Text -- Job 11:18-20 (NET)

11:18 And you will be secure, because there is hope; you will be protected and will take your rest in safety. 11:19 You will lie down with no one to make you afraid, and many will seek your favor. 11:20 But the eyes of the wicked fail, and escape eludes them; their one hope is to breathe their last.”

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Job 11:18

¹ tn The Hebrew verb means “to dig”; but this does not provide a good meaning for the verse. A. B. Davidson offers an interpretation of “search,” suggesting that before retiring at night Job would search and find everything in order. Some offer a better solution, namely, redefining the word on the basis of Arabic hafara, “to protect” and repointing it to וְחֻפַרְתָּ (vÿkhufarta, “you will be protected”). Other attempts to make sense of the line have involved the same process, but they are less convincing (for some of the more plausible proposals, see D. J. A. Clines, Job [WBC], 257).

NET Notes: Job 11:19

¹ tn The clause that reads “and there is no one making you afraid,” is functioning circumstantially here (see 5:4; 10:7).

² tn Heb “they will stroke your face,” a picture drawn from the domestic scene of a child stroking the face of the parent. The verb is a Piel, meaning “stroke, make soft.” It is used in the Bible of seeking favor from God (supplication); but it may on the human level also mean seeking to sway people by flattery. See further D. R. Ap-Thomas, “Notes on Some Terms Relating to Prayer,” VT 6 (1956): 225-41.

NET Notes: Job 11:20

¹ tn The verb כָּלָה (kalah) means “to fail, cease, fade away.” The fading of the eyes, i.e., loss of sight, loss of life’s vitality, indicates imminent death.

² tn Heb a “place of escape” (with this noun pattern). There is no place to escape to because they all perish.

³ tn The word is to be interpreted as a metonymy; it represents what is hoped for.

⁴ tn Heb “the breathing out of the soul”; cf. KJV, ASV “the giving up of the ghost.” The line is simply saying that the brightest hope that the wicked have is death.