The repeated אַף־אֲנִי (ʾap-ʾănî) means principally “I too,” not simply “I myself.” Elihu claims his turn in the discussion after the three friends have exhausted their replies and Job has received no adequate answer (32:12, 15–16). The particle אַף (ʾap) can add emphasis, but with the first-person pronoun here it has an additive force: despite his youth and previous silence, he also has a legitimate contribution to make. The final repetition heightens the assertion: “I too will declare my knowledge—yes, I.” It is not a claim that Elihu possesses an independent authority above the others, but that his exclusion on account of age cannot be maintained. The paired verbs reinforce this entrance into the disputation. אַעֲנֶה (ʾaʿăneh), Qal imperfect of ענה (ʿnh), denotes answering or responding, while אֲחַוֶּה (ʾaḥawweh), Piel imperfect of חוה (ḥwh), denotes making known or setting forth. His חֶלְקִי (ḥelqî, “my portion”) is best understood as his allotted share in the exchange, not as a private inheritance or a distinct body of secret wisdom. Likewise, “my knowledge” (דֵעִי, deʿî) names the understanding he believes he has gained regarding Job’s case. The verse therefore marks Elihu’s deliberate assumption of a speaking role: the young observer now presents himself as an additional respondent, convinced that the older disputants have failed to supply the needed answer.

Job denies that his complaint is addressed to a merely human party. The phrase הֲאָנֹכִי לְאָדָם שִׂיחִי (haʾanoki leʾadam siḥi), literally, “Is my complaint to man?,” uses אָדָם (ʾadam) in its ordinary generic sense, “man” or “human being,” not as the personal name Adam. Nothing in the immediate context suggests an address to the primordial Adam; the preposition לְ (le) marks the one to whom a complaint is directed. Job’s contention is that the ultimate object of his protest is God, whose providential government of the world is the subject of the speech that follows (21:7–33), rather than his three human comforters. The second colon is elliptical: “And if [it were directed] to man, why should my spirit not be short?” The imperfect תִקְצַר (tiqṣar), from קָצַר (qaṣar, “be short”), is feminine singular agreeing with רוּחַ (ruaḥ, “spirit”), and the idiom “short of spirit” denotes impatience, vexation, or inner constriction under distress. Job does not retract the agitation evident in his speech; he explains it. If the dispute concerned only human opinion, impatience might be unsurprising; how much more is it warranted when the matter concerns God’s apparently inscrutable ordering of the righteous and wicked. The verse thus distinguishes Job’s complaint from a quarrel with the friends, even though they are its immediate hearers: they are witnesses to a controversy whose decisive party is God.

Job 40:16 depicts the extraordinary bodily strength of Behemoth, not an abstract “cosmic power” or primarily his reproductive potency. The noun כֹּחַ (koaḥ, “strength”) is located “in his loins” (bĕmātnāyw), while אָוֶן (ʾāwen, here “vigor, power”) is located “in the muscles of his belly” (bišrîrê biṭnô). The parallelism joins two terms for force with two adjacent regions of the animal’s body, presenting his massive trunk as the visible seat of his formidable power. Although “loins” can at times carry associations of generative capacity, especially in genealogical or idiomatic contexts, the following reference to abdominal muscles directs the sense here toward physical constitution and strength. The verse therefore advances the Lord’s summons in v. 15 to observe Behemoth closely. His grass-eating habit does not make him weak or domesticated; beneath that apparently bovine feature is exceptional strength. The language is poetic and heightened, but it remains anatomical rather than cosmological. Rendering כֹּחַ as “cosmic power” imports an idea not expressed by the Hebrew, which speaks instead of the creature’s own strength, marked by the third masculine singular suffixes throughout. The point within the divine speech is that this creature’s imposing bodily power is nevertheless creaturely power, bestowed and comprehended by its Maker.

