Job 5:2

5:2 For ¹  wrath kills the foolish person, ² 

and anger ³  slays the silly one.

Psalms 112:10

112:10 When the wicked ⁴  see this, they will worry;

they will grind their teeth in frustration ⁵  and melt away;

the desire of the wicked will perish. ⁶ 

Acts 7:9

7:9 The ⁷  patriarchs, because they were jealous of Joseph, sold ⁸  him into Egypt. But ⁹  God was with him,

Romans 1:29

1:29 They are filled ¹⁰  with every kind of unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, malice. They are rife with ¹¹  envy, murder, strife, deceit, hostility. They are gossips,

James 4:5

4:5 Or do you think the scripture means nothing when it says, ¹²  “The spirit that God ¹³  caused ¹⁴  to live within us has an envious yearning”? ¹⁵ 

¹ tn One of the reasons that commentators transpose v. 1 is that the כִּי (ki, “for”) here seems to follow 4:21 better. If people die without wisdom, it is folly that kills them. But the verse also makes sense after 5:1. He is saying that complaining against God will not bring deliverance (v. 1), but rather, by such impatience the fool will bring greater calamity on himself.

² tn The two words for “foolish person” are common in wisdom literature. The first, אֱוִיל (’evil), is the fool who is a senseless person; the פֹּתֶה (poteh) is the naive and silly person, the simpleton, the one who is easily led astray. The direct object is introduced with the preposition ל (lamed) in this verse (see GKC 366 §117.n).

³ tn The two parallel nouns are similar; their related verbs are also paralleled in Deut 32:16 with the idea of “vex” and “irritate.” The first word כַּעַשׂ (ka’as) refers to the inner irritation and anger one feels, whereas the second word קִנְאָה (qin’ah) refers to the outward expression of the anger. In Job 6:2, Job will respond “O that my impatience [ka’as] were weighed….”

⁴ tn The Hebrew text uses the singular; the representative wicked individual is in view as typifying the group (note the use of the plural form in v. 10).

⁵ tn Heb “his teeth he will gnash.” In Pss 35:16 and 37:12 this action is associated with a vicious attack.

⁶ tn This could mean that the desires of the wicked will go unfulfilled. Another possibility is that “desire” refers by metonymy to the object desired and acquired. In this case the point is that the wicked will lose what they desired so badly and acquired by evil means (see Ps 10:3).

⁷ tn Grk “And the.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

⁸ tn The meaning “sell” for the middle voice of ἀποδίδωμι (apodidwmi) is given by BDAG 110 s.v. 5.a. See Gen 37:12-36, esp. v. 28.

⁹ tn Though the Greek term here is καί (kai), in context this remark is clearly contrastive: Despite the malicious act, God was present and protected Joseph.

¹⁰ tn Grk “being filled” or “having been filled,” referring to those described in v. 28. Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

¹¹ tn Grk “malice, full of,” continuing the description. Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

¹² tn Grk “vainly says.”

¹³ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁴ tc The Byzantine text and a few other mss (P 33 Ï) have the intransitive κατῴκησεν (katwkhsen) here, which turns τὸ πνεῦμα (to pneuma) into the subject of the verb: “The spirit which lives within us.” But the more reliable and older witnesses (Ì⁷⁴ א B Ψ 049 1241 1739 al) have the causative verb, κατῴκισεν (katwkisen), which implies a different subject and τὸ πνεῦμα as the object: “The spirit that he causes to live within us.” Both because of the absence of an explicit subject and the relative scarcity of the causative κατοικίζω (katoikizw, “cause to dwell”) compared to the intransitive κατοικέω (katoikew, “live, dwell”) in biblical Greek (κατοικίζω does not occur in the NT at all, and occurs one twelfth as frequently as κατοικέω in the LXX), it is easy to see why scribes would replace κατῴκισεν with κατῴκησεν. Thus, on internal and external grounds, κατῴκισεν is the preferred reading.

¹⁵ tn Interpreters debate the referent of the word “spirit” in this verse: (1) The translation takes “spirit” to be the lustful capacity within people that produces a divided mind (1:8, 14) and inward conflicts regarding God (4:1-4). God has allowed it to be in man since the fall, and he provides his grace (v. 6) and the new birth through the gospel message (1:18-25) to counteract its evil effects. (2) On the other hand the word “spirit” may be taken positively as the Holy Spirit and the sense would be, “God yearns jealously for the Spirit he caused to live within us.” But the word for “envious” or “jealous” is generally negative in biblical usage and the context before and after seems to favor the negative interpretation.