Job 5:3

5:3 I myself ¹  have seen the fool ²  taking root,

but suddenly I cursed his place of residence. ³ 

Job 8:15

8:15 He leans against his house but it does not hold up, ⁴ 

he takes hold ⁵  of it but it does not stand.

Job 18:14-21

18:14 He is dragged from the security of his tent, ⁶ 

and marched off ⁷  to the king ⁸  of terrors.

18:15 Fire resides in his tent; ⁹ 

over his residence burning sulfur is scattered.

18:16 Below his roots dry up,

and his branches wither above.

18:17 His memory perishes from the earth,

he has no name in the land. ¹⁰ 

18:18 He is driven ¹¹  from light into darkness

and is banished from the world.

18:19 He has neither children nor descendants ¹²  among his people,

no survivor in those places he once stayed. ¹³ 

18:20 People of the west ¹⁴  are appalled at his fate; ¹⁵ 

people of the east are seized with horror, ¹⁶  saying, ¹⁷ 

18:21 ‘Surely such is the residence ¹⁸  of an evil man;

and this is the place of one who has not known God.’” ¹⁹ 

Job 21:28-30

21:28 For you say,

‘Where now is the nobleman’s house, ²⁰ 

and where are the tents in which the wicked lived?’ ²¹ 

21:29 Have you never questioned those who travel the roads?

Do you not recognize their accounts ²²  –

21:30 that the evil man is spared

from the day of his misfortune,

that he is delivered ²³ 

from the day of God’s wrath?

Job 27:13-23

27:13 This is the portion of the wicked man

allotted by God, ²⁴ 

the inheritance that evildoers receive

from the Almighty.

27:14 If his children increase – it is for the sword! ²⁵ 

His offspring never have enough to eat. ²⁶ 

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

and their ²⁸  widows do not mourn for them.

27:16 If he piles up silver like dust

and stores up clothing like mounds of clay,

27:17 what he stores up ²⁹  a righteous man will wear,

and an innocent man will inherit his silver.

27:18 The house he builds is as fragile as a moth’s cocoon, ³⁰ 

like a hut ³¹  that a watchman has made.

27:19 He goes to bed wealthy, but will do so no more. ³² 

When he opens his eyes, it is all gone. ³³ 

27:20 Terrors overwhelm him like a flood; ³⁴ 

at night a whirlwind carries him off.

27:21 The east wind carries him away, and he is gone;

it sweeps him out of his place.

27:22 It hurls itself against him without pity ³⁵ 

as he flees headlong from its power.

27:23 It claps ³⁶  its hands at him in derision

and hisses him away from his place. ³⁷ 

Psalms 37:35-36

37:35 I have seen ruthless evil men ³⁸ 

growing in influence, like a green tree grows in its native soil. ³⁹ 

37:36 But then one passes by, and suddenly they have disappeared! ⁴⁰ 

I looked for them, but they could not be found.

Psalms 52:5

52:5 Yet ⁴¹  God will make you a permanent heap of ruins. ⁴² 

He will scoop you up ⁴³  and remove you from your home; ⁴⁴ 

he will uproot you from the land of the living. (Selah)

Psalms 107:43

107:43 Whoever is wise, let him take note of these things!

Let them consider the Lord’s acts of loyal love!

Hosea 14:9

Concluding Exhortation

14:9 Who is wise?

Let him discern ⁴⁵  these things!

Who is discerning?

Let him understand them!

For the ways of the Lord are right;

the godly walk in them,

but in them the rebellious stumble.

Habakkuk 2:9-12

2:9 The one who builds his house by unjust gain is as good as dead. ⁴⁶ 

He does this so he can build his nest way up high

and escape the clutches of disaster. ⁴⁷ 

2:10 Your schemes will bring shame to your house.

Because you destroyed many nations, you will self-destruct. ⁴⁸ 

2:11 For the stones in the walls will cry out,

and the wooden rafters will answer back. ⁴⁹ 

2:12 The one who builds a city by bloodshed is as good as dead ⁵⁰  –

he who starts ⁵¹  a town by unjust deeds.

