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Job 21
New English Translation

Job’s Reply to Zophar[a]

21 Then Job answered:

2 “Listen carefully[b] to my words;
let this be[c] the consolation you offer me.[d]
3 Bear with me[e] and I[f] will speak,
and after I have spoken[g] you may mock.[h]
4 Is my[i] complaint against a man?[j]
If so,[k] why should I not be impatient?[l]
5 Look[m] at me and be appalled;
put your hands over your mouths.[n]
6 For, when I think about[o] this, I am terrified[p]
and my body feels a shudder.[q]

The Wicked Prosper

7 “Why do the wicked go on living,[r]
grow old,[s] even increase in power?
8 Their children[t] are firmly established in their presence,[u]
their offspring before their eyes.
9 Their houses are safe[v] and without fear;[w]
and no rod of punishment[x] from God is upon them.[y]
10 Their bulls[z] breed[aa] without fail;[ab]
their cows calve and do not miscarry.
11 They allow their children to run[ac] like a flock;
their little ones dance about.
12 They sing[ad] to the accompaniment of tambourine and harp,
and make merry to the sound of the flute.
13 They live out[ae] their years in prosperity
and go down[af] to the grave[ag] in peace.
14 So they say to God, ‘Turn away from us!
We do not want to know your ways.[ah]
15 Who is the Almighty, that[ai] we should serve him?
What would we gain
if we were to pray[aj] to him?’[ak]
16 But their prosperity is not their own doing.[al]
The counsel of the wicked is far from me![am]

How Often Do the Wicked Suffer?

17 “How often[an] is the lamp of the wicked extinguished?
How often does their[ao] misfortune come upon them?
How often does God apportion pain[ap] to them[aq] in his anger?
18 How often[ar] are they like straw before the wind,
and like chaff swept away[as] by a whirlwind?
19 You may say,[at] ‘God stores up a man’s[au] punishment for his children!’[av]
Instead let him repay[aw] the man himself[ax]
so that[ay] he may be humbled![az]
20 Let his own eyes see his destruction;[ba]
let him drink of the anger of the Almighty.
21 For what is his interest[bb] in his home
after his death,[bc]
when the number of his months
has been broken off?[bd]
22 Can anyone teach[be] God knowledge,
since[bf] he judges those that are on high?[bg]

Death Levels Everything

23 “One man dies in his full vigor,[bh]
completely secure and prosperous,
24 his body[bi] well nourished,[bj]
and the marrow of his bones moist.[bk]
25 And another man[bl] dies in bitterness of soul,[bm]
never having tasted[bn] anything good.
26 Together they lie down in the dust,
and worms cover over them both.

Futile Words, Deceptive Answers

27 “Yes, I know what you are thinking,[bo]
the schemes[bp] by which you would wrong me.[bq]
28 For you say,
‘Where now is the nobleman’s house,[br]
and where are the tents in which the wicked lived?’[bs]
29 Have you never questioned those who travel the roads?
Do you not recognize their accounts[bt]—
30 that the evil man is spared
from the day of his misfortune,
that he is delivered[bu]
from the day of God’s wrath?
31 No one denounces his conduct to his face;
no one repays him for what[bv] he has done.[bw]
32 And when he is carried to the tombs,
and watch is kept[bx] over the funeral mound,[by]
33 The clods of the torrent valley[bz] are sweet to him;
behind him everybody follows in procession,
and before him goes a countless throng.
34 So how can you console me with your futile words?
Nothing is left of your answers but deception!”[ca]