Elihu’s point is not that God is morally indifferent to human conduct, but that neither human sin nor human righteousness alters God’s essential fullness or places him in a position of dependence. The prepositional phrases frame the contrast: "to a man like yourself" (lĕʾîš kāmôkā) belongs with "your wickedness," while "to a son of Adam" (lĕben-ʾādām) belongs with "your righteousness." The sense is that wickedness bears its effects upon one’s human fellow, and righteousness likewise benefits human beings. The singular ʾîš, "man," and ben-ʾādām, "son of man," are generic expressions for mortal humanity, not references to two narrowly distinguished individuals. This statement completes Elihu’s argument in vv. 5–7. God is exalted above the heavens (v. 5); human rebellion cannot injure him, and human righteousness cannot supply something lacking in him (vv. 6–7). Verse 8 therefore identifies the proper sphere of human moral effects: they affect creatures, especially other human beings, rather than changing God’s being or making him a debtor. Yet Elihu does not thereby deny that God judges wickedness, delights in righteousness, or responds covenantally to human obedience and rebellion. Those realities are repeatedly affirmed in Job itself and throughout Scripture. His claim concerns divine self-sufficiency, not divine insensibility. In its immediate context, the saying answers Job’s complaint that righteousness yields no advantage (35:3): righteousness does not profit God as though he needed it, but it is far from inconsequential, since its consequences belong within the human order over which God rules.

The two occurrences of min are best understood comparatively: God “teaches us more than the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens.” The first clause contains the Piel participle meʾallepenû (אַלְּפֵנוּ, “the one teaching us”), while the second has the Piel imperfect yeḥakkemenû (יְחַכְּמֵנוּ, “he makes us wise”); both have God, identified as “my Maker” in v. 10, as their subject. The parallelism strongly favors the same comparative sense in each phrase: God has granted human beings instruction and understanding exceeding that given to animals and birds. The preposition min can denote source, yielding “teaches us from the beasts,” and such a reading has some canonical resonance with Job 12:7, where beasts and birds are summoned as witnesses to God’s sovereign hand. Yet Job 35:11 does not invite humans to learn a particular lesson from animal behavior. Rather, within Elihu’s rebuke of those who fail to seek God amid oppression (vv. 9–10), it grounds human accountability in the distinct rational and moral endowment God has bestowed. The comparative rendering therefore best preserves both the syntax and Elihu’s argument: humanity, unlike the beasts, has been taught and made wise by its Creator and consequently ought not to remain voiceless concerning him.

The unexpressed subject of יַעֲמֹד (yaʿămōd, Qal imperfect, third masculine singular, “it/he stood”) is most naturally the רוּחַ (rûaḥ, “spirit/wind”) of v. 15. That spirit had passed over Eliphaz’s face, producing physical dread, and now it apparently remains before him. The masculine verbal form also favors this antecedent, whereas תְּמוּנָה (temûnâ, “form, likeness”) is feminine and occurs only afterward. The imperfects in the report, including “I do not recognize” (אַקִּיר, ʾakkîr, Hiphil imperfect), give the account a vivid, experiential quality rather than defining the apparition with precision. The clause “a form was before my eyes” is nominal and is best read as Eliphaz’s hesitant visual description of the same presence: he perceived a figure or outline, yet could not identify its appearance (מַרְאֵהוּ, marʾēhû, “its appearance”). Thus the text does not say that Eliphaz clearly saw either God or an angel. The vision is marked by concealment: a presence stands, a form is perceptible, but its identity remains inaccessible; after silence (דְּמָמָה, demāmâ), only a voice supplies intelligible content in v. 17. This reserve is significant for the interpretation of Eliphaz’s speech. His ensuing maxim concerning human righteousness before God is presented as a received nocturnal oracle, not as the result of direct visual knowledge of the speaker. The passage therefore establishes the numinous and unsettling character of the revelation while withholding the identity of its messenger. Nothing in the wording requires the figure to be God himself, and the later evaluation of Eliphaz’s inadequate counsel cautions against treating every implication drawn from this vision as an unqualified divine verdict.