[5:3]  ¹ tn The use of the pronoun here adds emphasis to the subject of the sentence (see GKC 437 §135.a).

[5:3]  ² tn This word is אֱוִיל (’evil), the same word for the “senseless man” in the preceding verse. Eliphaz is citing an example of his principle just given – he saw such a fool for a brief while appearing to prosper (i.e., taking root).

[5:3]  ³ tn A. B. Davidson argues that the verse does not mean that Eliphaz cursed his place during his prosperity. This line is metonymical (giving the effect). God judged the fool and his place was ruined; consequently, Eliphaz pronounced it accursed of God (see A. B. Davidson, Job, 36). Many emend the verb slightly to read “and it was suddenly cursed” (וַיֻּכַב [vayyukhav] instead of וָאֶקּוֹב [va’eqqov]; see H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 51).

[8:15]  ⁴ tn The verb עָמַד (’amad, “to stand”) is almost synonymous with the parallel קוּם (qum, “to rise; to stand”). The distinction is that the former means “to remain standing” (so it is translated here “hold up”), and the latter “rise, stand up.”

[8:15]  ⁵ sn The idea is that he grabs hold of the house, not to hold it up, but to hold himself up or support himself. But it cannot support him. This idea applies to both the spider’s web and the false security of the pagan.

[18:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “from his tent, his security.” The apposition serves to modify the tent as his security.

[18:14]  ⁷ tn The verb is the Hiphil of צָעַד (tsa’ad, “to lead away”). The problem is that the form is either a third feminine (Rashi thought it was referring to Job’s wife) or the second person. There is a good deal of debate over the possibility of the prefix t- being a variant for the third masculine form. The evidence in Ugaritic and Akkadian is mixed, stronger for the plural than the singular. Gesenius has some samples where the third feminine form might also be used for the passive if there is no expressed subject (see GKC 459 §144.b), but the evidence is not strong. The simplest choices are to change the prefix to a י (yod), or argue that the ת (tav) can be masculine, or follow Gesenius.

[18:14]  ⁸ sn This is a reference to death, the king of all terrors. Other identifications are made in the commentaries: Mot, the Ugaritic god of death; Nergal of the Babylonians; Molech of the Canaanites, the one to whom people sent emissaries.

[18:15]  ⁹ tn This line is difficult as well. The verb, again a third feminine form, says “it dwells in his tent.” But the next part (מִבְּלִי לוֹ, mibbÿli lo) means something like “things of what are not his.” The best that can be made of the MT is “There shall live in his tent they that are not his” (referring to persons and animals; see J. E. Hartley, Job [NICOT], 279). G. R. Driver and G. B. Gray (Job [ICC], 2:161) refer “that which is naught of his” to weeds and wild animals. M. Dahood suggested a reading מַבֶּל (mabbel) and a connection to Akkadian nablu, “fire” (cf. Ugaritic nbl). The interchange of m and n is not a problem, and the parallelism with the next line makes good sense (“Some Northwest Semitic words in Job,” Bib 38 [1957]: 312ff.). Others suggest an emendation to get “night-hag” or vampire. This suggestion, as well as Driver’s “mixed herbs,” are linked to the idea of exorcism. But if a change is to be made, Dahood’s is the most compelling.

[18:17]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “outside.” Cf. ESV, “in the street,” referring to absence from his community’s memory.

[18:18]  ¹¹ tn The verbs in this verse are plural; without the expressed subject they should be taken in the passive sense.

[18:19]  ¹² tn The two words נִין (nin, “offspring”) and נֶכֶד (nekhed, “posterity”) are always together and form an alliteration. This is hard to capture in English, but some have tried: Moffatt had “son and scion,” and Tur-Sinai had “breed or brood.” But the words are best simply translated as “lineage and posterity” or as in the NIV “offspring or descendants.”

