24:3 They drive away the orphan’s donkey;
they take the widow’s ox as a pledge.
27:15 Those who survive him are buried by the plague, 1
and their 2 widows do not mourn for them.
29:13 the blessing of the dying man descended on me, 3
and I made the widow’s heart rejoice; 4
1 tn The text says “will be buried in/by death.” A number of passages in the Bible use “death” to mean the plague that kills (see Jer 15:2; Isa 28:3; and BDB 89 s.v. בְּ 2.a). In this sense it is like the English expression for the plague, “the Black Death.”
2 tc The LXX has “their widows” to match the plural, and most commentators harmonize in the same way.
3 tn The verb is simply בּוֹא (bo’, “to come; to enter”). With the preposition עַל (’al, “upon”) it could mean “came to me,” or “came upon me,” i.e., descended (see R. Gordis, Job, 320).
4 tn The verb אַרְנִן (’arnin) is from רָנַן (ranan, “to give a ringing cry”) but here “cause to give a ringing cry,” i.e., shout of joy. The rejoicing envisioned in this word is far greater than what the words “sing” or “rejoice” suggest.