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Footnotes

  1. Job 21:1 sn In this chapter Job actually answers the ideas of all three of his friends. Here Job finds the flaw in their argument—he can point to wicked people who prosper. But whereas in the last speech, when he looked on his suffering from the perspective of his innocence, he found great faith and hope, in this chapter when he surveys the divine government of the world, he sinks to despair. The speech can be divided into five parts: he appeals for a hearing (2-6), he points out the prosperity of the wicked (7-16), he wonders exactly when the godless suffer (17-22), he shows how death levels everything (23-26), and he reveals how experience contradicts his friends’ argument (27-34).
  2. Job 21:2 tn The intensity of the appeal is again expressed by the imperative followed by the infinitive absolute for emphasis. See note on “listen carefully” in 13:17.
  3. Job 21:2 tc The LXX negates the sentence, “that I may not have this consolation from you.”
  4. Job 21:2 tn The word תַּנְחוּמֹתֵיכֶם (tankhumotekhem) is literally “your consolations,” the suffix being a subjective genitive. The friends had thought they were offering Job consolation (Job 15:11), but the consolation he wants from them is that they listen to him and respond accordingly.
  5. Job 21:3 tn The verb נָשָׂא (nasaʾ) means “to lift up; to raise up,” but in this context it means “to endure; to tolerate” (see Job 7:21).
  6. Job 21:3 tn The conjunction and the independent personal pronoun draw emphatic attention to the subject of the verb: “and I on my part will speak.”
  7. Job 21:3 tn The adverbial clauses are constructed of the preposition “after” and the Piel infinitive construct with the subjective genitive suffix: “my speaking,” or “I speak.”
  8. Job 21:3 tn The verb is the imperfect of לָעַג (laʿag). The Hiphil has the same basic sense as the Qal, “to mock; to deride.” The imperfect here would be modal, expressing permission. The verb is in the singular, suggesting that Job is addressing Zophar; however, most of the versions put it into the plural. Note the singular in 16:3 between the plural in 16:1 and 16:4.
  9. Job 21:4 tn The addition of the independent pronoun at the beginning of the sentence (“Is it I / against a man / my complaint”) strengthens the pronominal suffix on “complaint” (see GKC 438 §135.f).
  10. Job 21:4 sn The point seems to be that if his complaint were merely against men he might expect sympathy from other men, but no one dares offer him sympathy when his complaint is against God. So he will give free expression to his spirit (H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 147).
  11. Job 21:4 tn On disjunctive interrogatives, see GKC 475 §150.g.
  12. Job 21:4 tn Heb “why should my spirit/breath not be short” (see Num 21:4; Judg 16:16).
  13. Job 21:5 tn The verb פְּנוּ (penu) is from the verb “to turn,” related to the word for “face.” In calling for them to turn toward him, he is calling for them to look at him. But here it may be more in the sense of their attention rather than just a looking at him.
  14. Job 21:5 tn The idiom is “put a hand over a mouth,” the natural gesture for keeping silent and listening (cf. Job 29:9; 40:4; Mic 7:16).
  15. Job 21:6 tn The verb is זָכַר (zakhar, “to remember”). Here it has the sense of “to keep in memory; to meditate; to think upon.”
  16. Job 21:6 tn The main clause is introduced here by the conjunction, following the adverbial clause of time.
  17. Job 21:6 tn Some commentators take “shudder” to be the subject of the verb, “a shudder seizes my body.” But the word is feminine (and see the usage, especially in Job 9:6 and 18:20). It is the subject in Isa 21:4; Ps 55:6; and Ezek 7:18.
  18. Job 21:7 sn A. B. Davidson (Job, 154) clarifies that Job’s question is of a universal scope. In the government of God, why do the wicked exist at all? The verb could be translated “continue to live.”
  19. Job 21:7 tn The verb עָתַק (ʿataq) means “to move; to proceed; to advance.” Here it is “to advance in years” or “to grow old.” This clause could serve as an independent clause, a separate sentence, but it more likely continues the question of the first colon and is parallel to the verb “live.”
