Job 27:14-15

27:14 If his children increase – it is for the sword! ¹ 

His offspring never have enough to eat. ² 

27:15 Those who survive him are buried by the plague, ³ 

and their ⁴  widows do not mourn for them.

[27:14]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “will not be satisfied with bread/food.”

[27:15]  ³ 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]  ⁴ tc The LXX has “their widows” to match the plural, and most commentators harmonize in the same way.