Job’s position “in the midst of the ashes” primarily portrays public mourning, abasement, and extreme humiliation, not simply medical quarantine on a municipal refuse heap. The noun אֵפֶר (ʾēper, “ashes”) is regularly associated in the Old Testament with grief, penitence, and the acknowledgment of creaturely frailty (cf. Gen. 18:27; Est. 4:1; Isa. 58:5). In Job’s case the gesture is especially fitting: the man formerly enthroned in honor has been reduced to the emblem of mortality and mourning, while his bodily affliction makes that abasement visible and acute. The expression בְּתוֹךְ־הָאֵפֶר (bĕtôk-hāʾēper), “in the midst of the ashes,” may suggest more than the token placing of ashes upon the head; Job is seated within them. Some have consequently understood the setting as an ash heap or rubbish area, perhaps outside the inhabited portion of the town. Such a location is possible, since ash deposits could be found near refuse areas, and Job’s condition may have rendered ordinary social contact difficult. Yet neither this verse nor the immediate narrative explicitly states that Job was expelled from the city or ceremonially isolated. The scene’s principal force remains symbolic and social: Job occupies the place of the mourner and the disgraced. The participle יֹשֵׁב (yōšēb, Qal active participle of יָשַׁב, yāšab, “sit, dwell”) depicts him as remaining in this condition rather than merely performing a brief mourning rite. The preceding infinitive לְהִתְגָּרֵד (lĕhitgārēd, Hithpael infinitive construct of גָּרַד, gārad, “scrape oneself”) joins physical misery to this posture of abasement. The narrative thus presents Job’s suffering as comprehensive: his body is reduced to restless self-treatment, and his public station to ashes. The later association of Job with “dust and ashes” (42:6) confirms that ashes carry theological as well as physical and cultural significance within the book.

Job declares that his conscience will not reproach him throughout his days, not that he is asserting a flawless past. The clause לֹא יֶחֱרַף לְבָבִי מִיָּמָי is literally, “my heart will not reproach [me] from my days.” The Qal imperfect יֶחֱרַף (ḥārap) portrays the heart as one that might heap reproach upon its owner, exposing him as guilty or dishonorable. The prepositional phrase מִיָּמָי, “from my days,” functions idiomatically with a temporal, durative sense: “for any of my days” or “as long as I live.” It therefore supports Job’s resolve not to abandon his claim of integrity while life remains. The assertion belongs to Job’s solemn refusal in vv. 2–5 to vindicate his friends by admitting that his suffering proves him wicked. His “righteousness” (צִדְקָתִי, ṣidqātî) denotes the integrity of his cause and conduct before God, which he has “held fast” (Hiphil perfect of ḥāzaq) and will not relinquish (Hiphil imperfect of rāphâ). This is not an absolute claim of sinlessness or a denial that God alone can finally justify the sinner; Job has elsewhere acknowledged the peril of attempting to establish himself righteous before God (9:20; 9:30–31). Rather, he denies the specific moral indictment implied by the friends’ retributive theology: that hidden, characteristic wickedness has brought his calamity. His heart, understood as the inward seat of moral self-knowledge, does not condemn him as the kind of hypocrite and oppressor they allege.

Rahab in this context is best understood as the personified power of the hostile sea, not as a direct reference to historical Egypt. The parallelism joins “the sea” (hayyam) with “Rahab” (rahab): God subdued the one and crushed the other. The verb מָחַץ (maḥaṣ), a Qal perfect third masculine singular, denotes decisive shattering or crushing and is naturally suited to the defeat of a monstrous enemy. The following description of the “fleeing serpent” in v. 13 confirms that the passage portrays the Creator’s mastery over the forces of cosmic disorder. Rahab can serve elsewhere as a symbolic name for Egypt, especially where Egypt’s proud but futile political strength is in view (Isa 30:7; cf. Ps 87:4). That usage, however, appears to be a later historical appropriation of the older image of Rahab as arrogant, chaotic opposition to God. In Job, the surrounding language is cosmic rather than political: the foundations of heaven tremble (v. 11), the sea is restrained (v. 12), and the serpent is pierced (v. 13). The verse therefore participates in the Old Testament’s use of ancient chaos-combat imagery while decisively revising any pagan dualism. Rahab is not a rival deity but a creaturely force, crushed by God’s power and understanding. The completed verbs portray that victory as certain and foundational to the ordered world Job has been describing.

