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If my footsteps have strayed from the way,
if my heart has gone after my eyes,[a]
or if anything[b] has defiled my hands,
then let me sow[c] and let another eat,
and let my crops[d] be uprooted.
If my heart has been enticed by a woman,
and I have lain in wait at my neighbor’s door,[e]

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Footnotes

  1. Job 31:7 sn The meaning is “been led by what my eyes see.”
  2. Job 31:7 tc The word מֻאוּם (muʾum) could be taken in one of two ways. One reading is to represent מוּם (mum, “blemish,” see the Masorah); the other is for מְאוּמָה (meʾumah, “anything,” see the versions and the Kethib). Either reading fits the passage.
  3. Job 31:8 tn The cohortative is often found in the apodosis of the conditional clause (see GKC 320 §108.f).
  4. Job 31:8 tn The word means “what sprouts up” (from יָצָא [yatsaʾ] with the sense of “sprout forth”). It could refer metaphorically to children (and so Kissane and Pope), as well as in its literal sense of crops. The latter fits here perfectly.
  5. Job 31:9 tn Gordis notes that the word פֶּתַח (petakh, “door”) has sexual connotations in rabbinic literature, based on Prov 7:6ff. (see b. Ketubbot 9b). See also the use in Song 4:12 using a synonym.