Job 24:9-11

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 24:9 tn The verb with no expressed subject is here again taken in the passive: “they snatch” becomes “[child] is snatched.”
2. Job 24:9 tn This word is usually defined as “violence; ruin.” But elsewhere it does mean “breast” (Isa 60:16; 66:11), and that is certainly what it means here.
3. Job 24:9 tc The MT has a very brief and strange reading: “they take as a pledge upon the poor.” This could be taken as “they take a pledge against the poor” (ESV). Kamphausen suggested that instead of עַל (ʿal, “against”) one should read עוּל (ʿul, “suckling”). This is supported by the parallelism. “They take as pledge” is also made passive here.
4. Job 24:10 sn The point should not be missed—amidst abundant harvests, carrying sheaves about, they are still going hungry.
5. Job 24:11 tc The Hebrew term is שׁוּרֹתָם (shurotam), which may be translated “terraces” or “olive rows.” But that would not be the proper place to have a press to press the olives and make oil. E. Dhorme (Job, 360-61) proposes on the analogy of an Arabic word that this should be read as “millstones” (which he would also write in the dual). But the argument does not come from a clean cognate, but from a possible development of words. The meaning of “olive rows” works well enough.
6. Job 24:11 tn The final verb, a preterite with the ו (vav) consecutive, is here interpreted as a circumstantial clause.