Job 24:16-18

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 24:16 tn The phrase “the robber” has been supplied in the English translation for clarification.
2. 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.
3. Job 24:16 tc The verb חִתְּמוּ (khitt^emu) 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.”
4. 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.”
5. Job 24:17 tn Heb “together.”
6. 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.
7. Job 24:18 tn The verb “say” is not in the text; it is supplied here to indicate that this is a different section.
8. Job 24:18 tn Or “is swift.”
9. 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.
10. 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.