  20. Job 21:8 tn Heb “their seed.”
  21. Job 21:8 tn The text uses לִפְנֵיהֶם עִמָּם (lifnehem ʿimmam, “before them, with them”). Many editors think that these were alternative readings, and so omit one or the other. Dhorme moved עִמָּם (ʿimmam) to the second half of the verse and emended it to read עֹמְדִים (ʿomedim, “abide”). Kissane and Gordis changed only the vowels and came up with עַמָּם (ʿammam, “their kinfolk”). But Gordis thinks the presence of both of them in the line is evidence of a conflated reading (p. 229).
  22. Job 21:9 tn The word שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace, safety”) is here a substantive after a plural subject (see GKC 452 §141.c, n. 3).
  23. Job 21:9 tn The form מִפָּחַד (mippakhad) is translated “without fear,” literally “from fear”; the preposition is similar to the alpha privative in Greek. The word “fear, dread” means nothing that causes fear or dread—they are peaceful, secure. See GKC 382 §119.w.
  24. Job 21:9 tn Heb “no rod of God.” The words “punishment from” have been supplied in the translation to make the metaphor understandable for the modern reader by stating the purpose of the rod.
  25. Job 21:9 sn In 9:34 Job was complaining that there was no umpire to remove God’s rod from him, but here he observes no such rod is on the wicked.
  26. Job 21:10 tn Heb “his bull,” but it is meant to signify the bulls of the wicked.
  27. Job 21:10 tn The verb used here means “to impregnate,” and not to be confused with the verb עָבַר (ʿavar, “to pass over”).
  28. Job 21:10 tn The use of the verb גָּעַר (gaʿar) in this place is interesting. It means “to rebuke; to abhor; to loathe.” In the causative stem it means “to occasion impurity” or “to reject as loathsome.” The rabbinic interpretation is that it does not emit semen in vain, and so the meaning is it does not fail to breed (see E. Dhorme, Job, 311; R. Gordis, Job, 229).
  29. Job 21:11 tn The verb שָׁלַח (shalakh) means “to send forth,” but in the Piel “to release; to allow to run free.” The picture of children frolicking in the fields and singing and dancing is symbolic of peaceful, prosperous times.
  30. Job 21:12 tn The verb is simply “they take up [or lift up],” but the understood object is “their voices,” and so it means “they sing.”
  31. Job 21:13 tc The Kethib has “they wear out” but the Qere and the versions have יְכַלּוּ (yekhallu, “bring to an end”). The verb כָּלָה (kalah) means “to finish; to complete,” and here with the object “their days,” it means that they bring their life to a (successful) conclusion. Both readings are acceptable in the context, with very little difference in the overall meaning (which according to Gordis is proof the Qere does not always correct the Kethib).
  32. Job 21:13 tc The MT has יֵחָתּוּ (yekhattu, “they are frightened [or broken]”), taking the verb from חָתַת (khatat, “be terrified”). But most would slightly repoint it to יֵחָתוּ (yekhatu), an Aramaism, “they go down,” from נָחַת (nakhat, “go down”). See Job 17:16.
  33. Job 21:13 tn The word רֶגַע (regaʿ) has been interpreted as “in a moment” or “in peace” (on the basis of Arabic rajaʿa, “return to rest”). Gordis thinks this is a case of talhin— both meanings present in the mind of the writer.
  34. Job 21:14 sn Contrast Ps 25:4, which affirms that walking in God’s ways means to obey God’s will—the Torah.
  35. Job 21:15 tn The interrogative clause is followed by ki, similar to Exod 5:2, “Who is Yahweh, that I should obey him?”
  36. Job 21:15 tn The verb פָּגַע (pagaʿ) means “to encounter; to meet,” but also “to meet with request; to intercede; to interpose.” The latter meaning is a derived meaning by usage.
  37. Job 21:15 tn The verse is not present in the LXX. It may be that it was considered too blasphemous and therefore omitted.
  38. Job 21:16 tn Heb “is not in their hand.”sn The implication of this statement is that their well-being is from God, which is the problem Job is raising in the chapter. A number of commentators make it a question, interpreting it to mean that the wicked enjoy prosperity as if it is their right. Some emend the text to say “his hands”—Gordis reads it, “Indeed, our prosperity is not in his hands.”
