Job 4:7

4:7 Call to mind now: ¹ 

Who, ²  being innocent, ever perished? ³ 

And where were upright people ⁴  ever destroyed? ⁵ 

Job 11:20

11:20 But the eyes of the wicked fail, ⁶ 

and escape ⁷  eludes them;

their one hope ⁸  is to breathe their last.” ⁹ 

Job 18:17

18:17 His memory perishes from the earth,

he has no name in the land. ¹⁰ 

[4:7]  ¹ sn Eliphaz will put his thesis forward first negatively and then positively (vv. 8ff). He will argue that the suffering of the righteous is disciplinary and not for their destruction. He next will argue that it is the wicked who deserve judgment.

[4:7]  ² tn The use of the independent personal pronoun is emphatic, almost as an enclitic to emphasize interrogatives: “who indeed….” (GKC 442 §136.c).

[4:7]  ³ tn The perfect verb in this line has the nuance of the past tense to express the unique past – the uniqueness of the action is expressed with “ever” (“who has ever perished”).

[4:7]  ⁴ tn The adjective is used here substantivally. Without the article the word stresses the meaning of “uprightness.” Job will use “innocent” and “upright” together in 17:8.

[4:7]  ⁵ tn The Niphal means “to be hidden” (see the Piel in 6:10; 15:18; and 27:11); the connotation here is “destroyed” or “annihilated.”

[11:20]  ⁶ tn The verb כָּלָה (kalah) means “to fail, cease, fade away.” The fading of the eyes, i.e., loss of sight, loss of life’s vitality, indicates imminent death.

[11:20]  ⁷ tn Heb a “place of escape” (with this noun pattern). There is no place to escape to because they all perish.

[11:20]  ⁸ tn The word is to be interpreted as a metonymy; it represents what is hoped for.

[11:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “the breathing out of the soul”; cf. KJV, ASV “the giving up of the ghost.” The line is simply saying that the brightest hope that the wicked have is death.

[18:17]  ¹¹ tn Heb “outside.” Cf. ESV, “in the street,” referring to absence from his community’s memory.