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 

Ayub 19:8

19:8 He has blocked ⁴  my way so I cannot pass,

and has set darkness ⁵  over my paths.

Ayub 21:29

21:29 Have you never questioned those who travel the roads?

Do you not recognize their accounts ⁶  –

[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.

[19:8]  ⁴ tn The verb גָּדַר (gadar) means “to wall up; to fence up; to block.” God has blocked Job’s way so that he cannot get through. See the note on 3:23. Cf. Lam 3:7.

[19:8]  ⁵ tn Some commentators take the word to be חָשַׁךְ (hasak), related to an Arabic word for “thorn hedge.”

[21:29]  ⁶ tc The LXX reads, “Ask those who go by the way, and do not disown their signs.”

[21:29]  tn The idea is that the merchants who travel widely will talk about what they have seen and heard. These travelers give a different account of the wicked; they tell how he is spared. E. Dhorme (Job, 322) interprets “signs” concretely: “Their custom was to write their names and their thoughts somewhere at the main cross-roads. The main roads of Sinai are dotted with these scribblings made by such passers of a day.”