Job’s Eighth Speech, Continued

¹ “Why are not times kept by Shaddai, and why do not those who know him see his days?

² They¹ remove border stones; they seize flocks, and they pasture them.

1. Or “Some” (NASU, ESV) or “Men” (NIV, NET)

³ They drive away the donkey of orphans; they take the widow’s ox as a pledge.

⁴ They thrust the poor off the road; the needy of the earth hide themselves together.¹

1. Or “altogether”

⁵ “Look, like wild donkeys in the desert they¹ go out to their labor as searchers for the prey; the wilderness is² ⌞their⌟³ food for the young.

1. That is, the poor
2. Or “provides”
3. Hebrew “for their”

⁶ They reap their¹ fodder in the field, and they glean in the vineyard of the wicked.

1. Hebrew “his”

⁷ They spend the night naked, ⌞without⌟¹ clothing, and they have no garment in the cold.

1. Literally “from not”

⁸ They are wet from the rainstorm of the mountains,¹ and they cling to the rock ⌞without⌟² refuge.

1. Or “from the mountain rainstorm”
2. Literally “from not”

⁹ “They¹ snatch the orphan from the breast, and they take a pledge against the needy.²

1. That is, those who oppress the poor
2. Or “And they take the child of the needy as a pledge”

¹⁰ They¹ go about naked, without clothing, and hungry, they carry the sheaves.²

1. That is, the poor
2. Or “and they carry the sheaves though hungry”

¹¹ Between their terraces they press out oil; they tread the presses, but¹ they are thirsty.

1. Hebrew “and”

¹² From the city people groan, and the throat¹ of the wounded cries for help; yet² God does not ⌞regard it as unseemly⌟.³

1. Or “soul,” or “inner self”
2. Hebrew “and”
3. Literally “he puts offensiveness”

¹³ “Those are among the ones rebelling against the light; they do not recognize his ways, and they do not stay in his paths.

¹⁴ ⌞At dusk⌟¹ the murderer rises; he kills the needy and the poor, and in the night he is like a² thief.

1. Literally “At the light”
2. Or “the”

¹⁵ And the eye of the adulterer waits for dusk, saying, ⌞‘No eye will see me,’⌟¹ and he places a covering on his face.

1. Literally “ ‘An eye will not see me’ ”

¹⁶ He digs through houses in the darkness; by day they shut themselves in— they do not know the light

¹⁷ because morning likewise is to them deep darkness; indeed, they know about the terrors of deep darkness.

¹⁸ “He himself¹ is swift on the water’s surface; their portion is cursed in the land. ⌞No one turns toward the path of their vineyards⌟.²

1. Emphatic personal pronoun
2. Literally “He does not turn toward the path of the vineyard”

¹⁹ Drought and heat snatch away the snow waters, like Sheol snatches away those¹ who have sinned.

1. Or “they/them”

²⁰ The womb forgets him. The maggot feasts on him until he is no longer remembered, and wickedness is broken like a¹ tree.

1. Or “the”

²¹ He feeds on the barren, who does not have a child, and does no good to the widow.

²² Yet¹ he² carries off the tyrants by his strength; if he rises up, then³ he⁴ cannot be certain of life.⁵

1. Hebrew “And”
2. The probable antecedent is God
3. Hebrew “and”
4. The antecedent of the singular here probably changes to the wicked person
5. Hebrew “the life”

²³ He¹ gives security to him, and he is² supported, but³ his eyes are upon their ways.

1. The probable antecedent is God
2. Or “they are”
3. Hebrew “and”

²⁴ They are exalted a little while, then¹ ⌞they are gone⌟.² And they are brought low; they are cut off like all others, and like the heads of grain they wither away.

1. Literally “and”
2. Literally “he is not”

²⁵ “And if it is not so, then who can prove me a liar and reduce my word to nothing?”