Job 9:13

9:13 God does not restrain his anger; ¹ 

under him the helpers of Rahab ²  lie crushed. ³ 

Job 34:20

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 

Psalms 33:16-17

33:16 No king is delivered by his vast army;

a warrior is not saved by his great might.

33:17 A horse disappoints those who trust in it for victory; ⁸ 

despite its great strength, it cannot deliver.

Proverbs 11:21

11:21 Be assured that ⁹  the evil person will certainly be punished, ¹⁰ 

but the descendants of the righteous ¹¹  will not suffer unjust judgment. ¹² 

Isaiah 37:36

37:36 The Lord’s messenger ¹³  went out and killed 185,000 troops ¹⁴  in the Assyrian camp. When they ¹⁵  got up early the next morning, there were all the corpses! ¹⁶ 

[9:13]  ¹ sn The meaning of the line is that God’s anger will continue until it has accomplished its purpose (23:13-14).

[9:13]  ² sn “Rahab” is not to be confused with the harlot of the same name from Jericho. “Rahab” is identified with Tiamat of the Babylonian creation epic, or Leviathan of the Canaanite myths. It is also used in parallelism to the sea (26:12), or the Red Sea (Ps 74:13), and so comes to symbolize Egypt (Isa 30:7). In the Babylonian Creation Epic there is reference to the helpers of Tiamat. In the Bible the reference is only to the raging sea, which the Lord controlled at creation.

[9:13]  ³ tn The verb שָׁחַח (shakhakh) means “to be prostrate” or “to crouch.” Here the enemies are prostrate under the feet of God – they are crushed.

[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.

[33:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “a lie [is] the horse for victory.”

[11:21]  ⁹ tn The expression “hand to hand” refers the custom of striking hands to confirm an agreement (M. Anbar, “Proverbes 11:21; 16:15; יד ליד, «sur le champ»,” Bib 53 [1972]: 537-38). Tg. Prov 11:21 interprets it differently: “he who lifts up his hand against his neighbor will not go unpunished.”

[11:21]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “will not be free.” The verb נָקָה (naqah) means “to be clean; to be empty.” In the Niphal it means “to be free of guilt; to be clean; to be innocent,” and therefore “to be exempt from punishment” (BDB 667 s.v. Niph). The phrase “will not go unpunished” (cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV) is an example of tapeinosis (a negative statement that emphasizes the positive opposite statement): “will certainly be punished” (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).

[11:21]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the seed of the righteous.” This is an idiom that describes a class of people who share the nature of righteousness (e.g., Isa 1:4; 65:23). The word “seed” (hypocatastasis) means “offspring.” Some take it literally, as if it meant that the children of the righteous will escape judgment (Saadia, a Jewish scholar who lived a.d. 882-942). The LXX translates it in a different sense: “he that sows righteousness will receive a faithful reward.”

[11:21]  ¹² tn Heb “will be delivered” (so NASB). The phrase “from unjust judgment” does not appear in the Hebrew but is implied by the idiom.

[37:36]  ¹³ tn Traditionally, “the angel of the Lord” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[37:36]  ¹⁴ tn The word “troops” is supplied in the translation for smoothness and clarity.

[37:36]  ¹⁵ tn This refers to the Israelites and/or the rest of the Assyrian army.

[37:36]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “look, all of them were dead bodies”; NLT “they found corpses everywhere.”