8:18 If he is uprooted 2 from his place,
then that place 3 will disown him, saying, 4
‘I have never seen you!’
18:20 People of the west 5 are appalled at his fate; 6
people of the east are seized with horror, 7 saying, 8
22:17 They were saying to God, ‘Turn away from us,’
and ‘What can the Almighty do to us?’ 9
1 tn The use of the verb “to be” with the participle gives emphasis to the continuing of the action in the past (GKC 360 §116.r).
2 tc Ball reads אֵל (’el, “God”) instead of אִם (’im, “if”): “God destroys it” – but there is no reason for this. The idea would be implied in the context. A. B. Davidson rightly points out that who destroys it is not important, but the fact that it is destroyed.
tn The Hebrew has “if one destroys it”; the indefinite subject allows for a passive interpretation. The verb means “swallow” in the Qal, but in the Piel it means “to engulf; to destroy; to ruin” (2:3; 10:8). It could here be rendered “removed from its place” (the place where it is rooted); since the picture is that of complete destruction, “uprooted” would be a good rendering.
3 tn Heb “it”; the referent (“his place” in the preceding line) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
sn The place where the plant once grew will deny ever knowing it. Such is the completeness of the uprooting that there is not a trace left.
4 tn Here “saying” is supplied in the translation.
5 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).
6 tn Heb “his day.”
7 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.
8 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).
9 tn The form in the text is “to them.” The LXX and the Syriac versions have “to us.”