Job 17:8

17:8 Upright men are appalled ¹  at this;

the innocent man is troubled ²  with the godless.

Job 18:20

18:20 People of the west ³  are appalled at his fate; ⁴ 

people of the east are seized with horror, ⁵  saying, ⁶ 

Job 21:5

21:5 Look ⁷  at me and be appalled;

put your hands over your mouths. ⁸ 

[17:8]  ¹ tn This verb שָׁמַם (shamam, “appalled”) is the one found in Isa 52:14, translated there “astonished.”

[17:8]  ² tn The verb means “to rouse oneself to excitement.” It naturally means “to be agitated; to be stirred up.”

[18:20]  ³ tn The word אַחֲרֹנִים (’akharonim) means “those [men] coming after.” And the next word, קַדְמֹנִים (qadmonim), means “those [men] coming before.” Some commentators have tried to see here references to people who lived before and people who lived after, but that does not explain their being appalled at the fate of the wicked. So the normal way this is taken is in connection to the geography, notably the seas – “the hinder sea” refers to the Mediterranean, the West, and “the front sea” refers to the Dead Sea (Zech 14:8), namely, the East. The versions understood this as temporal: “the last groaned for him, and wonder seized the first” (LXX).

[18:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “his day.”

[18:20]  ⁵ tn The expression has “they seize horror.” The RSV renders this “horror seizes them.” The same idiom is found in Job 21:6: “laid hold on shuddering.” The idiom would solve the grammatical problem, and not change the meaning greatly; but it would change the parallelism.

[18:20]  ⁶ tn The word “saying” is supplied in the translation to mark and introduce the following as a quotation of these people who are seized with horror. The alternative is to take v. 21 as Bildad’s own summary statement (cf. G. R. Driver and G. B. Gray, Job [ICC], 2:162; J. E. Hartley, Job [NICOT], 280).

[21:5]  ⁵ tn The verb פְּנוּ (pÿnu) is from the verb “to turn,” related to the word for “face.” In calling for them to turn toward him, he is calling for them to look at him. But here it may be more in the sense of their attention rather than just a looking at him.

[21:5]  ⁶ tn The idiom is “put a hand over a mouth,” the natural gesture for keeping silent and listening (cf. Job 29:9; 40:4; Mic 7:16).