Job 20:12-23

20:12 “If ¹  evil is sweet in his mouth

and he hides it under his tongue, ² 

20:13 if he retains it for himself

and does not let it go,

and holds it fast in his mouth, ³ 

20:14 his food is turned sour ⁴  in his stomach; ⁵ 

it becomes the venom of serpents ⁶  within him.

20:15 The wealth that he consumed ⁷  he vomits up,

God will make him throw it out ⁸  of his stomach.

20:16 He sucks the poison ⁹  of serpents; ¹⁰ 

the fangs ¹¹  of a viper ¹²  kill him.

20:17 He will not look on the streams, ¹³ 

the rivers, which are the torrents ¹⁴ 

of honey and butter. ¹⁵ 

20:18 He gives back the ill-gotten gain ¹⁶ 

without assimilating it; ¹⁷ 

he will not enjoy the wealth from his commerce. ¹⁸ 

20:19 For he has oppressed the poor and abandoned them; ¹⁹ 

he has seized a house which he did not build. ²⁰ 

20:20 For he knows no satisfaction in his appetite; ²¹ 

he does not let anything he desires ²²  escape. ²³ 

20:21 “Nothing is left for him to devour; ²⁴ 

that is why his prosperity does not last. ²⁵ 

20:22 In the fullness of his sufficiency, ²⁶ 

distress ²⁷  overtakes him.

the full force of misery will come upon him. ²⁸ 

20:23 “While he is ²⁹  filling his belly,

God ³⁰  sends his burning anger ³¹  against him,

and rains down his blows upon him. ³² 

Psalms 78:30-31

78:30 They were not yet filled up, ³³ 

their food was still in their mouths,

78:31 when the anger of God flared up against them.

He killed some of the strongest of them;

he brought the young men of Israel to their knees.

Ecclesiastes 5:10

Covetousness

5:10 The one who loves money ³⁴  will never be satisfied with money, ³⁵ 

he who loves wealth ³⁶  will never be satisfied ³⁷  with his ³⁸  income.

This also is futile.

Isaiah 55:2

55:2 Why pay money for something that will not nourish you? ³⁹ 

Why spend ⁴⁰  your hard-earned money ⁴¹  on something that will not satisfy?

Listen carefully ⁴²  to me and eat what is nourishing! ⁴³ 

Enjoy fine food! ⁴⁴ 

Luke 12:19-20

12:19 And I will say to myself, ⁴⁵  “You have plenty of goods stored up for many years; relax, eat, drink, celebrate!”’ 12:20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life ⁴⁶  will be demanded back from ⁴⁷  you, but who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ ⁴⁸ 

[20:12]  ¹ 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]  ² sn The wicked person holds on to evil as long as he can, savoring the taste or the pleasure of it.

[20:13]  ³ tn Heb “in the middle of his palate.”

[20:14]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn The word is “in his loins” or “within him.” Some translate more specifically “bowels.”

[20:14]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Heb “swallowed.”

[20:15]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn The word is a homonym for the word for “head,” which has led to some confusion in the early versions.

[20:16]  ¹⁰ sn To take the possessions of another person is hereby compared to sucking poison from a serpent – it will kill eventually.

[20:16]  ¹¹ tn Heb “tongue.”

[20:16]  ¹² 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.

[20:17]  ¹³ tn The word פְּלַגּוֹת (pÿlaggot) simply means “streams” or “channels.” Because the word is used elsewhere for “streams of oil” (cf. 29:6), and that makes a good parallelism here, some supply “oil” (cf. NAB, NLT). But the second colon of the verse is probably in apposition to the first. The verb “see” followed by the preposition bet, “to look on; to look over,” means “to enjoy as a possession,” an activity of the victor.

[20:17]  ¹⁴ tn The construct nouns here have caused a certain amount of revision. It says “rivers of, torrents of.” The first has been emended by Klostermann to יִצְהָר (yitshar, “oil”) and connected to the first colon. Older editors argued for a נָהָר (nahar) that meant “oil” but that was not convincing. On the other hand, there is support for having more than one construct together serving as apposition (see GKC 422 §130.e). If the word “streams” in the last colon is a construct, that would mean three of them; but that one need not be construct. The reading would be “He will not see the streams, [that is] the rivers [which are] the torrents of honey and butter.” It is unusual, but workable.

[20:17]  ¹⁵ sn This word is often translated “curds.” It is curdled milk, possibly a type of butter.

[20:18]  ¹⁶ tn The idea is the fruit of his evil work. The word יָגָע (yaga’) occurs only here; it must mean ill-gotten gains. The verb is in 10:3.

[20:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and he does not swallow.” In the context this means “consume” for his own pleasure and prosperity. The verbal clause is here taken adverbially.

[20:18]  ¹⁸ sn The expression is “according to the wealth of his exchange.” This means he cannot enjoy whatever he gained in his business deals. Some mss have בּ (bet) preposition, making the translation easier; but this is evidence of a scribal correction.

[20:19]  ¹⁹ tc The verb indicates that after he oppressed the poor he abandoned them to their fate. But there have been several attempts to improve on the text. Several have repointed the text to get a word parallel to “house.” Ehrlich came up with עֹזֵב (’ozev, “mud hut”), Kissane had “hovel” (similar to Neh 3:8). M. Dahood did the same (“The Root ’zb II in Job,” JBL 78 [1959]: 306-7). J. Reider came up with עֶזֶב (’ezev, the “leavings”), what the rich were to leave for the poor (“Contributions to the Scriptural text,” HUCA 24 [1952/53]: 103-6). But an additional root עָזַב (’azav) is questionable. And while the text as it stands is general and not very striking, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Dhorme reverses the letters to gain בְּעֹז (bÿ’oz, “with force [or violence]”).

