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.
7 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.
8 sn The hostile nations’ plans to destroy God’s people will come to nothing; their hostility will end up being self-destructive.
9 tn Heb “no one pleads with justice.”
10 tn Heb “nothing”; NAB “emptiness.”
11 tn Or “trouble” (NIV), or “harm.”
12 tn Heb “that which is pressed in hatches [as] a snake.”