִתְּנֵנִי (mi yitt^eneni, “who will give me”), meaning, “O that I [could be]…” (see GKC 477 §151.b).
4. Job 29:2 tn The preposition כ (kaf) is used here in an expression describing the state desired, especially in the former time (see GKC 376 §118.u).
5. Job 29:2 tn The expression is literally “months of before [or of old; or past].” The word קֶדֶם (qedem) is intended here to be temporal and not spatial; it means days that preceded the present.
6. Job 29:2 tn The construct state (“days of”) governs the independent sentence that follows (see GKC 422 §130.d): “as the days of […] God used to watch over me.”
7. Job 29:2 tn The imperfect verb here has a customary nuance—“when God would watch over me” (back then), or “when God used to watch over me.”
8. Job 29:3 tn This clause is in apposition to the preceding (see GKC 426 §131.o). It offers a clarification.
9. Job 29:3 tn The form בְּהִלּוֹ (b^ehillo) is unusual; it should be parsed as a Hiphil infinitive construct with the elision of a ה (he). The proper spelling would have been בַּהֲהִלּוֹ (bahahillo). If it were Qal, it would just mean “when his light shone.”
10. Job 29:3 sn Lamp and light are symbols of God’s blessings of life and all the prosperous and good things it includes.
11. Job 29:3 tn Here too the imperfect verb is customary—it describes action that was continuous, but in a past time.
12. Job 29:3 tn The accusative (“darkness”) is here an adverbial accusative of place, namely, “in the darkness,” or because he was successfully led by God’s light, “through the darkness” (see GKC 374 §118.h).