Job 20:7-9

20:7 he will perish forever, like his own excrement; ¹ 

those who used to see him will say, ‘Where is he?’

20:8 Like a dream he flies away, never again to be found, ² 

and like a vision of the night he is put to flight.

20:9 People ³  who had seen him will not see him again,

and the place where he was

will recognize him no longer.

Psalms 58:9

58:9 Before the kindling is even placed under your pots, ⁴ 

he ⁵  will sweep it away along with both the raw and cooked meat. ⁶ 

Psalms 73:19-20

73:19 How desolate they become in a mere moment!

Terrifying judgments make their demise complete! ⁷ 

73:20 They are like a dream after one wakes up. ⁸ 

O Lord, when you awake ⁹  you will despise them. ¹⁰ 

[20:7]  ¹ tn There have been attempts to change the word here to “like a whirlwind,” or something similar. But many argue that there is no reason to remove a coarse expression from Zophar.

[20:8]  ² tn Heb “and they do not find him.” The verb has no expressed subject, and so here is equivalent to a passive. The clause itself is taken adverbially in the sentence.

[20:9]  ³ tn Heb “the eye that had seen him.” Here a part of the person (the eye, the instrument of vision) is put by metonymy for the entire person.

[58:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “before your pots perceive thorns.”

[58:9]  ⁵ tn Apparently God (v. 6) is the subject of the verb here.

[58:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “like living, like burning anger he will sweep it away.” The meaning of the text is unclear. The translation assumes that within the cooking metaphor (see the previous line) חַי (khay, “living”) refers here to raw meat (as in 1 Sam 2:15, where it modifies בָּשָׂר, basar, “flesh”) and that חָרוּן (kharun; which always refers to God’s “burning anger” elsewhere) here refers to food that is cooked. The pronominal suffix on the verb “sweep away” apparently refers back to the “thorns” of the preceding line. The image depicts swift and sudden judgment. Before the fire has been adequately kindled and all the meat cooked, the winds of judgment will sweep away everything in their path.

[73:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “they come to an end, they are finished, from terrors.”

[73:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “like a dream from awakening.” They lack any real substance; their prosperity will last for only a brief time.

[73:20]  ⁹ sn When you awake. The psalmist compares God’s inactivity to sleep and the time of God’s judgment to his awakening from sleep.

[73:20]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “you will despise their form.” The Hebrew term צֶלֶם (tselem, “form; image”) also suggests their short-lived nature. Rather than having real substance, they are like the mere images that populate one’s dreams. Note the similar use of the term in Ps 39:6.