Job 29:21-23

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 29:21 tn “People” is supplied; the verb is plural.
2. Job 29:21 tc The last verb of the first half, “wait, hope,” and the first verb in the second colon, “be silent,” are usually reversed by the commentators (see G. R. Driver, “Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 86). But if “wait” has the idea of being silent as they wait for him to speak, then the second line would say they were silent for the reason of his advice. The reading of the MT is not impossible.
3. Job 29:22 tn The verb simply means “dropped,” but this means like the rain. So the picture of his words falling on them like the gentle rain, drop by drop, is what is intended (see Deut 32:2).
4. Job 29:23 tn The phrase “people wait for” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation.
5. Job 29:23 sn The analogy is that they received his words eagerly as the dry ground opens to receive the rains.
6. Job 29:23 tn The כ (kaf) preposition is to be supplied by analogy with the preceding phrase. This leaves a double preposition, “as for” (but see Job 29:2).