21:28 For you say,
‘Where now is the nobleman’s house, 1
and where are the tents in which the wicked lived?’ 2
21:29 Have you never questioned those who travel the roads?
Do you not recognize their accounts 3 –
21:30 that the evil man is spared
from the day of his misfortune,
that he is delivered 4
from the day of God’s wrath?
1 sn The question implies the answer will be “vanished” or “gone.”
2 tn Heb “And where is the tent, the dwellings of the wicked.” The word “dwellings of the wicked” is in apposition to “tent.” A relative pronoun must be supplied in the translation.
3 tc The LXX reads, “Ask those who go by the way, and do not disown their signs.”
tn The idea is that the merchants who travel widely will talk about what they have seen and heard. These travelers give a different account of the wicked; they tell how he is spared. E. Dhorme (Job, 322) interprets “signs” concretely: “Their custom was to write their names and their thoughts somewhere at the main cross-roads. The main roads of Sinai are dotted with these scribblings made by such passers of a day.”
4 tn The verb means “to be led forth.” To be “led forth in the day of trouble” means to be delivered.