2 Samuel 23:17

23:17 and said, “O Lord, I will not do this! ¹  It is equivalent to the blood of the men who risked their lives by going.” ²  So he refused to drink it. Such were the exploits of the three elite warriors. ³ 

Ayub 21:16

21:16 But their prosperity is not their own doing. ⁴ 

The counsel of the wicked is far from me! ⁵ 

Ayub 22:18

22:18 But it was he ⁶  who filled their houses

with good things –

yet the counsel of the wicked ⁷ 

was far from me. ⁸ 

[23:17]  ¹ tn Heb “Far be it to me, O Lord, from doing this.”

[23:17]  ² tn Heb “[Is it not] the blood of the men who were going with their lives?”

[23:17]  ³ tn Heb “These things the three warriors did.”

[21:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “is not in their hand.”

[21:16]  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.”

[21:16]  ⁵ 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.”

[22:18]  ⁶ tn The pronoun is added for this emphasis; it has “but he” before the verb.

[22:18]  ⁷ tn See Job 10:3.

[22:18]  ⁸ tc The LXX has “from him,” and this is followed by several commentators. But the MT is to be retained, for Eliphaz is recalling the words of Job. Verses 17 and 18 are deleted by a number of commentators as a gloss because they have many similarities to 21:14-16. But Eliphaz is recalling what Job said, in order to say that the prosperity to which Job alluded was only the prelude to a disaster he denied (H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 156).