Ayub 15:28

15:28 he lived in ruined towns ¹ 

and in houses where ²  no one lives,

where they are ready to crumble into heaps. ³ 

Yesaya 5:8

Disaster is Coming

5:8 Those who accumulate houses are as good as dead, ⁴ 

those who also accumulate landed property ⁵ 

until there is no land left, ⁶ 

and you are the only landowners remaining within the land. ⁷ 

Yehezkiel 26:20

26:20 then I will bring you down to bygone people, ⁸  to be with those who descend to the pit. I will make you live in the lower parts of the earth, among ⁹  the primeval ruins, with those who descend to the pit, so that you will not be inhabited or stand ¹⁰  in the land of the living.

[15:28]  ¹ sn K&D 11:266 rightly explains that these are not cities that he, the wicked, has destroyed, but that were destroyed by a judgment on wickedness. Accordingly, Eliphaz is saying that the wicked man is willing to risk such a curse in his confidence in his prosperity (see further H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 113).

[15:28]  ² tn The verbal idea serves here to modify “houses” as a relative clause; so a relative pronoun is added.

[15:28]  ³ tn The Hebrew has simply “they are made ready for heaps.” The LXX translates it, “what they have prepared, let others carry away.” This would involve a complete change of the last word.

[5:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “Woe [to] those who make a house touch a house.” The exclamation הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) was used in funeral laments (see 1 Kgs 13:30; Jer 22:18; 34:5) and carries the connotation of death.

[5:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “[who] bring a field near a field.”

[5:8]  sn This verse does not condemn real estate endeavors per se, but refers to the way in which the rich bureaucrats of Judah accumulated property by exploiting the poor, in violation of the covenantal principle that the land belonged to God and that every family was to have its own portion of land. See the note at 1:23.

[5:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “until the end of the place”; NASB “until there is no more room.”

[5:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land.”

[26:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “to the people of antiquity.”

[26:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “like.” The translation assumes an emendation of the preposition כְּ (kÿ, “like”), to בְּ (bÿ, “in, among”).

[26:20]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and I will place beauty.” This reading makes little sense; many, following the lead of the LXX, emend the text to read “nor will you stand” with the negative particle before the preceding verb understood by ellipsis; see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:73. D. I. Block (Ezekiel [NICOT], 2:47) offers another alternative, taking the apparent first person verb form as an archaic second feminine form and translating “nor radiate splendor.”