Job 3:14-16

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 3:14 tn The difficult term חֳרָבוֹת (khoravot) is translated “desolate [places]”. The LXX confused the word and translated it “who gloried in their swords.” One would expect a word for monuments, or tombs (T. K. Cheyne emended it to “everlasting tombs” [“More Critical Gleanings in Job,” ExpTim 10 (1898/99): 380-83]). But this difficult word is of uncertain etymology and therefore cannot simply be made to mean “royal tombs.” The verb means “be desolate, solitary.” In Isa 48:21 there is the clear sense of a desert. That is the meaning of Assyrian huribtu. It may be that like the pyramids of Egypt these tombs would have been built in the desert regions. Or it may describe how they rebuilt ruins for themselves. He would be saying then that instead of lying here in pain and shame if he had died he would be with the great ones of the earth. Otherwise, the word could be interpreted as a metonymy of effect, indicating that the once glorious tomb now is desolate. But this does not fit the context—the verse is talking about the state of the great ones after their death.
2. Job 3:15 tn The expression simply has “or with princes gold to them.” The noun is defined by the noun clause serving as a relative clause (GKC 486 §155.e).
3. Job 3:15 tn Heb “filled their houses.” There is no reason here to take “houses” to mean tombs; the “houses” refer to the places the princes lived (i.e., palaces). The reference is not to the practice of burying treasures with the dead. It is simply saying that if Job had died he would have been with the rich and famous in death.
4. Job 3:16 tn The verb is governed by the interrogative of v. 12 that introduces this series of rhetorical questions.
5. Job 3:16 tn The verb is again the prefix conjugation, but the narrative requires a past tense, or preterite.
6. Job 3:16 tn Heb “hidden.” The LXX paraphrases: “an untimely birth, proceeding from his mother’s womb.”
7. Job 3:16 tn The noun נֵפֶל (nefel, “miscarriage”) is the abortive thing that falls (hence the verb) from the womb before the time is ripe (Ps 58:9). The idiom using the verb “to fall” from the womb means to come into the world (Isa 26:18). The epithet טָמוּן (tamun, “hidden”) is appropriate to the verse. The child comes in vain, and disappears into the darkness—it is hidden forever.
8. Job 3:16 tn The word עֹלְלִים (ʿol^elim) normally refers to “nurslings.” Here it must refer to infants in general since it refers to a stillborn child.
9. Job 3:16 tn The relative clause does not have the relative pronoun; the simple juxtaposition of words indicates that it is modifying the infants.