59:13 We have rebelled and tried to deceive the Lord;
we turned back from following our God.
We stir up 1 oppression and rebellion;
we tell lies we concocted in our minds. 2
15:35 They conceive 3 trouble and bring forth evil;
their belly 4 prepares deception.”
7:13 He prepares to use deadly weapons against him; 5
he gets ready to shoot flaming arrows. 6
4:16 For they cannot sleep unless they cause harm; 7
they are robbed of sleep 8 until they make someone stumble. 9
2:1 Those who devise sinful plans are as good as dead, 10
those who dream about doing evil as they lie in bed. 11
As soon as morning dawns they carry out their plans, 12
because they have the power to do so.
1 tn Heb “speaking.” A new sentence was started here in the translation for stylistic reasons.
2 tn Heb “conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.”
3 tn Infinitives absolute are used in this verse in the place of finite verbs. They lend a greater vividness to the description, stressing the basic meaning of the words.
4 tn At the start of the speech Eliphaz said Job’s belly was filled with the wind; now it is there that he prepares deception. This inclusio frames the speech.
5 tn Heb “and for him he prepares the weapons of death.”
6 tn Heb “his arrows into flaming [things] he makes.”
7 sn The verb is רָעַע (ra’a’), which means “to do evil; to harm.” The verse is using the figure of hyperbole to stress the preoccupation of some people with causing trouble. R. L. Alden says, “How sick to find peace only at the price of another man’s misfortune” (Proverbs, 47).
8 sn Heb “their sleep is robbed/seized”; these expressions are metonymical for their restlessness in plotting evil.
9 sn The Hiphil imperfect (Kethib) means “cause to stumble.” This idiom (from hypocatastasis) means “bring injury/ruin to someone” (BDB 505-6 s.v. כָּשַׁל Hiph.1).
10 tn Heb “Woe to those who plan sin.” The Hebrew term הוֹי (hoy, “woe”; “ah”) was a cry used in mourning the dead.
11 tn Heb “those who do evil upon their beds.”
12 tn Heb “at the light of morning they do it.”