Job 24:17-19

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 24:17 tn Heb “together.”
2. Job 24:18 tc Many commentators find vv. 18-24 difficult on the lips of Job, and so identify this unit as a misplaced part of the speech of Zophar. They describe the enormities of the wicked. But a case can also be made for retaining it in this section. Gordis thinks it could be taken as a quotation by Job of his friends’ ideas.
3. Job 24:18 tn The verb “say” is not in the text; it is supplied here to indicate that this is a different section.
4. Job 24:18 tn Or “is swift.”
5. Job 24:18 sn The wicked person is described here as a spray or foam upon the waters, built up in the agitation of the waters but dying away swiftly.
6. Job 24:18 tn The text reads, “he does not turn by the way of the vineyards.” This means that since the land is cursed, he/one does not go there. Bickell emended “the way of the vineyards” to “the treader of the vineyard” (see RSV, NRSV). This would mean that “no wine-presser would turn towards” their vineyards.
7. Job 24:19 tn Or “dryness.” The term צִיָּה (tsiyyah) normally refers to a dry region, a wilderness or desert. Here the focus is on dryness.
8. Job 24:19 tn Heb “the waters of the snow.”
9. Job 24:19 tn Or “Sheol.”
10. Job 24:19 tc Heb “The grave [] they have sinned.” The verb “snatch up/away” is understood by parallelism. If the perfect verb is maintained, the line also implies the relative pronoun, “the grave [snatches] [those who] have sinned.” If the verb is emended from the perfect to a participle by deleting or moving the ו (vav) from חטאו to חוטא, it reads “the grave [snatches] one who sins.”