Job 33:22-24

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 33:22 tn Heb “his soul [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh, “life”] draws near.”
2. Job 33:22 tn The MT uses the Hiphil participle, “to those who cause death.” This seems to be a reference to the belief in demons that brought about death, an idea not mentioned in the Bible itself. Thus many proposals have been made for this expression. Hoffmann and Budde divide the word into לְמוֹ מֵתִּים (l^emo metim) and simply read “to the dead.” Dhorme adds a couple of letters to get לִמְקוֹם מֵתִּים (limqom metim, “to the place [or abode] of the dead”).
3. Job 33:23 sn The verse is describing the way God can preserve someone from dying by sending a messenger (translated here as “angel”), who could be human or angelic. This messenger will interpret/mediate God’s will. By “one…out of a thousand” Elihu could have meant either that one of the thousands of messengers at God’s disposal might be sent or that the messenger would be unique (see Eccl 7:28; Job 9:3).
4. Job 33:23 tn This is a smoother reading. The MT has “to tell to a man his uprightness,” to reveal what is right for him. The LXX translated this word “duty”; the choice is adopted by some commentaries. However, that is too far from the text, which indicates that the angel/messenger is to call the person to uprightness.
5. Job 33:24 tn This verse seems to continue the protasis begun in the last verse, with the apodosis coming in the next verse.
6. Job 33:24 tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7. Job 33:24 tc The verb is either taken as an anomalous form of פָּדַע (padaʿ, “to rescue; to redeem,” or “to exempt him”), or it is emended to some similar word, like פָּרַע (paraʿ, “to let loose,” so Wright).
8. Job 33:24 sn This verse and v. 28 should be compared with Ps 49:7-9, 15 (8-10, 16 HT) where the same basic vocabulary and concepts are employed.