Discovery BoxJob 15:28
Context15:28 he lived in ruined towns 1
and in houses where 2 no one lives,
where they are ready to crumble into heaps. 3
Job 24:16-17
Context24:16 In the dark the robber 4 breaks into houses, 5
but by day they shut themselves in; 6
they do not know the light. 7
24:17 For all of them, 8 the morning is to them
like deep darkness;
they are friends with the terrors of darkness.
Job 27:14
Context27:14 If his children increase – it is for the sword! 9
His offspring never have enough to eat. 10
[15:28] 1 sn K&D 11:266 rightly explains that these are not cities that he, the wicked, has destroyed, but that were destroyed by a judgment on wickedness. Accordingly, Eliphaz is saying that the wicked man is willing to risk such a curse in his confidence in his prosperity (see further H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 113).
[15:28] 2 tn The verbal idea serves here to modify “houses” as a relative clause; so a relative pronoun is added.
[15:28] 3 tn The Hebrew has simply “they are made ready for heaps.” The LXX translates it, “what they have prepared, let others carry away.” This would involve a complete change of the last word.
[24:16] 4 tn The phrase “the robber” has been supplied in the English translation for clarification.
[24:16] 5 tc This is not the idea of the adulterer, but of the thief. So some commentators reverse the order and put this verse after v. 14.
[24:16] 6 tc The verb חִתְּמוּ (khittÿmu) is the Piel from the verb חָתַם (khatam, “to seal”). The verb is now in the plural, covering all the groups mentioned that work under the cover of darkness. The suggestion that they “seal,” i.e., “mark” the house they will rob, goes against the meaning of the word “seal.”
[24:16] 7 tc Some commentators join this very short colon to the beginning of v. 17: “they do not know the light. For together…” becomes “for together they have not known the light.”
[27:14] 10 tn R. Gordis (Job, 294) identifies this as a breviloquence. Compare Ps 92:8 where the last two words also constitute the apodosis.