  39. Job 21:16 sn Even though their life seems so good in contrast to his own plight, Job cannot and will not embrace their principles—“far be from me their counsel.”
  40. Job 21:17 tn The interrogative “How often” occurs only with the first colon; it is supplied for smoother reading in the next two.
  41. Job 21:17 tn The pronominal suffix is objective; it re-enforces the object of the preposition, “upon them.” The verb in the clause is בּוֹא (boʾ) followed by עַל (ʿal), “come upon [or against],” may be interpreted as meaning attack or strike.
  42. Job 21:17 tn חֲבָלִים (khavalim) can mean “ropes” or “cords,” but that would not go with the verb “apportion” in this line. The meaning of “pangs (as in “birth-pangs”) seems to fit best here. The wider meaning would be “physical agony.”
  43. Job 21:17 tn The phrase “to them” is understood and thus is supplied in the translation for clarification.
  44. Job 21:18 tn To retain the sense that the wicked do not suffer as others, this verse must either be taken as a question or a continuation of the question in v. 17.
  45. Job 21:18 tn The verb used actually means “rob.” It is appropriate to the image of a whirlwind suddenly taking away the wisp of straw.
  46. Job 21:19 tn These words are supplied. The verse records an idea that Job suspected they might have, namely, that if the wicked die well God will make their children pay for their sins (see Job 5:4; 20:10; as well as Exod 20:5).
  47. Job 21:19 tn The text simply has אוֹנוֹ (ʾono, “his iniquity”), but by usage, “the punishment for the iniquity.”
  48. Job 21:19 tn Heb “his sons.”
  49. Job 21:19 tn The verb שָׁלַם (shalam) in the Piel has the meaning of restoring things to normal, making whole, and so reward, repay (if for sins), or recompense in general.
  50. Job 21:19 tn The text simply has “let him repay [to] him.”
  51. Job 21:19 tn The imperfect verb after the jussive carries the meaning of a purpose clause, and so taken as a final imperfect: “in order that he may be humbled.”
  52. Job 21:19 tn The common verb יָדַע (yadaʿ) means “to know.” Among homophonous roots DCH includes יָדַע II meaning “be quiet, at rest; be submissive, humbled” (cf. Prov 5:6; Isa 45:4; Jer 14:18; Hos 9:7).
  53. Job 21:20 tc This word occurs only here. The word כִּיד (kid) was connected to Arabic kaid, “fraud, trickery,” or “warfare.” The word is emended by the commentators to other ideas, such as פִּיד (pid, “[his] calamity”). Dahood and others alter it to “cup”; Wright to “weapons.” A. F. L. Beeston argues for a meaning “condemnation” for the MT form, and so makes no change in the text (Mus 67 [1954]: 315-16). If the connection to Arabic “warfare” is sustained, or if such explanations of the existing MT can be sustained, then the text need not be emended. In any case, the sense of the line is clear.
  54. Job 21:21 tn Heb “his desire.” The meaning is that after he is gone he does not care about what happens to his household (“house” meaning “family” here).
  55. Job 21:21 tn Heb “after him,” but clearly the meaning is “after he is gone.”
  56. Job 21:21 tc The rare word חֻצָּצוּ (khutsatsu) is probably a cognate of hassa in Arabic, meaning “to cut off.” There is also an Akkadian word “to cut in two” and “to break.” These fit the context here rather well. The other Hebrew words that are connected to the root חָצַץ (khatsats) do not offer any help.
  57. Job 21:22 tn The imperfect verb in this question should be given the modal nuance of potential imperfect. The question is rhetorical—it is affirming that no one can teach God.
  58. Job 21:22 tn The clause begins with the disjunctive vav (ו) and the pronoun, “and he.” This is to be subordinated as a circumstantial clause. See GKC 456 §142.d.
  59. Job 21:22 tc The Hebrew has רָמִים (ramim), a plural masculine participle of רוּם (rum, “to be high; to be exalted”). This is probably a reference to the angels. But M. Dahood restores an older interpretation that it refers to “the Most High” (“Some Northwest Semitic words in Job,”Bib 38 [1957]: 316-17). He would take the word as a singular form with an enclitic mem (ם). He reads the verse, “will he judge the Most High?”