The singular verb יֶחֱזֶה (yeḥezeh, Qal imperfect of ḥāzâ, “see, behold”) refers to the luxuriant plant introduced in v. 16, not to its plural “roots.” The clause therefore continues the personified description of the apparently vigorous godless man: his roots are intricately bound (יְסֻבָּכוּ, yesubbākû, Pual imperfect, “are intertwined”) around a heap, while the plant itself “beholds” or confronts a “house of stones” (בֵּית אֲבָנִים, bêt ʾăbānîm). The shift from plural roots to a singular verb is unremarkable, since the roots belong to the singular plant and the plant remains the controlling figure of the comparison. “House of stones” most naturally denotes a stone-built structure or, more broadly, a substantial mass of masonry and stones. The expression need not mean that the plant literally sees a house in the ordinary visual sense. In poetic imagery, ḥāzâ can denote coming into view of, facing, or being set before something. The picture is of a plant whose roots have worked themselves into and around a stone heap and which has reached even the security of a stone dwelling or wall. Its entanglement among stones gives an impression of exceptional tenacity and permanence. That apparent permanence is essential to Bildad’s argument. The plant is not the frail reed of vv. 11–13, but a vigorous, well-watered growth that seems able to establish itself even amid stonework. Yet v. 18 immediately overturns the appearance: when it is torn from its place, the very place denies having known it. Thus the stone house is not a symbol of true refuge but part of the irony: even the most deeply established-looking prosperity of the godless has no covenantal or enduring security before God.

The final suffix in יוֹרִשֶׁנּוּ (yôrîšennû, Hiphil imperfect of יָרַשׁ, yāraš) most naturally refers to the wealth denoted by חַיִל (ḥayil), rather than to the wicked man alone. Although the Hiphil of yāraš can mean “dispossess” and could in principle yield the sense, “God will dispossess him,” the preceding verb already takes the same singular masculine suffix: וַיְקִאֶנּוּ (wayqîʾennû), “he will vomit it out.” The repeated suffix sustains the image of the swallowed substance being expelled. Since ḥayil is a singular collective noun for wealth, resources, or substance, the singular pronoun can properly represent the riches accumulated by the wicked. The clause therefore intensifies rather than merely repeats the preceding statement. The man is portrayed as swallowing wealth greedily, as though it could be assimilated and made permanently his own; yet he must disgorge it. God is then named explicitly as the effective agent behind this reversal: “God will drive it out” or “will dispossess him of it.” The rendering “cast it out from his belly” appropriately supplies the image carried forward from מִבִּטְנוֹ (mibbiṭnô, “from his belly”), even though that phrase stands immediately after the first verb. Within Zophar’s description of the wicked, the metaphor depicts divinely imposed forfeiture, not voluntary renunciation. What has been seized and inwardly enjoyed cannot be retained against God’s judgment. The wording does not require a literal illness or a particular historical mode of loss; the stomach and vomiting language graphically expresses the forced and shameful reversal of illicitly acquired prosperity.

