Text -- Job 15:20 (NET)

15:20 All his days the wicked man suffers torment, throughout the number of the years that are stored up for the tyrant.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Job 15:20

¹ tn Heb “all the days of the wicked, he suffers.” The word “all” is an adverbial accusative of time, stating along with its genitives (“of the days of a wicked man”) how long the individual suffers. When the subject is composed of a noun in construct followed by a genitive, the predicate sometimes agrees with the genitive (see GKC 467 §146.a).

² tn The Hebrew term מִתְחוֹלֵל (mitkholel) is a Hitpolel participle from חִיל (khil, “to tremble”). It carries the idea of “torment oneself,” or “be tormented.” Some have changed the letter ח (khet) for a letter ה (he), and obtained the meaning “shows himself mad.” Theodotion has “is mad.” Syriac (“behave arrogantly,” apparently confusing Hebrew חול with חלל; Heidi M. Szpek, Translation Technique in the Peshitta to Job [SBLDS], 277), Symmachus, and Vulgate have “boasts himself.” But the reading of the MT is preferable.

³ tn It is necessary, with Rashi, to understand the relative pronoun before the verb “they are stored up/reserved.”

⁴ tn This has been translated with the idea of “oppressor” in Job 6:23; 27:13.