Job 18:4

You who tear yourself ¹  to pieces in your anger, will the earth be abandoned ²  for your sake? Or will a rock be moved from its place? ³ 

You who tear yourself to pieces in your anger, is the earth to be abandoned for your sake? Or must the rocks be moved from their place?

"O you who tear yourself in your anger— For your sake is the earth to be abandoned, Or the rock to be moved from its place?

You may tear your hair out in anger, but will that cause the earth to be abandoned? Will it make rocks fall from a cliff?

Why are you working yourself up like this? Do you want the world redesigned to suit you? Should reality be suspended to accommodate you?

But come back, now, come: you who are wounding yourself in your passion, will the earth be given up because of you, or a rock be moved out of its place?

You who tear yourself in your anger—shall the earth be forsaken because of you, or the rock be removed out of its place?

You who tear yourself in anger, Shall the earth be forsaken for you? Or shall the rock be removed from its place?

You who tear yourself ¹  to pieces in your anger, will the earth be abandoned ²  for your sake? Or will a rock be moved from its place? ³ 

¹ tn The construction uses the participle and then 3rd person suffixes: “O tearer of himself in his anger.” But it is clearly referring to Job, and so the direct second person pronouns should be used to make that clear. The LXX is an approximation or paraphrase here: “Anger has possessed you, for what if you should die – would under heaven be desolate, or shall the mountains be overthrown from their foundations?”

² tn There is a good deal of study on this word in this passage, and in Job in general. M. Dahood suggested a root עָזַב (’azav) meaning “to arrange; to rearrange” (“The Root ’zb II in Job,” JBL 78 [1959]: 303-9). But this is refuted by H. G. M. Williamson, “A Reconsideration of ’zb II in Biblical Hebrew,” ZAW 97 (1985): 74-85.

³ sn Bildad is asking if Job thinks the whole moral order of the world should be interrupted for his sake, that he may escape the punishment for wickedness.