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Job 24:19-21
New English Translation
Job 24:19-21
New English Translation
19 The drought[a] as well as the heat
snatch up the melted snow;[b]
so the grave[c] snatches up the sinner.[d]
20 The womb[e] forgets him,
the worm feasts on him,
no longer will he be remembered.
Like a tree, wickedness will be broken down.
21 He preys on[f] the barren and childless woman,[g]
and does not treat the widow well.
Footnotes
- Job 24:19 tn Or “dryness.” The term צִיָּה (tsiyyah) normally refers to a dry region, a wilderness or desert. Here the focus is on dryness.
- Job 24:19 tn Heb “the waters of the snow.”
- Job 24:19 tn Or “Sheol.”
- Job 24:19 tc Heb “The grave [] they have sinned.” The verb “snatch up/away” is understood by parallelism. If the perfect verb is maintained, the line also implies the relative pronoun, “the grave [snatches] [those who] have sinned.” If the verb is emended from the perfect to a participle by deleting or moving the ו (vav) from חטאו to חוטא, it reads “the grave [snatches] one who sins.”
- Job 24:20 tn Here “womb” is synecdoche, representing one’s mother.
- Job 24:21 tc The form in the text is the active participle, “feed; graze; shepherd.” The idea of “prey” is not natural to it. R. Gordis (Job, 270) argues that third he (ה) verbs are often by-forms of geminate verbs, and so the meaning here is more akin to רָעַע (raʿaʿ, “to crush”). The LXX seems to have read something like הֵרַע (heraʿ, “oppressed”).
- Job 24:21 tn Heb “the childless [woman], she does not give birth.” The verbal clause is intended to serve as a modifier here for the woman. See on subordinate verbal clauses GKC 490 §156.d, f.
New English Translation (NET)
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