Mazmur 37:35-36

37:35 I have seen ruthless evil men ¹ 

growing in influence, like a green tree grows in its native soil. ² 

37:36 But then one passes by, and suddenly they have disappeared! ³ 

I looked for them, but they could not be found.

Ayub 18:14

18:14 He is dragged from the security of his tent, ⁴ 

and marched off ⁵  to the king ⁶  of terrors.

Ayub 20:6-7

20:6 Even though his stature ⁷  reaches to the heavens

and his head touches the clouds,

20:7 he will perish forever, like his own excrement; ⁸ 

those who used to see him will say, ‘Where is he?’

Lukas 16:27-28

16:27 So ⁹  the rich man ¹⁰  said, ‘Then I beg you, father – send Lazarus ¹¹  to my father’s house 16:28 (for I have five brothers) to warn ¹²  them so that they don’t come ¹³  into this place of torment.’

[37:35]  ¹ tn The Hebrew uses the representative singular again here.

[37:35]  ² tn Heb “being exposed [?] like a native, luxuriant.” The Hebrew form מִתְעָרֶה (mit’areh) appears to be a Hitpael participle from עָרָה (’arah, “be exposed”), but this makes no sense in this context. Perhaps the form is a dialectal variant of מִתְעָלָה (“giving oneself an air of importance”; see Jer 51:3), from עָלָה (’alah, “go up”; see P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 [WBC], 296). The noun אֶזְרָח (’ezrakh, “native, full citizen”) refers elsewhere to people, but here, where it is collocated with “luxuriant, green,” it probably refers to a tree growing in native soil.

[37:36]  ³ tn Heb “and he passes by and, look, he is not [there].” The subject of the verb “passes by” is probably indefinite, referring to any passerby. Some prefer to change the form to first person, “and I passed by” (cf. NEB; note the first person verbal forms in preceding verse and in the following line).

[18:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “from his tent, his security.” The apposition serves to modify the tent as his security.

[18:14]  ⁵ tn The verb is the Hiphil of צָעַד (tsa’ad, “to lead away”). The problem is that the form is either a third feminine (Rashi thought it was referring to Job’s wife) or the second person. There is a good deal of debate over the possibility of the prefix t- being a variant for the third masculine form. The evidence in Ugaritic and Akkadian is mixed, stronger for the plural than the singular. Gesenius has some samples where the third feminine form might also be used for the passive if there is no expressed subject (see GKC 459 §144.b), but the evidence is not strong. The simplest choices are to change the prefix to a י (yod), or argue that the ת (tav) can be masculine, or follow Gesenius.

[18:14]  ⁶ sn This is a reference to death, the king of all terrors. Other identifications are made in the commentaries: Mot, the Ugaritic god of death; Nergal of the Babylonians; Molech of the Canaanites, the one to whom people sent emissaries.

[20:6]  ⁷ tn The word שִׂיא (si’) has been connected with the verb נָשָׂא (nasa’, “to lift up”), and so interpreted here as “pride.” The form is parallel to “head” in the next part, and so here it refers to his stature, the part that rises up and is crowned. But the verse does describe the pride of such a person, with his head in the heavens.

[20:7]  ⁸ tn There have been attempts to change the word here to “like a whirlwind,” or something similar. But many argue that there is no reason to remove a coarse expression from Zophar.

[16:27]  ⁹ tn Here δέ (de) has been translated as “so” to indicate the rich man’s response to Abraham’s words.

[16:27]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “he”; the referent (the rich man, v. 19) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[16:27]  ¹¹ tn Grk “Then I beg you, father, that you send him”; the referent (Lazarus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[16:28]  ¹² sn To warn them. The warning would consist of a call to act differently than their dead brother had, or else meet his current terrible fate.

[16:28]  ¹³ tn Grk “lest they also come.”