20:8 Like a dream he flies away, never again to be found, 1
and like a vision of the night he is put to flight.
14:32 The wicked will be thrown down in his trouble, 2
but the righteous have refuge 3 even in the threat of death. 4
17:13 Though these people make an uproar as loud as the roaring of powerful waves, 5
when he shouts at 6 them, they will flee to a distant land,
driven before the wind like dead weeds on the hills,
or like dead thistles 7 before a strong gale.
17:14 In the evening there is sudden terror; 8
by morning they vanish. 9
This is the fate of those who try to plunder us,
the destiny of those who try to loot us! 10
4:33 Now in that very moment 11 this pronouncement about 12 Nebuchadnezzar came true. 13 He was driven from human society, he ate grass like oxen, and his body became damp with the dew of the sky, until his hair became long like an eagle’s feathers, and his nails like a bird’s claws. 14
1 tn Heb “and they do not find him.” The verb has no expressed subject, and so here is equivalent to a passive. The clause itself is taken adverbially in the sentence.
2 tn The prepositional phrase must be “in his time of trouble” (i.e., when catastrophe comes). Cf. CEV “In times of trouble the wicked are destroyed.” A wicked person has nothing to fall back on in such times.
3 sn The righteous have hope in a just retribution – they have a place of safety even in death.
4 tc The LXX reads this as “in his integrity,” as if it were בְּתוּמּוֹ (bÿtumo) instead of “in his death” (בְּמוֹתוֹ, bÿmoto). The LXX is followed by some English versions (e.g., NAB “in his honesty,” NRSV “in their integrity,” and TEV “by their integrity”).
5 tn Heb “the peoples are in an uproar like the uproar of mighty waters.”
6 tn Or “rebukes.” The verb and related noun are used in theophanies of God’s battle cry which terrifies his enemies. See, for example, Pss 18:15; 76:7; 106:9; Isa 50:2; Nah 1:4, and A. Caquot, TDOT 3:49-53.
7 tn Or perhaps “tumbleweed” (NAB, NIV, CEV); KJV “like a rolling thing.”
8 tn Heb “at the time of evening, look, sudden terror.”
9 tn Heb “before morning he is not.”
10 tn Heb “this is the portion of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who loot us.”
11 tn Aram “hour.”
12 tn Or “on.”
13 tn Aram “was fulfilled.”
14 tn The words “feathers” and “claws” are not present in the Aramaic text, but have been added in the translation for clarity.
15 tn Aram “heart.”
16 tn Aram “his dwelling.”