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17 For all of them,[a] the morning is to them like deep darkness;
they are friends with the terrors of darkness.
18 [b] “You say,[c] ‘He is foam[d] on the face of the waters;[e]

their portion of the land is cursed
so that no one goes to their vineyard.[f]
19 The drought[g] as well as the heat
snatch up the melted snow;[h]
so the grave[i] snatches up the sinner.[j]

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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.”

17 For all of them, midnight is their morning;
    they make friends with the terrors(A) of darkness.(B)

18 “Yet they are foam(C) on the surface of the water;(D)
    their portion of the land is cursed,(E)
    so that no one goes to the vineyards.(F)
19 As heat and drought snatch away the melted snow,(G)
    so the grave(H) snatches away those who have sinned.

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