18:16 Below his roots dry up,
and his branches wither above.
18:17 His memory perishes from the earth,
he has no name in the land. 1
18:18 He is driven 2 from light into darkness
and is banished from the world.
18:19 He has neither children nor descendants 3 among his people,
no survivor in those places he once stayed. 4
1 tn Heb “outside.” Cf. ESV, “in the street,” referring to absence from his community’s memory.
2 tn The verbs in this verse are plural; without the expressed subject they should be taken in the passive sense.
3 tn The two words נִין (nin, “offspring”) and נֶכֶד (nekhed, “posterity”) are always together and form an alliteration. This is hard to capture in English, but some have tried: Moffatt had “son and scion,” and Tur-Sinai had “breed or brood.” But the words are best simply translated as “lineage and posterity” or as in the NIV “offspring or descendants.”
4 tn Heb “in his sojournings.” The verb גּוּר (gur) means “to reside; to sojourn” temporarily, without land rights. Even this word has been selected to stress the temporary nature of his stay on earth.