  60. Job 21:23 tn The line has “in the bone of his perfection.” The word עֶצֶם (ʾetsem), which means “bone,” is used pronominally to express “the same, very”; here it is “in the very fullness of his strength” (see GKC 449 §139.g). The abstract תֹּם (tom) is used here in the sense of physical perfection and strengths.
  61. Job 21:24 tn The verb עָטַן (ʿatan) has the precise meaning of “press olives.” But because here it says “full of milk,” the derived meaning for the noun has been made to mean “breasts” or “pails” (although in later Hebrew this word occurs—but with olives, not with milk). Dhorme takes it to refer to “his sides,” and repoints the word for “milk” (חָלָב, khalav) to get “fat” (חֶלֶב, khelev)—“his sides are full of fat,” a rendering followed by NASB. However, this weakens the parallelism.
  62. Job 21:24 tn This interpretation, adopted by several commentaries and modern translations (cf. NAB, NIV), is a general rendering to capture the sense of the line.
  63. Job 21:24 tn The verb שָׁקָה (shaqah) means “to water” and here “to be watered thoroughly.” The picture in the line is that of health and vigor.
  64. Job 21:25 tn The expression “this (v. 23)…and this” (v. 25) means “one…the other.”
  65. Job 21:25 tn The text literally has “and this [man] dies in soul of bitterness.” Some simply reverse it and translate “in the bitterness of soul.” The genitive “bitterness” may be an attribute adjective, “with a bitter soul.”
  66. Job 21:25 tn Heb “eaten what is good.” It means he died without having enjoyed the good life.
  67. Job 21:27 tn The word is “your thoughts.” The word for “thoughts” (from חָצַב [khatsav, “to think; to reckon; to plan”]) has more to do with their intent than their general thoughts. He knows that when they talked about the fate of the wicked they really were talking about him.
  68. Job 21:27 tn For the meaning of this word, and its root זָמַם (zamam), see Job 17:11. It usually means the “plans” or “schemes” that are concocted against someone.
  69. Job 21:27 tn E. Dhorme (Job, 321) distinguishes the verb חָמַס (khamas) from the noun for “violence.” He proposes a meaning of “think, imagine”: “and the ideas you imagined about me.”
  70. Job 21:28 sn The question implies the answer will be “vanished” or “gone.”
  71. Job 21:28 tn Heb “And where is the tent, the dwellings of the wicked.” The word “dwellings of the wicked” is in apposition to “tent.” A relative pronoun must be supplied in the translation.
  72. Job 21:29 tc The LXX reads, “Ask those who go by the way, and do not disown their signs.”tn The idea is that the merchants who travel widely will talk about what they have seen and heard. These travelers give a different account of the wicked; they tell how he is spared. E. Dhorme (Job, 322) interprets “signs” concretely: “Their custom was to write their names and their thoughts somewhere at the main cross-roads. The main roads of Sinai are dotted with these scribblings made by such passers of a day.”
  73. Job 21:30 tn The verb means “to be led forth.” To be “led forth in the day of trouble” means to be delivered.
  74. Job 21:31 tn The expression “and he has done” is taken here to mean “what he has done.”
  75. Job 21:31 tn Heb “Who declares his way to his face? // Who repays him for what he has done?” These rhetorical questions, which expect a negative answer (“No one!”) have been translated as indicative statements to bring out their force clearly.
  76. Job 21:32 tn The verb says “he will watch.” The subject is unspecified, so the translation is passive.
  77. Job 21:32 tn The Hebrew word refers to the tumulus, the burial mound that is erected on the spot where the person is buried.
  78. Job 21:33 tn The clods are those that are used to make a mound over the body. And, for a burial in the valley, see Deut 34:6. The verse here sees him as participating in his funeral and enjoying it. Nothing seems to go wrong with the wicked.
  79. Job 21:34 tn The word מָעַל (maʿal) is used for “treachery; deception; fraud.” Here Job is saying that their way of interpreting reality is dangerously unfaithful.
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Job 22
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Job 24
New English Translation

