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Job 29:1-3
New English Translation
Job 29:1-3
New English Translation
IV. Job’s Concluding Soliloquy (29:1-31:40)
Job Recalls His Former Condition[a]
29 Then Job continued[b] his speech:
2 “O that I could be[c] as[d] I was
in the months now gone,[e]
in the days[f] when God watched over[g] me,
3 when[h] he caused[i] his lamp[j]
to shine upon my head,
and by his light
I walked[k] through darkness;[l]
Footnotes
- Job 29:1 sn Now that the debate with his friends is over, Job concludes with a soliloquy, just as he had begun with one. Here he does not take into account his friends or their arguments. The speech has three main sections: Job’s review of his former circumstances (29:1-25); Job’s present misery (30:1-31); and Job’s vindication of his life (31:1-40).
- Job 29:1 tn The verse uses a verbal hendiadys: “and he added (וַיֹּסֶף, vayyosef)…to raise (שְׂאֵת, seʾet) his speech.” The expression means that he continued, or he spoke again.
- Job 29:2 tn The optative is here expressed with מִי־יִתְּנֵנִי (mi yitteneni, “who will give me”), meaning, “O that I [could be]…” (see GKC 477 §151.b).
- Job 29:2 tn The preposition כ (kaf) is used here in an expression describing the state desired, especially in the former time (see GKC 376 §118.u).
- Job 29:2 tn The expression is literally “months of before [or of old; or past].” The word קֶדֶם (qedem) is intended here to be temporal and not spatial; it means days that preceded the present.
- Job 29:2 tn The construct state (“days of”) governs the independent sentence that follows (see GKC 422 §130.d): “as the days of […] God used to watch over me.”
- Job 29:2 tn The imperfect verb here has a customary nuance—“when God would watch over me” (back then), or “when God used to watch over me.”
- Job 29:3 tn This clause is in apposition to the preceding (see GKC 426 §131.o). It offers a clarification.
- Job 29:3 tn The form בְּהִלּוֹ (behillo) is unusual; it should be parsed as a Hiphil infinitive construct with the elision of a ה (he). The proper spelling would have been בַּהֲהִלּוֹ (bahahillo). If it were Qal, it would just mean “when his light shone.”
- Job 29:3 sn Lamp and light are symbols of God’s blessings of life and all the prosperous and good things it includes.
- Job 29:3 tn Here too the imperfect verb is customary—it describes action that was continuous, but in a past time.
- Job 29:3 tn The accusative (“darkness”) is here an adverbial accusative of place, namely, “in the darkness,” or because he was successfully led by God’s light, “through the darkness” (see GKC 374 §118.h).
New English Translation (NET)
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