The clause depicts Job’s assailants as pouring through a breached defense in the accompanying crash and ruin, not as literally crawling beneath fallen masonry. The preposition תַּחַת (taḥat, “under”) can mark a circumstance or setting, so that תַּחַת שֹׁאָה (taḥat shoʾah) means “amid,” “under cover of,” or “with the tumult of” devastation. שֹׁאָה (shoʾah) denotes ruin, devastation, or a destructive uproar; in this martial image it evokes the crashing disorder that attends a wall’s collapse and an enemy’s entry. The verb הִתְגַּלְגָּלוּ (hitgalgalu) is Hithpalpel perfect, third common plural, from גלל (galal, “to roll”). Its intensive-reflexive form conveys a headlong, tumbling advance: the attackers throw themselves forward like a mass of debris or a flood entering through a wide breach. The preceding imperfect יֶאֱתָיוּ (yeʾetayu, “they come”) gives the scene vivid, continuing movement, while the perfect may portray the onrush as already crashing upon Job. Although the language is drawn from siege warfare, the context concerns the contemptuous young men who have become Job’s tormentors (30:1, 9–13). The verse therefore does not require a report of an actual military assault; it intensifies Job’s portrayal of social humiliation as the collapse of every remaining defense against hostile forces.

The Masoretic vocalization most naturally yields “let it not rejoice” (אַל־יִחַדְּ, ʾal-yiḥad), a Qal jussive, third masculine singular, commonly related to the rare verb חָדָה (ḥādâ), “to rejoice.” Job continues to personify the night of his conception: darkness is summoned to seize it, and the night itself is forbidden to share the joy belonging to the days of the year. The following clause, “let it not enter into the number of the months,” expresses the same curse in calendrical terms. Job desires not merely an unhappy night but a night deprived of all recognized place within God’s ordered sequence of time. Translations such as “let it not join the days of the year” or “let it not be included” construe the difficult verb in light of this parallelism and render its practical sense. Some have connected the form with יחד (yaḥad), “together,” thus supplying the idea of association or incorporation. Yet the traditional rendering “rejoice” should not be dismissed as a merely literal alternative. In Hebrew poetry, the two ideas are closely joined: to be counted among the year’s days is to participate in their ordered and celebratory course. Job’s imprecation therefore combines exclusion from the calendar with exclusion from its joy. The night is to be treated as though darkness had erased it from the company of all other days and from the numbered months by which human life is measured.

The second colon most naturally means, “By night a storm steals him away,” rather than making “night” the genitive qualifier of “terrors.” The verb גְּנָבַתּוּ (genābattû), a Qal perfect third feminine singular with a third masculine singular suffix, agrees with the following feminine singular noun סוּפָה (sûpâ, “storm” or “whirlwind”). Although the subject follows the verb, the agreement identifies the storm as the agent that suddenly carries the wicked man off. לַיְלָה (laylâ, “night”) is best taken adverbially—“at night” or “by night”—a use readily supported by Hebrew poetic syntax. The first colon likewise portrays judgment as an overwhelming and inescapable assault: בַּלָּהוֹת (ballāhôt, “terrors”) is the subject of תַּשִּׂיגֵהוּ (taśśîgēhû, Hiphil imperfect, “will overtake him”), while כַּמַּיִם (“like waters”) supplies the comparison. The feminine singular verb with the plural noun treats the terrors collectively, as a single engulfing force. Water imagery commonly evokes a destructive flood, and the following image of the night storm develops the same idea: the security and apparent permanence of the prosperous wicked are undone with the suddenness of floodwaters and a nocturnal tempest. The verse therefore belongs to the poem’s description of the divine judgment that finally overtakes the evildoer, not merely to a generalized account of inward fear.

The plural participle עֹשָׂי (ʿōśay, “my makers”), a Qal active participle masculine plural with the first-person singular suffix, does not introduce a plurality of gods. It stands in apposition to the singular אֱלוֹהַּ (ʾĕlôah, “God”): “Where is God, my Maker, who gives songs in the night?” The singular participle נֹתֵן (nōtēn, “giving”) immediately resumes the singular reference and confirms that Elihu speaks of one God. English versions therefore rightly render the expression “my Maker,” while often noting the underlying plural in a margin or footnote. The plural is best understood as an intensive or honorific plural, expressing the fullness of God’s creative power and his uniquely comprehensive relation to the human speaker. Similar plural forms for the one Creator occur elsewhere in Scripture, notably in Isaiah 54:5, where “your Makers” is joined to the singular declaration that the LORD of hosts is his name. The form is consonant with the later biblical revelation of the triune God, but its immediate function in Job is not to disclose the Trinity as such; it magnifies the one God as the Creator to whom the afflicted person ought to turn. Elihu’s point is that sufferers commonly cry because of oppression (vv. 9, 12), yet fail to seek this Creator God as the one able to transform the darkness of distress into praise.