The Apparent Indifference of God

24 “Why are times not appointed by[a] the Almighty?[b]
Why do those who know him not see his days?
2 Men[c] move boundary stones;
they seize the flock and pasture them.[d]
3 They drive away the orphan’s donkey;
they take the widow’s ox as a pledge.
4 They turn the needy from the pathway,
and the poor of the land hide themselves together.[e]
5 Like[f] wild donkeys in the wilderness,
they[g] go out to their labor[h] seeking diligently for food;
the arid rift valley[i] provides[j] food for them and for their children.
6 They reap fodder[k] in the field,
and glean[l] in the vineyard of the wicked.
7 They spend the night naked because they lack clothing;
they have no covering against the cold.
8 They are soaked by mountain rains
and huddle[m] in the rocks because they lack shelter.
9 The fatherless child is snatched[n] from the breast,[o]
the infant of the poor is taken as a pledge.[p]
10 They go about naked, without clothing,
and go hungry while they carry the sheaves.[q]
11 They press out the olive oil between the rows of olive trees;[r]
they tread the winepresses while they are thirsty.[s]
12 From the city the dying[t] groan,
and the wounded[u] cry out for help,
but God charges no one with wrongdoing.[v]
13 There are those[w] who rebel against the light;
they do not know its ways
and they do not stay on its paths.
14 Before daybreak[x] the murderer rises up;
he kills the poor and the needy;
in the night he is[y] like a thief.[z]
15 And the eye of the adulterer watches for the twilight,
thinking,[aa] ‘No eye can see me,’
and covers his face with a mask.
16 In the dark the robber[ab] breaks into houses,[ac]
but by day they shut themselves in;[ad]
they do not know the light.[ae]
17 For all of them,[af] the morning is to them like deep darkness;
they are friends with the terrors of darkness.
18 [ag] “You say,[ah] ‘He is foam[ai] on the face of the waters;[aj]

their portion of the land is cursed
so that no one goes to their vineyard.[ak]
19 The drought[al] as well as the heat
snatch up the melted snow;[am]
so the grave[an] snatches up the sinner.[ao]
20 The womb[ap] 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[aq] the barren and childless woman,[ar]
and does not treat the widow well.
22 But God[as] drags off the mighty by his power;
when God[at] rises up against him, he has no faith in his life.[au]
23 God[av] may let them rest in a feeling of security,[aw]
but he is constantly watching[ax] all their ways.[ay]
24 They are exalted for a little while, and then they are gone,[az]
they are brought low[ba] like all others, and gathered in,[bb]
and like a head of grain they are cut off.’[bc]
25 “If this is not so, who can prove me a liar

and reduce my words to nothing?”[bd]

