Ayub 21:17

How Often Do the Wicked Suffer?

21:17 “How often ¹  is the lamp of the wicked extinguished?

How often does their ²  misfortune come upon them?

How often does God apportion pain ³  to them ⁴  in his anger?

Ayub 21:20

21:20 Let his own eyes see his destruction; ⁵ 

let him drink of the anger of the Almighty.

Ayub 21:30

21:30 that the evil man is spared

from the day of his misfortune,

that he is delivered ⁶ 

from the day of God’s wrath?

[21:17]  ¹ tn The interrogative “How often” occurs only with the first colon; it is supplied for smoother reading in the next two.

[21:17]  ² tn The pronominal suffix is objective; it re-enforces the object of the preposition, “upon them.” The verb in the clause is בּוֹא (bo’) followed by עַל (’al), “come upon [or against],” may be interpreted as meaning attack or strike.

[21:17]  ³ tn חֲבָלִים (khavalim) can mean “ropes” or “cords,” but that would not go with the verb “apportion” in this line. The meaning of “pangs (as in “birth-pangs”) seems to fit best here. The wider meaning would be “physical agony.”

[21:17]  ⁴ tn The phrase “to them” is understood and thus is supplied in the translation for clarification.

[21:20]  ⁵ tc This word occurs only here. The word כִּיד (kid) was connected to Arabic kaid, “fraud, trickery,” or “warfare.” The word is emended by the commentators to other ideas, such as פִּיד (pid, “[his] calamity”). Dahood and others alter it to “cup”; Wright to “weapons.” A. F. L. Beeston argues for a meaning “condemnation” for the MT form, and so makes no change in the text (Mus 67 [1954]: 315-16). If the connection to Arabic “warfare” is sustained, or if such explanations of the existing MT can be sustained, then the text need not be emended. In any case, the sense of the line is clear.

[21:30]  ⁶ tn The verb means “to be led forth.” To be “led forth in the day of trouble” means to be delivered.