Job 18:6

18:6 The light in his tent grows dark;

his lamp above him is extinguished. ¹ 

Job 18:15

18:15 Fire resides in his tent; ² 

over his residence burning sulfur is scattered.

Job 18:21

18:21 ‘Surely such is the residence ³  of an evil man;

and this is the place of one who has not known God.’” ⁴ 

Job 21:7-9

The Wicked Prosper

21:7 “Why do the wicked go on living, ⁵ 

grow old, ⁶  even increase in power?

21:8 Their children ⁷  are firmly established

in their presence, ⁸ 

their offspring before their eyes.

21:9 Their houses are safe ⁹  and without fear; ¹⁰ 

and no rod of punishment ¹¹  from God is upon them. ¹² 

Job 21:1

Job’s Reply to Zophar ¹³ 

21:1 Then Job answered:

Job 30:3

30:3 gaunt ¹⁴  with want and hunger,

they would gnaw ¹⁵  the parched land,

in former time desolate and waste. ¹⁶ 

Isaiah 4:5-6

4:5 Then the Lord will create

over all of Mount Zion ¹⁷ 

and over its convocations

a cloud and smoke by day

and a bright flame of fire by night; ¹⁸ 

indeed a canopy will accompany the Lord’s glorious presence. ¹⁹ 

4:6 By day it will be a shelter to provide shade from the heat,

as well as safety and protection from the heavy downpour. ²⁰ 

[18:6]  ¹ tn The LXX interprets a little more precisely: “his lamp shall be put out with him.”

[18:15]  ² tn This line is difficult as well. The verb, again a third feminine form, says “it dwells in his tent.” But the next part (מִבְּלִי לוֹ, mibbÿli lo) means something like “things of what are not his.” The best that can be made of the MT is “There shall live in his tent they that are not his” (referring to persons and animals; see J. E. Hartley, Job [NICOT], 279). G. R. Driver and G. B. Gray (Job [ICC], 2:161) refer “that which is naught of his” to weeds and wild animals. M. Dahood suggested a reading מַבֶּל (mabbel) and a connection to Akkadian nablu, “fire” (cf. Ugaritic nbl). The interchange of m and n is not a problem, and the parallelism with the next line makes good sense (“Some Northwest Semitic words in Job,” Bib 38 [1957]: 312ff.). Others suggest an emendation to get “night-hag” or vampire. This suggestion, as well as Driver’s “mixed herbs,” are linked to the idea of exorcism. But if a change is to be made, Dahood’s is the most compelling.

[18:21]  ³ tn The term is in the plural, “the tabernacles”; it should be taken as a plural of local extension (see GKC 397 §124.b).

[18:21]  ⁴ tn The word “place” is in construct; the clause following it replaces the genitive: “this is the place of – he has not known God.”

[21:7]  ⁵ sn A. B. Davidson (Job, 154) clarifies that Job’s question is of a universal scope. In the government of God, why do the wicked exist at all? The verb could be translated “continue to live.”

[21:7]  ⁶ tn The verb עָתַק (’ataq) means “to move; to proceed; to advance.” Here it is “to advance in years” or “to grow old.” This clause could serve as an independent clause, a separate sentence; but it more likely continues the question of the first colon and is parallel to the verb “live.”

[21:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “their seed.”

[21:8]  ⁸ tn The text uses לִפְנֵיהֶם עִמָּם (lifnehem ’immam, “before them, with them”). Many editors think that these were alternative readings, and so omit one or the other. Dhorme moved עִמָּם (’immam) to the second half of the verse and emended it to read עֹמְדִים (’omÿdim, “abide”). Kissane and Gordis changed only the vowels and came up with עַמָּם (’ammam, “their kinfolk”). But Gordis thinks the presence of both of them in the line is evidence of a conflated reading (p. 229).

[21:9]  ⁹ tn The word שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace, safety”) is here a substantive after a plural subject (see GKC 452 §141.c, n. 3).

[21:9]  ¹⁰ tn The form מִפָּחַד (mippakhad) is translated “without fear,” literally “from fear”; the preposition is similar to the alpha privative in Greek. The word “fear, dread” means nothing that causes fear or dread – they are peaceful, secure. See GKC 382 §119.w.

[21:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “no rod of God.” The words “punishment from” have been supplied in the translation to make the metaphor understandable for the modern reader by stating the purpose of the rod.

[21:9]  ¹² sn In 9:34 Job was complaining that there was no umpire to remove God’s rod from him, but here he observes no such rod is on the wicked.

[21:1]  ¹³ sn In this chapter Job actually answers the ideas of all three of his friends. Here Job finds the flaw in their argument – he can point to wicked people who prosper. But whereas in the last speech, when he looked on his suffering from the perspective of his innocence, he found great faith and hope, in this chapter when he surveys the divine government of the world, he sinks to despair. The speech can be divided into five parts: he appeals for a hearing (2-6), he points out the prosperity of the wicked (7-16), he wonders exactly when the godless suffer (17-22), he shows how death levels everything (23-26), and he reveals how experience contradicts his friends’ argument (27-34).

[30:3]  ¹⁴ tn This word, גַּלְמוּד (galmud), describes something as lowly, desolate, bare, gaunt like a rock.

[30:3]  ¹⁵ tn The form is the plural participle with the definite article – “who gnaw.” The article, joined to the participle, joins on a new statement concerning a preceding noun (see GKC 404 §126.b).

[30:3]  ¹⁶ tn The MT has “yesterday desolate and waste.” The word “yesterday” (אֶמֶשׁ, ’emesh) is strange here. Among the proposals for אֶמֶשׁ (’emesh), Duhm suggested יְמַשְּׁשׁוּ (yÿmashÿshu, “they grope”), which would require darkness; Pope renders “by night,” instead of “yesterday,” which evades the difficulty; and Fohrer suggested with more reason אֶרֶץ (’erets), “a desolate and waste land.” R. Gordis (Job, 331) suggests יָמִישׁוּ / יָמֻשׁוּ (yamishu/yamushu), “they wander off.”

[4:5]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “over all the place, Mount Zion.” Cf. NLT “Jerusalem”; CEV “the whole city.”

[4:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “a cloud by day, and smoke, and brightness of fire, a flame by night.” Though the accents in the Hebrew text suggest otherwise, it might be preferable to take “smoke” with what follows, since one would expect smoke to accompany fire.

[4:5]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “indeed (or “for”) over all the glory, a canopy.” This may allude to Exod 40:34-35, where a cloud overshadows the meeting tent as it is filled with God’s glory.

[4:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “a shelter it will be for shade by day from heat, and for a place of refuge and for a hiding place from cloudburst and rain.” Since both of the last nouns of this verse can mean rain, they can either refer to the rain storm and the rain as distinct items or together refer to a heavy downpour. Regardless, they do not represent unrelated phenomena.