Job 34:14-15

34:14 If God ¹  were to set his heart on it, ² 

and gather in his spirit and his breath,

34:15 all flesh would perish together

and human beings would return to dust.

Job 34:19-24

34:19 who shows no partiality to princes,

and does not take note of ³  the rich more than the poor,

because all of them are the work of his hands?

34:20 In a moment they die, in the middle of the night, ⁴ 

people ⁵  are shaken ⁶  and they pass away.

The mighty are removed effortlessly. ⁷ 

34:21 For his eyes are on the ways of an individual,

he observes all a person’s ⁸  steps.

34:22 There is no darkness, and no deep darkness,

where evildoers can hide themselves. ⁹ 

34:23 For he does not still consider a person, ¹⁰ 

that he should come before God in judgment.

34:24 He shatters the great without inquiry, ¹¹ 

and sets up others in their place.

[34:14]  ¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:14]  ² tc This is the reading following the Qere. The Kethib and the Syriac and the LXX suggest a reading יָשִׂים (yasim, “if he [God] recalls”). But this would require leaving out “his heart,” and would also require redividing the verse to make “his spirit” the object. It makes better parallelism, but may require too many changes.

[34:19]  ³ tn The verb means “to give recognition; to take note of” and in this passage with לִפְנֵי (lifne, “before”) it means to show preferential treatment to the rich before the poor. The word for “rich” here is an unusual word, found parallel to “noble” (Isa 32:2). P. Joüon thinks it is a term of social distinction (Bib 18 [1937]: 207-8).

[34:20]  ⁴ tn Dhorme transposes “in the middle of the night” with “they pass away” to get a smoother reading. But the MT emphasizes the suddenness by putting both temporal ideas first. E. F. Sutcliffe leaves the order as it stands in the text, but adds a verb “they expire” after “in the middle of the night” (“Notes on Job, textual and exegetical,” Bib 30 [1949]: 79ff.).

[34:20]  ⁵ tn R. Gordis (Job, 389) thinks “people” here mean the people who count, the upper class.

[34:20]  ⁶ tn The verb means “to be violently agitated.” There is no problem with the word in this context, but commentators have made suggestions for improving the idea. The proposal that has the most to commend it, if one were inclined to choose a new word, is the change to יִגְוָעוּ (yigva’u, “they expire”; so Ball, Holscher, Fohrer, and others).

[34:20]  ⁷ tn Heb “not by hand.” This means without having to use force.

[34:21]  ⁸ tn Heb “his”; the referent (a person) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:22]  ⁹ tn The construction of this colon uses the Niphal infinitive construct from סָתַר (satar, “to be hidden; to hide”). The resumptive adverb makes this a relative clause in its usage: “where the evildoers can hide themselves.”

[34:23]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “for he does not put upon man yet.” This has been given a wide variety of interpretations, all of which involve a lot of additional thoughts. The word עוֹד (’od, “yet, still”) has been replaced with מוֹעֵד (mo’ed, “an appointed time,” Reiske and Wright), with the ם (mem) having dropped out by haplography. This makes good sense. If the MT is retained, the best interpretation would be that God does not any more consider (from “place upon the heart”) man, that he might appear in judgment.

[34:24]  ¹¹ tn Heb “[with] no investigation.”