Jeremiah 4:18

4:18 “The way you have lived and the things you have done ¹ 

will bring this on you.

This is the punishment you deserve, and it will be painful indeed. ² 

The pain will be so bad it will pierce your heart.” ³ 

Job 20:11-16

20:11 His bones ⁴  were full of his youthful vigor, ⁵ 

but that vigor will lie down with him in the dust.

20:12 “If ⁶  evil is sweet in his mouth

and he hides it under his tongue, ⁷ 

20:13 if he retains it for himself

and does not let it go,

and holds it fast in his mouth, ⁸ 

20:14 his food is turned sour ⁹  in his stomach; ¹⁰ 

it becomes the venom of serpents ¹¹  within him.

20:15 The wealth that he consumed ¹²  he vomits up,

God will make him throw it out ¹³  of his stomach.

20:16 He sucks the poison ¹⁴  of serpents; ¹⁵ 

the fangs ¹⁶  of a viper ¹⁷  kill him.

Amos 8:10

8:10 I will turn your festivals into funerals, ¹⁸ 

and all your songs into funeral dirges.

I will make everyone wear funeral clothes ¹⁹ 

and cause every head to be shaved bald. ²⁰ 

I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son; ²¹ 

when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day. ²² 

[4:18]  ¹ tn Heb “Your way and your deeds.”

[4:18]  ² tn Heb “How bitter!”

[4:18]  ³ tn Heb “Indeed, it reaches to your heart.” The subject must be the pain alluded to in the last half of the preceding line; the verb is masculine, agreeing with the adjective translated “painful.” The only other possible antecedent “punishment” is feminine.

[20:11]  ⁴ tn “Bones” is often used metonymically for the whole person, the bones being the framework, meaning everything inside, as well as the body itself.

[20:11]  ⁵ sn This line means that he dies prematurely – at the height of his youthful vigor.

[20:12]  ⁷ tn The conjunction אִם (’im) introduces clauses that are conditional or concessive. With the imperfect verb in the protasis it indicates what is possible in the present or future. See GKC 496 §159.q).

[20:12]  ⁸ sn The wicked person holds on to evil as long as he can, savoring the taste or the pleasure of it.

[20:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in the middle of his palate.”

[20:14]  ¹³ tn The perfect verb in the apodosis might express the suddenness of the change (see S. R. Driver, Tenses in Hebrew, 204), or it might be a constative perfect looking at the action as a whole without reference to inception, progress, or completion (see IBHS 480-81 §30.1d). The Niphal perfect simply means “is turned” or “turns”; “sour is supplied in the translation to clarify what is meant.

[20:14]  ¹⁴ tn The word is “in his loins” or “within him.” Some translate more specifically “bowels.”

[20:14]  ¹⁵ sn Some commentators suggest that the ancients believed that serpents secreted poison in the gall bladder, or that the poison came from the gall bladder of serpents. In any case, there is poison (from the root “bitter”) in the system of the wicked person; it may simply be saying it is that type of poison.

[20:15]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “swallowed.”

[20:15]  ¹⁷ tn The choice of words is excellent. The verb יָרַשׁ (yarash) means either “to inherit” or “to disinherit; to dispossess.” The context makes the figure clear that God is administering the emetic to make the wicked throw up the wealth (thus, “God will make him throw it out…”); but since wealth is the subject there is a disinheritance meant here.

[20:16]  ¹⁹ tn The word is a homonym for the word for “head,” which has led to some confusion in the early versions.

[20:16]  ²⁰ sn To take the possessions of another person is hereby compared to sucking poison from a serpent – it will kill eventually.

[20:16]  ²¹ tn Heb “tongue.”

[20:16]  ²² tn Some have thought this verse is a gloss on v. 14 and should be deleted. But the word for “viper” (אֶפְעֶה, ’ef’eh) is a rare word, occurring only here and in Isa 30:6 and 59:5. It is unlikely that a rarer word would be used in a gloss. But the point is similar to v. 14 – the wealth that was greedily sucked in by the wicked proves to be their undoing. Either this is totally irrelevant to Job’s case, a general discussion, or the man is raising questions about how Job got his wealth.

[8:10]  ²² tn Heb “mourning.”

[8:10]  ²³ tn Heb “I will place sackcloth on all waists.”

[8:10]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and make every head bald.” This could be understood in a variety of ways, while the ritual act of mourning typically involved shaving the head (although occasionally the hair could be torn out as a sign of mourning).

[8:10]  ²⁵ tn Heb “I will make it like the mourning for an only son.”

[8:10]  ²⁶ tn Heb “and its end will be like a bitter day.” The Hebrew preposition כְּ (kaf) sometimes carries the force of “in every respect,” indicating identity rather than mere comparison.