[20:19]  ²⁰ tn The last clause says, “and he did not build it.” This can be understood in an adverbial sense, supplying the relative pronoun to the translation.

[20:20]  ²¹ tn Heb “belly,” which represents his cravings, his desires and appetites. The “satisfaction” is actually the word for “quiet; peace; calmness; ease.” He was driven by greedy desires, or he felt and displayed an insatiable greed.

[20:20]  ²² tn The verb is the passive participle of the verb חָמַד (khamad) which is one of the words for “covet; desire.” This person is controlled by his desires; there is no escape. He is a slave.

[20:20]  ²³ tn The verb is difficult to translate in this line. It basically means “to cause to escape; to rescue.” Some translate this verb as “it is impossible to escape”; this may work, but is uncertain. Others translate the verb in the sense of saving something else: N. Sarna says, “Of his most cherished possessions he shall save nothing” (“The Interchange of the Preposition bet and min in Biblical Hebrew,” JBL 78 [1959]: 315-16). The RSV has “he will save nothing in which he delights”; NIV has “he cannot save himself by his treasure.”

[20:21]  ²⁴ tn Heb “for his eating,” which is frequently rendered “for his gluttony.” It refers, of course, to all the desires he has to take things from other people.

[20:21]  ²⁵ sn The point throughout is that insatiable greed and ruthless plundering to satisfy it will be recompensed with utter and complete loss.

[20:22]  ²⁶ tn The word שָׂפַק (safaq) occurs only here; it means “sufficiency; wealth; abundance (see D. W. Thomas, “The Text of Jesaia 2:6 and the Word sapaq,” ZAW 75 [1963]: 88-90).

[20:22]  ²⁷ tn Heb “there is straightness for him.” The root צָרַר (tsarar) means “to be narrowed in straits, to be in a bind.” The word here would have the idea of pressure, stress, trouble. One could say he is in a bind.

[20:22]  ²⁸ tn Heb “every hand of trouble comes to him.” The pointing of עָמֵל (’amel) indicates it would refer to one who brings trouble; LXX and Latin read an abstract noun עָמָל (’amal, “trouble”) here.

[20:23]  ²⁹ tn D. J. A. Clines observes that to do justice to the three jussives in the verse, one would have to translate “May it be, to fill his belly to the full, that God should send…and rain” (Job [WBC], 477). The jussive form of the verb at the beginning of the verse could also simply introduce a protasis of a conditional clause (see GKC 323 §109.h, i). This would mean, “if he [God] is about to fill his [the wicked’s] belly to the full, he will send….” The NIV reads “when he has filled his belly.” These fit better, because the context is talking about the wicked in his evil pursuit being cut down.

[20:23]  ³⁰ tn “God” is understood as the subject of the judgment.

[20:23]  ³¹ tn Heb “the anger of his wrath.”

[20:23]  ³² tn Heb “rain down upon him, on his flesh.” Dhorme changes עָלֵימוֹ (’alemo, “upon him”) to “his arrows”; he translates the line as “he rains his arrows upon his flesh.” The word בִּלְחוּמוֹ (bilkhumo,“his flesh”) has been given a wide variety of translations: “as his food,” “on his flesh,” “upon him, his anger,” or “missiles or weapons of war.”

[78:30]  ³³ tn Heb “they were not separated from their desire.”

[5:10]  ³⁴ tn Heb “silver.” The Hebrew term כֶּסֶף (kesef, “silver”) refers to “money” (HALOT 490–91 s.v. כֶּסֶף 3). It is a synecdoche of specific (i.e., silver) for the general (i.e., money); see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 625-29.

[5:10]  ³⁵ sn The Hebrew term “silver” (translated “money”) is repeated twice in this line for rhetorical emphasis.

[5:10]  ³⁶ tn The term הָמוֹן (hamon, “abundance; wealth”) has a wide range of meanings: (1) agitation; (2) turmoil; (3) noise; (4) pomp; (5) multitude; crowd = noisy crowd; and (6) abundance; wealth (HALOT 250 s.v. הָמוֹן 1–6). Here, it refers to abundant wealth (related to “pomp”); cf. HALOT 250 s.v. הָמוֹן 6, that is, lavish abundant wealth (Ezek 29:19; 30:4; 1 Chr 29:16).

[5:10]  ³⁷ tn The phrase “will never be satisfied” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarity. Note the previous line.

[5:10]  ³⁸ tn The word “his” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[55:2]  ³⁹ tn Heb “for what is not food.”

[55:2]  ⁴⁰ tn The interrogative particle and the verb “spend” are understood here by ellipsis (note the preceding line).

[55:2]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “your labor,” which stands by metonymy for that which one earns.

[55:2]  ⁴² tn The infinitive absolute follows the imperative and lends emphasis to the exhortation.

[55:2]  ⁴³ tn Heb “good” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[55:2]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “Let your appetite delight in fine food.”

[12:19]  ⁴⁵ tn Grk “to my soul,” which is repeated as a vocative in the following statement, but is left untranslated as redundant.

[12:20]  ⁴⁶ tn Grk “your soul,” but ψυχή (yuch) is frequently used of one’s physical life. It clearly has that meaning in this context.

[12:20]  ⁴⁷ tn Or “required back.” This term, ἀπαιτέω (apaitew), has an economic feel to it and is often used of a debt being called in for repayment (BDAG 96 s.v. 1).

[12:20]  ⁴⁸ tn Grk “the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” The words “for yourself” are not in the Greek text, but are implied.