In this context, צִדְקִי מֵאֵל (ṣidqî mēʾēl) is best understood comparatively: “My righteousness is greater than God’s,” or, idiomatically, “I am more righteous than God.” The preposition מִן (min), here assimilated in מֵ־ before אֵל, can mean “from,” but it also regularly marks comparison. Since the clause has no expressed verb, an implied “is” must be supplied; the comparative sense gives Elihu’s accusation its required force. He asks whether Job has regarded this as “justice” (לְמִשְׁפָּט, lĕmišpāṭ), namely, as a defensible judicial judgment about God. The rendering “my righteousness is from God” is grammatically possible in isolation, but it fits the immediate context poorly. Elihu immediately paraphrases Job’s complaint as, “What advantage is it to you, and what profit is it to me more than my sin?” (v. 3). His concern is Job’s inference that righteous conduct receives no meaningful distinction from sin before God. That inference, in Elihu’s judgment, effectively places Job’s moral claim above God’s administration of justice. The same charge has already appeared in 32:2, where Elihu burns with anger because Job “justified himself rather than God.” Elihu’s wording should not be treated as a verbatim quotation of Job. Job does not plainly announce, “I am more righteous than God”; rather, in his anguish he repeatedly insists upon his integrity while protesting that God has denied him justice (cf. 9:20–24; 27:2–6; 34:5). Elihu draws out what he regards as the theological implication of those protests. The verse therefore records Elihu’s sharp construal of Job’s argument: Job’s defense of his own righteousness had come perilously close to accusing God of unrighteous government.

The opening יְהִי (yehî), a Qal jussive of היה (hāyâ), is best understood as an imprecatory formulation that introduces the very moment of the wicked man’s anticipated satisfaction: “Let it be for the filling of his belly—[then] he will send against him the burning of his anger.” Zophar is not benevolently wishing prosperity upon the wicked; the proposed filling of the belly is deliberately set beside the outpouring of divine wrath. English versions that render the clause temporally, “when” or “while he is filling his belly,” correctly convey the relation of events, though they necessarily soften the jussive force of the Hebrew. The infinitive construct לְמַלֵּא (lemallēʾ, Piel infinitive construct of mālēʾ, “to fill”) with בִּטְנוֹ (“his belly”) depicts the consummation of appetite and abundance, a fitting image in Zophar’s description of the evildoer’s brief prosperity (20:12–22). At precisely the point where his resources appear sufficient to satisfy him, God—implicitly identified as the subject of יְשַׁלַּח (“he will send”) and יַמְטֵר (“he will rain”)—dispatches the “burning anger of his nostril,” חֲרוֹן אַפּוֹ (ḥărôn ʾappô), the conventional idiom for fierce divine wrath. The shift from the wicked man’s belly to God’s anger makes the irony unmistakable: fullness does not secure him, but becomes the setting in which judgment overtakes him. The rain imagery intensifies the certainty and abundance of the judgment. What had seemed like a plentiful provision is answered by a far more overwhelming shower from God. The difficult final expression בִּלְחוּמוֹ (bilḥûmô) is variously rendered “while he is eating,” “as his food,” or “into his body”; in each case the immediate context joins judgment to the man’s attempted gratification. The verse therefore does not deny that the wicked may reach a moment of apparent fullness; it declares that such fullness is neither lasting nor protective when God’s wrath is sent against him.

