Job 31:16

31:16 If I have refused to give the poor what they desired, ¹ 

or caused the eyes of the widow to fail,

Leviticus 26:16

26:16 I for my part ²  will do this to you: I will inflict horror on you, consumption and fever, which diminish eyesight and drain away the vitality of life. ³  You will sow your seed in vain because ⁴  your enemies will eat it. ⁵ 

Deuteronomy 28:65

28:65 Among those nations you will have no rest nor will there be a place of peaceful rest for the soles of your feet, for there the Lord will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a spirit of despair.

Psalms 69:3

69:3 I am exhausted from shouting for help;

my throat is sore; ⁶ 

my eyes grow tired of looking for my God. ⁷ 

Lamentations 4:17

The People of Jerusalem Lament:

ע (Ayin)

4:17 Our eyes continually failed us

as we looked in vain for help. ⁸ 

From our watchtowers we watched

for a nation that could not rescue us.

[31:16]  ¹ tn Heb “kept the poor from [their] desire.”

[26:16]  ² tn Or “I also” (see HALOT 76 s.v. אַף 6.b).

[26:16]  ³ tn Heb “soul.” These expressions may refer either to the physical effects of consumption and fever as the rendering in the text suggests (e.g., J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 452, 454, “diminishing eyesight and loss of appetite”), or perhaps the more psychological effects, “which exhausts the eyes” because of anxious hope “and causes depression” (Heb “causes soul [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh] to pine away”), e.g., B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 185.

[26:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have causal force here.

[26:16]  ⁵ tn That is, “your enemies will eat” the produce that grows from the sown seed.

[69:3]  ⁶ tn Or perhaps “raw”; Heb “burned; enflamed.”

[69:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “my eyes fail from waiting for my God.” The psalmist has intently kept his eyes open, looking for God to intervene, but now his eyes are watery and bloodshot, impairing his vision.

[4:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “Our eyes failed in vain for help.”