[18:19]  ¹³ tn Heb “in his sojournings.” The verb גּוּר (gur) means “to reside; to sojourn” temporarily, without land rights. Even this word has been selected to stress the temporary nature of his stay on earth.

[18:20]  ¹⁴ tn The word אַחֲרֹנִים (’akharonim) means “those [men] coming after.” And the next word, קַדְמֹנִים (qadmonim), means “those [men] coming before.” Some commentators have tried to see here references to people who lived before and people who lived after, but that does not explain their being appalled at the fate of the wicked. So the normal way this is taken is in connection to the geography, notably the seas – “the hinder sea” refers to the Mediterranean, the West, and “the front sea” refers to the Dead Sea (Zech 14:8), namely, the East. The versions understood this as temporal: “the last groaned for him, and wonder seized the first” (LXX).

[18:20]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “his day.”

[18:20]  ¹⁶ tn The expression has “they seize horror.” The RSV renders this “horror seizes them.” The same idiom is found in Job 21:6: “laid hold on shuddering.” The idiom would solve the grammatical problem, and not change the meaning greatly; but it would change the parallelism.

[18:20]  ¹⁷ tn The word “saying” is supplied in the translation to mark and introduce the following as a quotation of these people who are seized with horror. The alternative is to take v. 21 as Bildad’s own summary statement (cf. G. R. Driver and G. B. Gray, Job [ICC], 2:162; J. E. Hartley, Job [NICOT], 280).

[18:21]  ¹⁸ tn The term is in the plural, “the tabernacles”; it should be taken as a plural of local extension (see GKC 397 §124.b).

[18:21]  ¹⁹ tn The word “place” is in construct; the clause following it replaces the genitive: “this is the place of – he has not known God.”

[21:28]  ²⁰ sn The question implies the answer will be “vanished” or “gone.”

[21:28]  ²¹ tn Heb “And where is the tent, the dwellings of the wicked.” The word “dwellings of the wicked” is in apposition to “tent.” A relative pronoun must be supplied in the translation.

[21:29]  ²² tc The LXX reads, “Ask those who go by the way, and do not disown their signs.”

[21:30]  ²³ tn The verb means “to be led forth.” To be “led forth in the day of trouble” means to be delivered.

[27:13]  ²⁴ tn The expression “allotted by God” interprets the simple prepositional phrase in the text: “with/from God.”

[27:14]  ²⁵ 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]  ²⁶ tn Heb “will not be satisfied with bread/food.”

[27:15]  ²⁷ 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]  ²⁸ tc The LXX has “their widows” to match the plural, and most commentators harmonize in the same way.

[27:17]  ²⁹ tn The text simply repeats the verb from the last clause. It could be treated as a separate short clause: “He may store it up, but the righteous will wear it. But it also could be understood as the object of the following verb, “[what] he stores up the righteous will wear.” The LXX simply has, “All these things shall the righteous gain.”

[27:18]  ³⁰ tn Heb כָעָשׁ (kha’ash, “like a moth”), but this leaves room for clarification. Some commentators wanted to change it to “bird’s nest” or just “nest” (cf. NRSV) to make the parallelism; see Job 4:14. But the word is not found. The LXX has a double expression, “as moths, as a spider.” So several take it as the spider’s web, which is certainly unsubstantial (cf. NAB, NASB, NLT; see Job 8:14).

[27:18]  ³¹ tn The Hebrew word is the word for “booth,” as in the Feast of Booths. The word describes something that is flimsy; it is not substantial at all.

[27:19]  ³² tc The verb is the Niphal יֵאָסֵף (ye’asef), from אָסַף (’asaf, “to gather”). So, “he lies down rich, but he is not gathered.” This does not make much sense. It would mean “he will not be gathered for burial,” but that does not belong here. Many commentators accept the variant יֹאסִף (yo’sif) stood for יוֹסִיף (yosif, “will [not] add”). This is what the LXX and the Syriac have. This leads to the interpretive translation that “he will do so no longer.”

