Job 20:23

“While he is ¹  filling his belly, God ²  sends his burning anger ³  against him, and rains down his blows upon him. ⁴ 

When he has filled his belly, God will vent his burning anger against him and rain down his blows upon him.

"When he fills his belly, God will send His fierce anger on him And will rain it on him while he is eating.

May God give him a bellyful of trouble. May God rain down his anger upon him.

When they've filled their bellies with that, God gives them a taste of his anger, and they get to chew on that for a while.

God gives him his desire, and sends the heat of his wrath on him, making it come down on him like rain.

To fill their belly to the full God will send his fierce anger into them, and rain it upon them as their food.

When he is about to fill his stomach, God will cast on him the fury of His wrath, And will rain it on him while he is eating.

“While he is ¹  filling his belly, God ²  sends his burning anger ³  against him, and rains down his blows upon him. ⁴ 

¹ tn D. J. A. Clines observes that to do justice to the three jussives in the verse, one would have to translate “May it be, to fill his belly to the full, that God should send…and rain” (Job [WBC], 477). The jussive form of the verb at the beginning of the verse could also simply introduce a protasis of a conditional clause (see GKC 323 §109.h, i). This would mean, “if he [God] is about to fill his [the wicked’s] belly to the full, he will send….” The NIV reads “when he has filled his belly.” These fit better, because the context is talking about the wicked in his evil pursuit being cut down.

² tn “God” is understood as the subject of the judgment.

³ tn Heb “the anger of his wrath.”

⁴ tn Heb “rain down upon him, on his flesh.” Dhorme changes עָלֵימוֹ (’alemo, “upon him”) to “his arrows”; he translates the line as “he rains his arrows upon his flesh.” The word בִּלְחוּמוֹ (bilkhumo,“his flesh”) has been given a wide variety of translations: “as his food,” “on his flesh,” “upon him, his anger,” or “missiles or weapons of war.”