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Footnotes

  1. Job 24:1 tn The preposition מִן (min) is used to express the cause (see GKC 389 §121.f).
  2. Job 24:1 tc The LXX reads “Why are times hidden from the Almighty?” as if to say that God is not interested in the events on the earth. The MT reading is saying that God fails to set the times for judgment and vindication and makes good sense as it stands.
  3. Job 24:2 tn The line is short: “they move boundary stones.” So some commentators have supplied a subject, such as “wicked men.” The reason for its being wicked men is that to move the boundary stone was to encroach dishonestly on the lands of others (Deut 19:14; 27:17).
  4. Job 24:2 tc The LXX reads “and their shepherd.” Many commentators accept this reading. But the MT says that they graze the flocks that they have stolen. The difficulty with the MT reading is that there is no suffix on the final verb—but that is not an insurmountable difference.
  5. Job 24:4 sn Because of the violence and oppression of the wicked, the poor and needy, the widows and orphans, all are deprived of their rights and forced out of the ways and into hiding just to survive.
  6. Job 24:5 tc The verse begins with הֵן (hen), but the LXX, Vulgate, and Syriac all have “like.” R. Gordis (Job, 265) takes הֵן (hen) as a pronoun “they” and supplies the comparative. The sense of the verse is clear in either case.
  7. Job 24:5 tn That is, “the poor.”
  8. Job 24:5 tc The MT has “in the working/labor of them,” or “when they labor.” Some commentators simply omit these words. Dhorme retains them and moves them to go with עֲרָבָה (ʿaravah), which he takes to mean “evening”; this gives a clause, “although they work until the evening.” Then, with many others, he takes לוֹ (lo) to be a negative and finishes the verse with “no food for the children.” Others make fewer changes in the text, and as a result do not come out with such a hopeless picture—there is some food found. The point is that they spend their time foraging for food, and they find just enough to survive, but it is a day-long activity. For Job, this shows how unrighteous the administration of the world actually is.
  9. Job 24:5 tc Based on the text critical question in the previous note, some read this as a form related to the noun עֶרֶב (ʿerev, “evening”). These same consonants occur as a verb in Isa 24:11, עָרְבָה (ʿarevah) from עָרַב (ʿarav, “become evening”). This would give the time frame of their work rather than the location, but the location provides a parallel to “wilderness.”tn The rift valley (עֲרָבָה, ʿaravah) extends from Galilee to the Gulf of Aqaba, but the term normally refers only to a section of it. For the book of Job, the most likely section is that south of the Dead Sea, a section that is arid with only sparse vegetation.
  10. Job 24:5 tn The verb is not included in the Hebrew text but is supplied in the translation.
  11. Job 24:6 tc The word בְּלִילוֹ (belilo) means “his fodder.” It is unclear to what this refers. If the suffix is taken as a collective, then it can be translated “they gather/reap their fodder.” The early versions all have “they reap in a field which is not his” (taking it as בְּלִי לוֹ, beli lo). A conjectural emendation would change the word to בַּלַּיְלָה (ballaylah, “in the night”). But there is no reason for this.
  12. Job 24:6 tn The verbs in this verse are uncertain. In the first line “reap” is used, and that would be the work of a hired man (and certainly not done at night). The meaning of this second verb is uncertain; it has been taken to mean “glean,” which would be the task of the poor.
  13. Job 24:8 tn Heb “embrace” or “hug.”
  14. Job 24:9 tn The verb with no expressed subject is here again taken in the passive: “they snatch” becomes “[child] is snatched.”
  15. Job 24:9 tn This word is usually defined as “violence; ruin.” But elsewhere it does mean “breast” (Isa 60:16; 66:11), and that is certainly what it means here.
  16. Job 24:9 tc The MT has a very brief and strange reading: “they take as a pledge upon the poor.” This could be taken as “they take a pledge against the poor” (ESV). Kamphausen suggested that instead of עַל (ʿal, “against”) one should read עוּל (ʿul, “suckling”). This is supported by the parallelism. “They take as pledge” is also made passive here.
  17. Job 24:10 sn The point should not be missed—amidst abundant harvests, carrying sheaves about, they are still going hungry.
  18. Job 24:11 tc The Hebrew term is שׁוּרֹתָם (shurotam), which may be translated “terraces” or “olive rows.” But that would not be the proper place to have a press to press the olives and make oil. E. Dhorme (Job, 360-61) proposes on the analogy of an Arabic word that this should be read as “millstones” (which he would also write in the dual). But the argument does not come from a clean cognate, but from a possible development of words. The meaning of “olive rows” works well enough.
  19. Job 24:11 tn The final verb, a preterite with the ו (vav) consecutive, is here interpreted as a circumstantial clause.
  20. Job 24:12 tc The MT as pointed reads “from the city of men they groan.” Most commentators change one vowel in מְתִים (metim) to get מֵתִים (metim) to get the active participle, “the dying.” This certainly fits the parallelism better, although sense could be made out of the MT.
  21. Job 24:12 tn Heb “the souls of the wounded,” which here refers to the wounded themselves.
