Ayub 11:20

11:20 But the eyes of the wicked fail, ¹ 

and escape ²  eludes them;

their one hope ³  is to breathe their last.” ⁴ 

Ayub 27:15

27:15 Those who survive him are buried by the plague, ⁵ 

and their ⁶  widows do not mourn for them.

Ayub 40:19

40:19 It ranks first among the works of God, ⁷ 

the One who made it

has furnished it with a sword. ⁸ 

[11:20]  ¹ tn The verb כָּלָה (kalah) means “to fail, cease, fade away.” The fading of the eyes, i.e., loss of sight, loss of life’s vitality, indicates imminent death.

[11:20]  ² tn Heb a “place of escape” (with this noun pattern). There is no place to escape to because they all perish.

[11:20]  ³ tn The word is to be interpreted as a metonymy; it represents what is hoped for.

[11:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “the breathing out of the soul”; cf. KJV, ASV “the giving up of the ghost.” The line is simply saying that the brightest hope that the wicked have is death.

[27:15]  ⁵ tn The text says “will be buried in/by death.” A number of passages in the Bible use “death” to mean the plague that kills (see Jer 15:2; Isa 28:3; and BDB 89 s.v. בְּ 2.a). In this sense it is like the English expression for the plague, “the Black Death.”

[27:15]  ⁶ tc The LXX has “their widows” to match the plural, and most commentators harmonize in the same way.

[40:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “the ways of God.”

[40:19]  sn This may be a reference to Gen 1:24, where the first of the animal creation was the cattle – bÿhemah (בְּהֵמָה).

[40:19]  ⁸ tc The literal reading of the MT is “let the one who made him draw near [with] his sword.” The sword is apparently a reference to the teeth or tusks of the animal, which cut vegetation like a sword. But the idea of a weapon is easier to see, and so the people who favor the mythological background see here a reference to God’s slaying the Beast. There are again many suggestions on how to read the line. The RV probably has the safest: “He that made him has furnished him with his sword” (the sword being a reference to the sharp tusks with which he can attack).