Job 20:22-23

20:22 In the fullness of his sufficiency, ¹ 

distress ²  overtakes him.

the full force of misery will come upon him. ³ 

20:23 “While he is ⁴  filling his belly,

God ⁵  sends his burning anger ⁶  against him,

and rains down his blows upon him. ⁷ 

Psalms 49:17

49:17 For he will take nothing with him when he dies;

his wealth will not follow him down into the grave. ⁸ 

Psalms 73:4-5

73:4 For they suffer no pain; ⁹ 

their bodies ¹⁰  are strong and well-fed. ¹¹ 

73:5 They are immune to the trouble common to men;

they do not suffer as other men do. ¹² 

Luke 12:19-21

12:19 And I will say to myself, ¹³  “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 ¹⁴  will be demanded back from ¹⁵  you, but who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ ¹⁶  12:21 So it is with the one who stores up riches for himself, ¹⁷  but is not rich toward God.”

[20:22]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn “God” is understood as the subject of the judgment.

[20:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “the anger of his wrath.”

[20:23]  ⁷ 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.”

[49:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “his glory will not go down after him.”

[73:4]  ⁹ tn In Isa 58:6, the only other occurrence of this word in the OT, the term refers to “bonds” or “ropes.” In Ps 73:4 it is used metaphorically of pain and suffering that restricts one’s enjoyment of life.

[73:4]  ¹⁰ tn Or “bellies.”

[73:4]  ¹¹ tc Or “fat.” The MT of v. 4 reads as follows: “for there are no pains at their death, and fat [is] their body.” Since a reference to the death of the wicked seems incongruous in the immediate context (note v. 5) and premature in the argument of the psalm (see vv. 18-20, 27), some prefer to emend the text by redividing it. The term לְמוֹתָם (lÿmotam,“at their death”) is changed to לָמוֹ תָּם (lamo tam, “[there are no pains] to them, strong [and fat are their bodies]”). The term תָּם (tam, “complete; sound”) is used of physical beauty in Song 5:2; 6:9. This emendation is the basis for the present translation. However, in defense of the MT (the traditional Hebrew text), one may point to an Aramaic inscription from Nerab which views a painful death as a curse and a nonpainful death in one’s old age as a sign of divine favor. See ANET 661.

[73:5]  ¹² tn Heb “in the trouble of man they are not, and with mankind they are not afflicted.”

[12:19]  ¹³ tn Grk “to my soul,” which is repeated as a vocative in the following statement, but is left untranslated as redundant.

[12:20]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ 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]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” The words “for yourself” are not in the Greek text, but are implied.

[12:21]  ¹⁷ sn It is selfishness that is rebuked here, in the accumulation of riches for himself. Recall the emphasis on the first person pronouns throughout the parable.