Job 18:10-12

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 18:10 tn Heb “his rope.” The suffix must be a genitive expressing that the trap was for him, to trap him, and so an objective genitive.
2. Job 18:10 tn Heb “his trap.” The pronominal suffix is objective genitive here as well.
3. Job 18:11 sn Bildad is referring here to all the things that afflict a person and cause terror. It would then be a metonymy of effect, the cause being the afflictions.
4. Job 18:11 tn The verb פּוּץ (puts) in the Hiphil has the meaning “to pursue” and “to scatter.” It is followed by the expression “at his feet.” So the idea is easily derived: they chase him at his feet. But some commentators have other proposals. The most far-fetched is that of Ehrlich and Driver (ZAW 24 [1953]: 259-60) which has “and compel him to urinate on his feet,” one of many similar readings the NEB accepted from Driver.
5. Job 18:12 tn The jussive is occasionally used without its normal sense and only as an imperfect (see GKC 323 §109.k).
6. Job 18:12 tn There are a number of suggestions for אֹנוֹ (ʾono). Some take it as “vigor”: thus “his strength is hungry.” Others take it as “iniquity”: thus “his iniquity/trouble is hungry.”
7. Job 18:12 tn The expression means that misfortune is right there to destroy him whenever there is the opportunity.