Job 27:13-15

27:13 This is the portion of the wicked man

allotted by God, ¹ 

the inheritance that evildoers receive

from the Almighty.

27:14 If his children increase – it is for the sword! ² 

His offspring never have enough to eat. ³ 

27:15 Those who survive him are buried by the plague, ⁴ 

and their ⁵  widows do not mourn for them.

[27:13]  ¹ tn The expression “allotted by God” interprets the simple prepositional phrase in the text: “with/from God.”

[27:14]  ² tn R. Gordis (Job, 294) identifies this as a breviloquence. Compare Ps 92:8 where the last two words also constitute the apodosis.

[27:14]  ³ tn Heb “will not be satisfied with bread/food.”

[27:15]  ⁴ tn The text says “will be buried in/by death.” A number of passages in the Bible use “death” to mean the plague that kills (see Jer 15:2; Isa 28:3; and BDB 89 s.v. בְּ 2.a). In this sense it is like the English expression for the plague, “the Black Death.”

[27:15]  ⁵ tc The LXX has “their widows” to match the plural, and most commentators harmonize in the same way.