4:7 Call to mind now: 1
Who, 2 being innocent, ever perished? 3
And where were upright people 4 ever destroyed? 5
9:22 “It is all one! 6 That is why I say, 7
‘He destroys the blameless and the guilty.’
37:24 Even if 8 he trips, he will not fall headlong, 9
for the Lord holds 10 his hand.
37:37 Take note of the one who has integrity! Observe the godly! 11
For the one who promotes peace has a future. 12
94:14 Certainly 13 the Lord does not forsake his people;
he does not abandon the nation that belongs to him. 14
1 sn Eliphaz will put his thesis forward first negatively and then positively (vv. 8ff). He will argue that the suffering of the righteous is disciplinary and not for their destruction. He next will argue that it is the wicked who deserve judgment.
2 tn The use of the independent personal pronoun is emphatic, almost as an enclitic to emphasize interrogatives: “who indeed….” (GKC 442 §136.c).
3 tn The perfect verb in this line has the nuance of the past tense to express the unique past – the uniqueness of the action is expressed with “ever” (“who has ever perished”).
4 tn The adjective is used here substantivally. Without the article the word stresses the meaning of “uprightness.” Job will use “innocent” and “upright” together in 17:8.
5 tn The Niphal means “to be hidden” (see the Piel in 6:10; 15:18; and 27:11); the connotation here is “destroyed” or “annihilated.”
6 tc The LXX omits the phrase “It is all one.” Modern scholars either omit it or transpose it for clarity.
7 tn The relationships of these clauses is in some question. Some think that the poet has inverted the first two, and so they should read, “That is why I have said: ‘It is all one.’” Others would take the third clause to be what was said.
8 tn Other translation options for כִּי in this context are “when” (so NASB) or “though” (so NEB, NIV, NRSV).
9 tn Heb “be hurled down.”
10 tn The active participle indicates this is characteristically true. See v. 17.
11 tn Or “upright.”
12 tn Heb “for [there is] an end for a man of peace.” Some interpret אַחֲרִית (’akharit, “end”) as referring to offspring (see the next verse and Ps 109:13; cf. NEB, NRSV).
13 tn Or “for.”
14 tn Or “his inheritance.”