[27:19]  ³³ tn Heb “and he is not.” One view is that this must mean that he dies, not that his wealth is gone. R. Gordis (Job, 295) says the first part should be made impersonal: “when one opens one’s eyes, the wicked is no longer there.” E. Dhorme (Job, 396) has it more simply: “He has opened his eyes, and it is for the last time.” But the other view is that the wealth goes overnight. In support of this is the introduction into the verse of the wealthy. The RSV, NRSV, ESV, and NLT take it that “wealth is gone.”

[27:20]  ³⁴ tn Many commentators want a word parallel to “in the night.” And so we are offered בַּיּוֹם (bayyom, “in the day”) for כַמַּיִם (khammayim, “like waters”) as well as a number of others. But “waters” sometimes stand for major calamities, and so may be retained here. Besides, not all parallel structures are synonymous.

[27:22]  ³⁵ tn The verb is once again functioning in an adverbial sense. The text has “it hurls itself against him and shows no mercy.”

[27:23]  ³⁶ tn If the same subject is to be carried through here, it is the wind. That would make this a bold personification, perhaps suggesting the force of the wind. Others argue that it is unlikely that the wind claps its hands. They suggest taking the verb with an indefinite subject: “he claps” means “one claps. The idea is that of people rejoicing when the wicked are gone. But the parallelism is against this unless the second line is changed as well. R. Gordis (Job, 296) has “men will clap their hands…men will whistle upon him.”

[27:23]  ³⁷ tn Or “hisses at him from its place” (ESV).

[37:35]  ³⁸ tn The Hebrew uses the representative singular again here.

[37:35]  ³⁹ tn Heb “being exposed [?] like a native, luxuriant.” The Hebrew form מִתְעָרֶה (mit’areh) appears to be a Hitpael participle from עָרָה (’arah, “be exposed”), but this makes no sense in this context. Perhaps the form is a dialectal variant of מִתְעָלָה (“giving oneself an air of importance”; see Jer 51:3), from עָלָה (’alah, “go up”; see P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 [WBC], 296). The noun אֶזְרָח (’ezrakh, “native, full citizen”) refers elsewhere to people, but here, where it is collocated with “luxuriant, green,” it probably refers to a tree growing in native soil.

[37:36]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “and he passes by and, look, he is not [there].” The subject of the verb “passes by” is probably indefinite, referring to any passerby. Some prefer to change the form to first person, “and I passed by” (cf. NEB; note the first person verbal forms in preceding verse and in the following line).

[52:5]  ⁴¹ tn The adverb גַּם (gam, “also; even”) is translated here in an adversative sense (“yet”). It highlights the contrastive correspondence between the evildoer’s behavior and God’s response.

[52:5]  ⁴² tn Heb “will tear you down forever.”

[52:5]  ⁴³ tn This rare verb (חָתָה, khatah) occurs only here and in Prov 6:27; 25:22; Isa 30:14.

[52:5]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “from [your] tent.”

[14:9]  ⁴⁵ tn The shortened form of the prefix-conjugation verb וְיָבֵן (vÿyaven) indicates that it is a jussive rather than an imperfect. When a jussive comes from a superior to an inferior, it may connote exhortation and instruction or advice and counsel. For the functions of the jussive, see IBHS 568-70 §34.3.

[2:9]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who profits unjustly by evil unjust gain for his house.” On the term הוֹי (hoy) see the note on the word “dead” in v. 6.

[2:9]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “to place his nest in the heights in order to escape from the hand of disaster.”

[2:10]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “you planned shame for your house, cutting off many nations, and sinning [against] your life.”

[2:11]  ⁴⁹ sn The house mentioned in vv. 9-10 represents the Babylonian empire, which became great through imperialism. Here the materials of this “house” (the stones in the walls, the wooden rafters) are personified as witnesses who testify that the occupants have built the house through wealth stolen from others.

[2:12]  ⁵⁰ tn On the term הוֹי (hoy) see the note on the word “dead” in v. 6.

[2:12]  ⁵¹ tn Or “establishes”; or “founds.”