Job 3:15

3:15 or with princes who possessed gold, ¹ 

who filled their palaces ²  with silver.

Job 21:9

21:9 Their houses are safe ³  and without fear; ⁴ 

and no rod of punishment ⁵  from God is upon them. ⁶ 

Job 22:18

22:18 But it was he ⁷  who filled their houses

with good things –

yet the counsel of the wicked ⁸ 

was far from me. ⁹ 

[3:15]  ¹ tn The expression simply has “or with princes gold to them.” The noun is defined by the noun clause serving as a relative clause (GKC 486 §155.e).

[3:15]  ² tn Heb “filled their houses.” There is no reason here to take “houses” to mean tombs; the “houses” refer to the places the princes lived (i.e., palaces). The reference is not to the practice of burying treasures with the dead. It is simply saying that if Job had died he would have been with the rich and famous in death.

[21:9]  ³ tn The word שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace, safety”) is here a substantive after a plural subject (see GKC 452 §141.c, n. 3).

[21:9]  ⁴ tn The form מִפָּחַד (mippakhad) is translated “without fear,” literally “from fear”; the preposition is similar to the alpha privative in Greek. The word “fear, dread” means nothing that causes fear or dread – they are peaceful, secure. See GKC 382 §119.w.

[21:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “no rod of God.” The words “punishment from” have been supplied in the translation to make the metaphor understandable for the modern reader by stating the purpose of the rod.

[21:9]  ⁶ sn In 9:34 Job was complaining that there was no umpire to remove God’s rod from him, but here he observes no such rod is on the wicked.

[22:18]  ⁵ tn The pronoun is added for this emphasis; it has “but he” before the verb.

[22:18]  ⁶ tn See Job 10:3.

[22:18]  ⁷ tc The LXX has “from him,” and this is followed by several commentators. But the MT is to be retained, for Eliphaz is recalling the words of Job. Verses 17 and 18 are deleted by a number of commentators as a gloss because they have many similarities to 21:14-16. But Eliphaz is recalling what Job said, in order to say that the prosperity to which Job alluded was only the prelude to a disaster he denied (H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 156).