Job 29:22-24

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. 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).
2. Job 29:23 tn The phrase “people wait for” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation.
3. Job 29:23 sn The analogy is that they received his words eagerly as the dry ground opens to receive the rains.
4. 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).
5. Job 29:24 tn The connection of this clause with the verse is difficult. The line simply reads: “[if] I would smile at them, they would not believe.” Obviously something has to be supplied to make sense out of this. The view adopted here makes the most sense, namely, that when he smiled at people, they could hardly believe their good fortune. Other interpretations are strained, such as Kissane’s, “If I laughed at them, they believed not,” meaning, people rejected the views that Job laughed at.
6. Job 29:24 tn The meaning, according to Gordis, is that they did nothing to provoke Job’s displeasure.