Job 11:20

11:20 But the eyes of the wicked fail, 1 

and escape 2  eludes them;

their one hope 3  is to breathe their last.” 4 

Job 15:15

15:15 If God places no trust in his holy ones, 5 

if even the heavens 6  are not pure in his eyes,

Job 19:15

19:15 My guests 7  and my servant girls

consider 8  me a stranger;

I am a foreigner 9  in their eyes.

Job 27:19

27:19 He goes to bed wealthy, but will do so no more. 10 

When he opens his eyes, it is all gone. 11 

Job 31:16

31:16 If I have refused to give the poor what they desired, 12 

or caused the eyes of the widow to fail,

Job 32:1

V. The Speeches of Elihu (32:1-37:24)

Elihu’s First Speech 13 

32:1 So these three men refused to answer 14  Job further, because he was righteous in his 15  own eyes.

Job 34:21

34:21 For his eyes are on the ways of an individual,

he observes all a person’s 16  steps.

1 tn The verb כָּלָה (kalah) means “to fail, cease, fade away.” The fading of the eyes, i.e., loss of sight, loss of life’s vitality, indicates imminent death.

2 tn Heb a “place of escape” (with this noun pattern). There is no place to escape to because they all perish.

3 tn The word is to be interpreted as a metonymy; it represents what is hoped for.

4 tn Heb “the breathing out of the soul”; cf. KJV, ASV “the giving up of the ghost.” The line is simply saying that the brightest hope that the wicked have is death.

5 tn Eliphaz here reiterates the point made in Job 4:18.

6 sn The question here is whether the reference is to material “heavens” (as in Exod 24:10 and Job 25:5), or to heavenly beings. The latter seems preferable in this context.

7 tn The Hebrew גָּרֵי בֵיתִי (gare beti, “the guests of my house”) refers to those who sojourned in my house – not residents, but guests.

8 tn The form of the verb is a feminine plural, which would seem to lend support to the proposed change of the lines (see last note to v. 14). But the form may be feminine primarily because of the immediate reference. On the other side, the suffix of “their eyes” is a masculine plural. So the evidence lies on both sides.

9 tn This word נָכְרִי (nokhri) is the person from another race, from a strange land, the foreigner. The previous word, גֵּר (ger), is a more general word for someone who is staying in the land but is not a citizen, a sojourner.

10 tc The verb is the Niphal יֵאָסֵף (ye’asef), from אָסַף (’asaf, “to gather”). So, “he lies down rich, but he is not gathered.” This does not make much sense. It would mean “he will not be gathered for burial,” but that does not belong here. Many commentators accept the variant יֹאסִף (yo’sif) stood for יוֹסִיף (yosif, “will [not] add”). This is what the LXX and the Syriac have. This leads to the interpretive translation that “he will do so no longer.”

11 tn Heb “and he is not.” One view is that this must mean that he dies, not that his wealth is gone. R. Gordis (Job, 295) says the first part should be made impersonal: “when one opens one’s eyes, the wicked is no longer there.” E. Dhorme (Job, 396) has it more simply: “He has opened his eyes, and it is for the last time.” But the other view is that the wealth goes overnight. In support of this is the introduction into the verse of the wealthy. The RSV, NRSV, ESV, and NLT take it that “wealth is gone.”

12 tn Heb “kept the poor from [their] desire.”

13 sn There are now four speeches from another friend of Job, Elihu. But Job does not reply to any of these, nor does the Lord. The speeches show a knowledge of the debate that has gone on, but they take a different approach entirely. Elihu’s approach is that suffering is a discipline from God, to teach his people. In other words, Job was suffering to vindicate God’s confidence in him. His speeches are an interesting part of the book, but they too are irrelevant to Job’s actual case. In the first speech, there is a short introduction (32:1-5), and then the speech proper with these sections: Elihu will speak because his youth is wiser (32:6-14), and his friends arguments failed (32:15-22); he calls for Job’s attention (33:1-7), claims Job’s case is wrong (33:8-13), and Job’s argument that God does not answer is false (33:14-28), and then makes an appeal to Job (33:29-33). It becomes evident that Elihu correctly identified Job’s determination to maintain his integrity at God’s expense as the primary problem in at least the latter stages of the dialogues (32:1-3; 34:37; 35:16; cf. 38:2; 40:8; 42:3). Elihu was respectful of his elders (32:4), but remained uninfected by their error (32:14). He sought to maintain impartiality (32:21-22) and to offer true wisdom (33:33), believed like Job that a mediator existed (33:23-24), and desired Job’s vindication (33:32). In addition, Elihu focused on vindicating God’s actions (34:12; 35:10-11; 36:2-3, 22-26) and announced the coming theophany (37:1-5, 22). It appears that he was not included in the divine condemnation of Job’s friends (42:7-9) and was excluded from Job’s prayer of intercession (42:8-10) – both perhaps implying divine approval of his behavior and words.

14 tn The form is the infinitive construct (“answer”) functioning as the object of the preposition; the phrase forms the complement of the verb “they ceased to answer” (= “they refused to answer further”).

15 tc The LXX, Syriac, and Symmachus have “in their eyes.” This is adopted by some commentators, but it does not fit the argument.

16 tn Heb “his”; the referent (a person) has been specified in the translation for clarity.