Job 9:24

9:24 If a land ¹  has been given

into the hand of a wicked man, ² 

he covers ³  the faces of its judges; ⁴ 

if it is not he, then who is it? ⁵ 

Job 15:20

15:20 All his days ⁶  the wicked man suffers torment, ⁷ 

throughout the number of the years

that ⁸  are stored up for the tyrant. ⁹ 

Job 27:13

27:13 This is the portion of the wicked man

allotted by God, ¹⁰ 

the inheritance that evildoers receive

from the Almighty.

Job 34:8

34:8 He goes about ¹¹  in company ¹²  with evildoers,

he goes along ¹³  with wicked men. ¹⁴ 

[9:24]  ¹ tn Some would render this “earth,” meaning the whole earth, and having the verse be a general principle for all mankind. But Job may have in mind the more specific issue of individual land.

[9:24]  ² sn The details of the verse are not easy to explain, but the meaning of the whole verse seems to be about the miscarriage of justice in the courts and the failure of God to do anything about it.

[9:24]  ³ tn The subject of the verb is God. The reasoning goes this way: it is the duty of judges to make sure that justice prevails, that restitution and restoration are carried through; but when the wicked gain control of the land of other people, and the judges are ineffective to stop it, then God must be veiling their eyes.

[9:24]  ⁴ sn That these words are strong, if not wild, is undeniable. But Job is only taking the implications of his friends’ speeches to their logical conclusion – if God dispenses justice in the world, and there is no justice, then God is behind it all. The LXX omitted these words, perhaps out of reverence for God.

[9:24]  ⁵ tn This seems to be a broken-off sentence (anacoluthon), and so is rather striking. The scribes transposed the words אֵפוֹא (’efo’) and הוּא (hu’) to make the smoother reading: “If it is not he, who then is it?”

[15:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “all the days of the wicked, he suffers.” The word “all” is an adverbial accusative of time, stating along with its genitives (“of the days of a wicked man”) how long the individual suffers. When the subject is composed of a noun in construct followed by a genitive, the predicate sometimes agrees with the genitive (see GKC 467 §146.a).

[15:20]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew term מִתְחוֹלֵל (mitkholel) is a Hitpolel participle from חִיל (khil, “to tremble”). It carries the idea of “torment oneself,” or “be tormented.” Some have changed the letter ח (khet) for a letter ה (he), and obtained the meaning “shows himself mad.” Theodotion has “is mad.” Syriac (“behave arrogantly,” apparently confusing Hebrew חול with חלל; Heidi M. Szpek, Translation Technique in the Peshitta to Job [SBLDS], 277), Symmachus, and Vulgate have “boasts himself.” But the reading of the MT is preferable.

[15:20]  ⁸ tn It is necessary, with Rashi, to understand the relative pronoun before the verb “they are stored up/reserved.”

[15:20]  ⁹ tn This has been translated with the idea of “oppressor” in Job 6:23; 27:13.

[27:13]  ¹¹ tn The expression “allotted by God” interprets the simple prepositional phrase in the text: “with/from God.”

[34:8]  ¹⁶ tn The perfect verb with the vav (ו) consecutive carries the sequence forward from the last description.

[34:8]  ¹⁷ tn The word חֶבְרַה (khevrah, “company”) is a hapax legomenon. But its meaning is clear enough from the connections to related words and this context as well.

[34:8]  ¹⁸ tn The infinitive construct with the ל (lamed) preposition may continue the clause with the finite verb (see GKC 351 §114.p).

[34:8]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “men of wickedness”; the genitive is attributive (= “wicked men”).