15:20 All his days 1 the wicked man suffers torment, 2
throughout the number of the years
that 3 are stored up for the tyrant. 4
15:35 They conceive 5 trouble and bring forth evil;
their belly 6 prepares deception.”
33:11 You conceive straw, 7
you give birth to chaff;
your breath is a fire that destroys you. 8
59:4 No one is concerned about justice; 9
no one sets forth his case truthfully.
They depend on false words 10 and tell lies;
they conceive of oppression 11
and give birth to sin.
59:5 They hatch the eggs of a poisonous snake
and spin a spider’s web.
Whoever eats their eggs will die,
a poisonous snake is hatched. 12
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.
5 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.
6 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.
9 tn The second person verb and pronominal forms in this verse are plural. The hostile nations are the addressed, as the next verse makes clear.
10 sn The hostile nations’ plans to destroy God’s people will come to nothing; their hostility will end up being self-destructive.
13 tn Heb “no one pleads with justice.”
14 tn Heb “nothing”; NAB “emptiness.”
15 tn Or “trouble” (NIV), or “harm.”
17 tn Heb “that which is pressed in hatches [as] a snake.”