8:22 Those who hate you 1 will be clothed with shame, 2
and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”
11:20 But the eyes of the wicked fail, 3
and escape 4 eludes them;
their one hope 5 is to breathe their last.” 6
20:5 that the elation of the wicked is brief, 7
the joy of the godless 8 lasts but a moment. 9
21:16 But their prosperity is not their own doing. 10
The counsel of the wicked is far from me! 11
22:23 If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up; 12
if you remove wicked behavior far from your tent,
27:13 This is the portion of the wicked man
allotted by God, 13
the inheritance that evildoers receive
from the Almighty.
34:36 But 14 Job will be tested to the end,
because his answers are like those of wicked men.
36:17 But now you are preoccupied with the judgment due the wicked,
judgment and justice take hold of you.
36:23 Who has prescribed his ways for him?
Or said to him, ‘You have done what is wicked’?
1 sn These verses show several points of similarity with the style of the Book of Psalms. “Those who hate you” and the “evil-doers” are fairly common words to describe the ungodly in the Psalms. “Those who hate you” are enemies of the righteous man because of the parallelism in the verse. By this line Bildad is showing Job that he and his friends are not among those who are his enemies, and that Job himself is really among the righteous. It is an appealing way to end the discourse. See further G. W. Anderson, “Enemies and Evil-doers in the Book of Psalms,” BJRL 48 (1965/66): 18-29.
2 tn “Shame” is compared to a garment that can be worn. The “shame” envisioned here is much more than embarrassment or disgrace – it is utter destruction. For parallels in the Psalms, see Pss 35:26; 132:18; 109:29.
3 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.
4 tn Heb a “place of escape” (with this noun pattern). There is no place to escape to because they all perish.
5 tn The word is to be interpreted as a metonymy; it represents what is hoped for.
6 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.
7 tn The expression in the text is “quite near.” This indicates that it is easily attained, and that its end is near.
8 tn For the discussion of חָנֵף (khanef, “godless”) see Job 8:13.
9 tn The phrase is “until a moment,” meaning it is short-lived. But see J. Barr, “Hebrew ’ad, especially at Job 1:18 and Neh 7:3,” JSS 27 (1982): 177-88.
10 tn Heb “is not in their hand.”
sn The implication of this statement is that their well-being is from God, which is the problem Job is raising in the chapter. A number of commentators make it a question, interpreting it to mean that the wicked enjoy prosperity as if it is their right. Some emend the text to say “his hands” – Gordis reads it, “Indeed, our prosperity is not in his hands.”
11 sn Even though their life seems so good in contrast to his own plight, Job cannot and will not embrace their principles – “far be from me their counsel.”
12 tc The MT has “you will be built up” (תִּבָּנֶה, tibbaneh). But the LXX has “humble yourself” (reading תְּעַנֶּה [tÿ’anneh] apparently). Many commentators read this; Dahood has “you will be healed.”
13 tn The expression “allotted by God” interprets the simple prepositional phrase in the text: “with/from God.”
14 tc The MT reads אָבִי (’avi, “my father”), which makes no sense. Some follow the KJV and emend the word to make a verb “I desire” or use the noun “my desire of it.” Others follow an Arabic word meaning “entreat, I pray” (cf. ESV, “Would that Job were tried”). The LXX and the Syriac versions have “but” and “surely” respectively. Since this is the only