Job 20:17

He will not look on the streams, ¹  the rivers, which are the torrents ²  of honey and butter. ³ 

Nu 14:23; De 32:13,14; 2Sa 17:29; 2Ki 7:2; Ps 36:8,9; Ps 81:16; Isa 7:15,22; Isa 41:17; Jer 17:6-8; Jer 17:6; Lu 16:24; Re 22:1

¹ tn The word פְּלַגּוֹת (pÿlaggot) simply means “streams” or “channels.” Because the word is used elsewhere for “streams of oil” (cf. 29:6), and that makes a good parallelism here, some supply “oil” (cf. NAB, NLT). But the second colon of the verse is probably in apposition to the first. The verb “see” followed by the preposition bet, “to look on; to look over,” means “to enjoy as a possession,” an activity of the victor.

² tn The construct nouns here have caused a certain amount of revision. It says “rivers of, torrents of.” The first has been emended by Klostermann to יִצְהָר (yitshar, “oil”) and connected to the first colon. Older editors argued for a נָהָר (nahar) that meant “oil” but that was not convincing. On the other hand, there is support for having more than one construct together serving as apposition (see GKC 422 §130.e). If the word “streams” in the last colon is a construct, that would mean three of them; but that one need not be construct. The reading would be “He will not see the streams, [that is] the rivers [which are] the torrents of honey and butter.” It is unusual, but workable.

³ sn This word is often translated “curds.” It is curdled milk, possibly a type of butter.