“From my mother’s womb” is an idiomatic assertion of lifelong disposition and conduct, not a claim that Job literally performed acts of patronage in infancy. The phrase intensifies “from my youth” in the preceding colon: Job presents care for the vulnerable as belonging to the whole course of his life, from its earliest conceivable beginning. In the elevated rhetoric of his oath of innocence, his protection of the widow was not a recent or occasional display of generosity but a settled feature of his character. The verb אַנְחֶנָּה (ʾanḥennāh) is a Hiphil imperfect, first common singular, of נָחָה (nāḥâ), “to lead” or “guide,” with a feminine singular suffix, “her.” Its feminine object naturally refers to the widow of v. 16, while the masculine person in the preceding line is the fatherless child of v. 17. “Guide” therefore denotes more than the giving of alms: Job claims to have provided the direction, protection, and advocacy that a widow without a household guardian lacked. The language resembles biblical expressions that trace a person’s relation to God or a settled vocation back to the womb; such expressions identify an origin and enduring character rather than describe conscious action at the moment of birth. The verse thus grounds Job’s denial of indifference to the poor, fatherless, and widow in a longstanding pattern of paternal care.

Job denies having exploited land and its legitimate proprietors for his own gain. The feminine suffixes on כֹּחָהּ (koḥah, “its strength”) and בְּעָלֶיהָ (beʿaleyhā, “its owners”) refer to the land in v. 38, where Job has personified his field or soil as crying out against him. Its “strength” denotes its productive capacity—the crops, yield, or sustenance drawn from it—not an impersonal cosmic force. To “eat” (אָכַלְתִּי, ʾakaltî, Qal perfect, first singular) that strength is to consume the land’s produce. The phrase בְּלִי־כָסֶף (belî-kāsep, “without silver”) specifies unjust acquisition: Job has not taken its yield without payment, whether by refusing a proper purchase price, withholding wages or rent, or appropriating the produce of those who possessed claims upon the land. The second clause intensifies the denial: Job has not caused “the life of its owners” to be exhausted. נֶפֶשׁ (nepeš) commonly means life, person, or vital being rather than the later philosophical sense of an immaterial soul. The Hiphil perfect הִפָּחְתִּי (hippaḥtî), from נָפַח (nāpaḥ, “breathe, blow”), literally evokes causing someone to breathe out; in context it signifies bringing the landholders to ruin, exhaustion, or death through oppressive dispossession. The plural בְּעָלֶיהָ (beʿaleyhā) may include former owners, tenants, or laborers whose livelihood depended on the land. Job therefore repudiates not merely theft in a narrow sense but an economic practice by which a powerful landholder enriches himself while those attached to the land are impoverished or destroyed. The personification of the land prepares for the curse of v. 40: if Job’s fields have a legitimate accusation against him, thorns and weeds should replace their proper produce. This accords with the biblical portrayal of land as capable of testifying against bloodshed and covenantal injustice (cf. Gen. 4:10; Lev. 18:28; Hab. 2:11). Job’s oath thus includes his agricultural and commercial conduct within his comprehensive claim to integrity.

The clause means that the nocturnal housebreakers shut themselves away in the daytime, not that they mark houses as future targets. The verb חִתְּמוּ (ḥittĕmû), a Piel perfect of חתם (ḥātam, “to seal, shut up”), has no stated object, while לָמוֹ (lāmô, “for themselves”) gives the expression a reflexive force: they secure or confine themselves in concealment. An implicit object such as “their dwellings” may be supplied, but the sense remains that daylight is the time of their withdrawal rather than of open activity. This portrayal completes the sequence of those who rebel against the light (v. 13). The murderer rises in the darkness (v. 14), the adulterer waits for twilight (v. 15), and these burglars penetrate houses at night, probably by digging through the earthen walls common in ancient construction rather than forcing a door. Their daytime seclusion is therefore the counterpart to their nighttime intrusion. The final statement, “they do not know light,” employs ידע (yādaʿ, “know”) in more than an intellectual sense: they have no willing familiarity with the light or with the open, ordered life that it represents. In the immediate context, their concealment manifests the moral refusal of the light described in v. 13, rather than merely a practical preference for working after dark.