Job 19:6-8

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 19:6 tn The imperative is used here to introduce a solemn affirmation. This verse proves that Job was in no way acknowledging sin in v. 4. Here Job is declaring that God has wronged him, and in so doing, perverted justice.
2. Job 19:6 tn The Piel of עָוַת (ʿavat) means “to warp justice” (see 8:3), or here, to do wrong to someone (see Ps 119:78). The statement is chosen to refute the question that Bildad asked in his first speech.
3. Job 19:6 tn The verb נָקַף (naqaf) means “to turn; to make a circle; to encircle.” It means that God has encircled or engulfed Job with his net.
4. Job 19:6 tn The word מְצוּדוֹ (m^etsudo) is usually connected with צוּד (tsud, “to hunt”), and so is taken to mean “a net.” Gordis and Habel, however, interpret it to mean “siegeworks” thrown up around a city—but that would require changing the ד (dalet) to a ר (resh) (cf. NLT, “I am like a city under siege”). The LXX, though, has “bulwark.” Besides, the previous speech used several words for “net.”
5. Job 19:7 tn The particle is used here as in 9:11 (see GKC 497 §159.w).
6. Job 19:7 tc The LXX has “I laugh at reproach.”
7. Job 19:7 tn The same idea is expressed in Jer 20:8 and Hab 1:2. The cry is a cry for help, that he has been wronged, that there is no justice.
8. Job 19:7 tn The Niphal is simply “I am not answered.” See Prov 21:13b.
9. Job 19:8 tn The verb גָּדַר (gadar) means “to wall up; to fence up; to block.” God has blocked Job’s way so that he cannot get through. See the note on 3:23. Cf. Lam 3:7.
10. Job 19:8 tn Some commentators take the word to be חָשַׁךְ (hasak), related to an Arabic word for “thorn hedge.”