Job 13:2-4

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 13:2 tn Heb “Like your knowledge”; in other words Job is saying that his knowledge is like their knowledge.
2. Job 13:2 tn The pronoun makes the subject emphatic and stresses the contrast: “I know—I also.”
3. Job 13:2 tn The verb “fall” is used here as it was in Job 4:13 to express becoming lower than someone, i.e., inferior.
4. Job 13:3 tn The verb is simply the Piel imperfect אֲדַבֵּר (ʾadabber, “I speak”). It should be classified as a desiderative imperfect, saying, “I desire to speak.” This is reinforced with the verb “to wish, desire” in the second half of the verse.
5. Job 13:3 tn The Hebrew title for God here is אֶל־שַׁדַּי (ʾel shadday, “El Shaddai”).
6. Job 13:3 tn The infinitive absolute functions here as the direct object of the verb “desire” (see GKC 340 §113.b).
7. Job 13:3 tn The infinitive הוֹכֵחַ (hokheakh) is from the verb יָכַח (yakhakh), which means “to argue, plead, debate.” It has the legal sense here of arguing a case (cf. 5:17).
8. Job 13:4 tn The טֹפְלֵי־שָׁקֶר (tof^ele shaqer) are “plasterers of lies” (Ps 119:69). The verb means “to coat, smear, plaster.” The idea is that of imputing something that is not true. Job is saying that his friends are inventors of lies. The LXX was influenced by the next line and came up with “false physicians.”
9. Job 13:4 tn The literal rendering of the construct would be “healers of worthlessness.” Ewald and Dillmann translated it “patchers” based on a meaning in Arabic and Ethiopic; this would give the idea “botchers.” But it makes equally good sense to take “healers” as the meaning, for Job’s friends came to minister comfort and restoration to him—but they failed. See P. Humbert, “Maladie et medicine dans l’AT,” RHPR 44 (1964): 1-29.