Job 11:20

11:20 But the eyes of the wicked fail, ¹ 

and escape ²  eludes them;

their one hope ³  is to breathe their last.” ⁴ 

Psalms 48:5-6

48:5 As soon as they see, ⁵  they are shocked; ⁶ 

they are terrified, they quickly retreat. ⁷ 

48:6 Look at them shake uncontrollably, ⁸ 

like a woman writhing in childbirth. ⁹ 

Psalms 76:5

76:5 The bravehearted ¹⁰  were plundered; ¹¹ 

they “fell asleep.” ¹² 

All the warriors were helpless. ¹³ 

Amos 2:14-16

2:14 Fast runners will find no place to hide; ¹⁴ 

strong men will have no strength left; ¹⁵ 

warriors will not be able to save their lives.

2:15 Archers ¹⁶  will not hold their ground; ¹⁷ 

fast runners will not save their lives,

nor will those who ride horses. ¹⁸ 

2:16 Bravehearted ¹⁹  warriors will run away naked in that day.”

The Lord is speaking!

Revelation 6:15-17

6:15 Then ²⁰  the kings of the earth, the ²¹  very important people, the generals, ²²  the rich, the powerful, and everyone, slave ²³  and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 6:16 They ²⁴  said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, ²⁵  6:17 because the great day of their ²⁶  wrath has come, and who is able to withstand it?” ²⁷ 

[11:20]  ¹ tn The verb כָּלָה (kalah) means “to fail, cease, fade away.” The fading of the eyes, i.e., loss of sight, loss of life’s vitality, indicates imminent death.

[11:20]  ² tn Heb a “place of escape” (with this noun pattern). There is no place to escape to because they all perish.

[11:20]  ³ tn The word is to be interpreted as a metonymy; it represents what is hoped for.

[11:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “the breathing out of the soul”; cf. KJV, ASV “the giving up of the ghost.” The line is simply saying that the brightest hope that the wicked have is death.

[48:5]  ⁵ tn The object of “see” is omitted, but v. 3b suggests that the Lord’s self-revelation as the city’s defender is what they see.

[48:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “they look, so they are shocked.” Here כֵּן (ken, “so”) has the force of “in the same measure.”

[48:5]  ⁷ tn The translation attempts to reflect the staccato style of the Hebrew text, where the main clauses of vv. 4-6 are simply juxtaposed without connectives.

[48:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “trembling seizes them there.” The adverb שָׁם (sham, “there”) is used here, as often in poetic texts, to point “to a spot in which a scene is localized vividly in the imagination” (BDB 1027 s.v.).

[48:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “[with] writhing like one giving birth.”

[76:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “strong of heart.” In Isa 46:12, the only other text where this phrase appears, it refers to those who are stubborn, but here it seems to describe brave warriors (see the next line).

[76:5]  ¹¹ tn The verb is a rare Aramaized form of the Hitpolel (see GKC 149 §54.a, n. 2); the root is שָׁלַל (shalal, “to plunder”).

[76:5]  ¹² tn Heb “they slept [in] their sleep.” “Sleep” here refers to the “sleep” of death. A number of modern translations take the phrase to refer to something less than death, however: NASB “cast into a deep sleep”; NEB “fall senseless”; NIV “lie still”; NRSV “lay stunned.”

[76:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “and all the men of strength did not find their hands.”

[2:14]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and a place of refuge will perish from the swift.”

[2:14]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the strong will not increase his strength.”

[2:15]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the one who holds the bow.”

[2:15]  ¹⁷ tn For the idiom of “holding [or “standing”] one’s ground” in battle, there is a similar phrase in Ezek 13:5; also related is the expression “to hold one’s own against” (or “to withstand”) in Judg 2:14; 2 Kgs 10:4; Dan 8:7 (see S. M. Paul, Amos [Hermeneia], 97). Other options include “will not endure” or “will not survive.”

[2:15]  ¹⁸ tn The last two lines read literally, “The one fast in his feet will not rescue [his life], and the rider of the horse will not rescue his life.” The phrase “his life” does double duty in the parallelism and should be understood in both lines.

[2:16]  ¹⁹ tn Or “the most stouthearted” (NAB); NRSV “those who are stout of heart.”

[6:15]  ²⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

[6:15]  ²¹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated; nor is it translated before each of the following categories, since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.

[6:15]  ²² tn Grk “chiliarchs.” A chiliarch was normally a military officer commanding a thousand soldiers, but here probably used of higher-ranking commanders like generals (see L&N 55.15; cf. Rev 6:15).

[6:15]  ²³ tn See the note on the word “servants” in 1:1.

[6:16]  ²⁴ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation. Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[6:16]  ²⁵ tn It is difficult to say where this quotation ends. The translation ends it after “withstand it” at the end of v. 17, but it is possible that it should end here, after “Lamb” at the end of v. 16. If it ends after “Lamb,” v. 17 is a parenthetical explanation by the author.

[6:17]  ²⁶ tc Most mss (A Ï bo) change the pronoun “their” to “his” (αὐτοῦ, autou) in order to bring the text in line with the mention of the one seated on the throne in the immediately preceding verse, and to remove the ambiguity about whose wrath is in view here. The reading αὐτῶν (autwn, “their”) is well supported by א C 1611 1854 2053 2329 2344 pc latt sy. On both internal and external grounds, it should be regarded as original.

[6:17]  ²⁷ tn The translation “to withstand (it)” for ἵστημι (Jisthmi) is based on the imagery of holding one’s ground in a military campaign or an attack (BDAG 482 s.v. B.4).