  22. Job 24:12 tc The MT has the noun תִּפְלָה (tiflah) which means “folly; tastelessness” (cf. 1:22). The verb, which normally means “to place; to put,” would then be rendered “to impute; to charge.” This is certainly a workable translation in the context. Many commentators have emended the text, changing the noun to תְּפִלָּה (tefillah, “prayer”), and so then also the verb יָשִׂים (yasim, here “charges”) to יִשְׁמַע (yishmaʿ, “hears”). It reads: “But God does not hear the prayer”—referring to the groans.
  23. Job 24:13 tn Heb “They are among those who.”
  24. Job 24:14 tn The text simply has לָאוֹר (laʾor, “at light” or “at daylight”), probably meaning just at the time of dawn.
  25. Job 24:14 tn In a few cases the jussive is used without any real sense of the jussive being present (see GKC 323 §109.k).
  26. Job 24:14 sn The point is that he is like a thief in that he works during the night, just before the daylight, when the advantage is all his and the victim is most vulnerable.
  27. Job 24:15 tn Heb “saying.”
  28. Job 24:16 tn The phrase “the robber” has been supplied in the English translation for clarification.
  29. Job 24:16 tc This is not the idea of the adulterer, but of the thief. So some commentators reverse the order and put this verse after v. 14.
  30. Job 24:16 tc The verb חִתְּמוּ (khittemu) is the Piel from the verb חָתַם (khatam, “to seal”). The verb is now in the plural, covering all the groups mentioned that work under the cover of darkness. The suggestion that they “seal,” i.e., “mark” the house they will rob, goes against the meaning of the word “seal.”
  31. Job 24:16 tc Some commentators join this very short colon to the beginning of v. 17: “they do not know the light. For together…” becomes “for together they have not known the light.”
  32. Job 24:17 tn Heb “together.”
  33. Job 24:18 tc Many commentators find vv. 18-24 difficult on the lips of Job, and so identify this unit as a misplaced part of the speech of Zophar. They describe the enormities of the wicked. But a case can also be made for retaining it in this section. Gordis thinks it could be taken as a quotation by Job of his friends’ ideas.
  34. Job 24:18 tn The verb “say” is not in the text; it is supplied here to indicate that this is a different section.
  35. Job 24:18 tn Or “is swift.”
  36. Job 24:18 sn The wicked person is described here as a spray or foam upon the waters, built up in the agitation of the waters but dying away swiftly.
  37. Job 24:18 tn The text reads, “he does not turn by the way of the vineyards.” This means that since the land is cursed, he/one does not go there. Bickell emended “the way of the vineyards” to “the treader of the vineyard” (see RSV, NRSV). This would mean that “no wine-presser would turn towards” their vineyards.
  38. 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.
  39. Job 24:19 tn Heb “the waters of the snow.”
  40. Job 24:19 tn Or “Sheol.”
  41. 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.”
  42. Job 24:20 tn Here “womb” is synecdoche, representing one’s mother.
  43. 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”).
  44. 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.
  45. Job 24:22 tn God has to be the subject of this clause. None is stated in the Hebrew text, but “God” has been supplied in the translation for clarity.
  46. Job 24:22 tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity. See the note on the word “life” at the end of the line.
  47. Job 24:22 tn This line has been given a number of interpretations due to its cryptic form. The verb יָקוּם (yaqum) means “he rises up.” It probably is meant to have God as the subject, and be subordinated as a temporal clause to what follows. The words “against him” are not in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied in the translation to specify the object and indicate that “rise up” is meant in a hostile sense. The following verb וְלֹא־יַאֲמִין (veloʾ yaʾamin), by its very meaning of “and he does not believe,” cannot have God as the subject, but must refer to the wicked.
  48. Job 24:23 tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  49. Job 24:23 tn The expression לָבֶטַח (lavetakh, “in security”) precedes the verb that it qualifies—God “allows him to take root in security.” For the meaning of the verb, see Job 8:15.
  50. Job 24:23 tn Heb “his eyes are on.”
  51. Job 24:23 sn The meaning of the verse is that God may allow the wicked to rest in comfort and security, but all the time he is watching them closely with the idea of bringing judgment on them.
  52. Job 24:24 tn The Hebrew throughout this section (vv. 18-24) interchanges the singular and the plural. Here again we have “they are exalted…but he is not.” The verse is clear nonetheless: the wicked rise high, and then suddenly they are gone.
  53. Job 24:24 tn The verb is the Hophal of the rare verb מָכַךְ (makhakh), which seems to mean “to bend; to collapse.” The text would read “they are made to collapse like all others.” There is no reason here to change “like others” just because the MT is banal. But many do, following the LXX with “like mallows.” The LXX was making a translation according to sense. R. Gordis (Job, 271) prefers “like grass.”
  54. Job 24:24 tn The verb קָפַץ (qafats) actually means “to shut in,” which does not provide exactly the idea of being gathered, not directly at least. But a change to קָטַף (qataf, “pluck”) while attractive, is not necessary.
  55. Job 24:24 sn This marks the end of the disputed section, taken here to be a quotation by Job of their sentiments.
  56. Job 24:25 tn The word אַל (ʾal, “not”) is used here substantivally (“nothing”).
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