Job 17 — Hebrew and Greek compared
Each card keeps the independently rendered source readings above their shared comparison and reception notes. The badge records the source’s governing classification; disparate readings are marked in red. Each reading retains its original reference.
Chapter 17
Mockery, fading strength and the hope that descends
Source chapters: [BHS17] Hebrew; [LXX17] Greek.
The publisher’s German-locale BHS chapter was directly read after its English-locale route failed; the same 1997 edition is used.
Verse 17:1 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
17:1 “My spirit is broken;
my days are extinguished;
graves await me.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
17:1 “I perish, carried along by wind;
I need burial and do not obtain it.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek wind-driven perishing and unobtained burial differ from Hebrew broken spirit, extinguished days and graves.
Verse 17:2 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
17:2 Surely mockers are with me,
and my eye dwells upon their provocations.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
17:2 Weary, I plead—
and what have I done?
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek pleading and asking about an act replace Hebrew the mockers and watching their provocations.
Verse 17:3 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
17:3 Please put down a pledge; be my guarantor with Yourself.
Who else will strike hands with me?
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
17:3 Strangers stole my belongings.
Who is this one? Let him bind himself to my hand.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek adds stolen belongings and strangers; the difficult hand-binding appeal remains distinct from Hebrew surety language.
Verse 17:4 Same
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
17:4 For You have hidden their heart from understanding;
therefore You will not exalt them.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
17:4 For You hid their heart from understanding;
therefore You will certainly not exalt them.
Classification & Notes
Same. Text: The claim about withheld understanding and elevation agrees.
Verse 17:5 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
17:5 One who denounces friends for a share of gain—
his children’s eyes will fail.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
17:5 He will announce evils as a portion,
and my eyes wasted away over sons.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek changes the failing eyes to Job’s own and omits explicit friends. As a portion is provisional for te meridi; its relation to the announcement is unclear.
Verse 17:6 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
17:6 He has made me a byword among peoples,
and I have become one in whose face they spit.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
17:6 You made me a tale among nations,
and I became a laughingstock to them.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek laughter differs from Hebrew spitting in the face, and addresses God directly. Hebrew tophet is read contextually as spitting, with its unusual form acknowledged.
Verse 17:7 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
17:7 My eye is dim from vexation,
and all my limbs are like a shadow.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
17:7 For my eyes are hardened from anger,
and I have been greatly besieged by everyone.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek hardened eyes and a siege by everyone differ from Hebrew dim eye and shadow-like limbs.
Verse 17:8 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
17:8 The upright are appalled at this,
and the innocent stir themselves against the godless.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
17:8 Astonishment seized true people at this;
may a righteous person rise against a lawbreaker.
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Greek turns the second action into a wish; the moral opposition agrees.
Verse 17:9 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
17:9 The righteous hold to their way,
and the clean of hands grow stronger.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
17:9 May a faithful person hold his own way,
and one clean of hands take up courage.
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Greek faithful and courage differ from Hebrew righteous and increasing strength; the resolve agrees.
Verse 17:10 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
17:10 But all of you, return and come now;
I will not find a wise man among you.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
17:10 But indeed, all of you press on, and come now;
for I find nothing true among you.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek nothing true differs from Hebrew no wise man; the Greek initial imperative is provisionally press on.
Verse 17:11 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
17:11 My days have passed; my plans are torn apart,
the possessions of my heart.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
17:11 My days passed in a stench,
and the joints of my heart were torn apart.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek adds stench and pictures heart-joints; Hebrew speaks of plans as possessions of the heart.
Verse 17:12 Same
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
17:12 They turn night into day;
light is near in the face of darkness.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
17:12 They made night into day;
light is near in the face of darkness.
Classification & Notes
Same. Text: Both preserve the paradoxical nearness of light amid darkness; who asserts it is not named here.
Verse 17:13 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
17:13 If I wait for Sheol as my house,
if I spread my bed in darkness,
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
17:13 For if I wait, Hades is my house,
and in gloom my bedding is spread.
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Greek says bedding has been spread, rather than Hebrew Job spreading it. Sheol and Hades retain the respective names.
Verse 17:14 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
17:14 if I call to the pit, ‘You are my father,’
and to the worm, ‘My mother and my sister,’
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
17:14 I called upon death to be my father,
and decay to be my mother and sister.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek death and decay differ from Hebrew pit and worm.
Verse 17:15 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
17:15 where, then, is my hope?
Who will see my hope?
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
17:15 Where, then, is my hope any longer?
Will I see my good things?
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek Job seeing good things differs from Hebrew someone seeing his hope.
Verse 17:16 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
17:16 Will they go down to the bars of Sheol,
when together there is rest upon the dust?”
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
17:16 Will they go down with me to Hades,
or will we descend together upon a mound of earth?”
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Both shift to plural descent. Hebrew’s plural subject is unexpressed, plausibly his hopes, and its final rest clause is compact and uncertain. Greek explicitly adds with me and first-person plural we; neither is silently inserted into Hebrew.