Ayub 14:18-22

14:18 But as ¹  a mountain falls away and crumbles, ² 

and as a rock will be removed from its place,

14:19 as water wears away stones,

and torrents ³  wash away the soil, ⁴ 

so you destroy man’s hope. ⁵ 

14:20 You overpower him once for all, ⁶ 

and he departs;

you change ⁷  his appearance

and send him away.

14:21 If ⁸  his sons are honored, ⁹ 

he does not know it; ¹⁰ 

if they are brought low,

he does not see ¹¹  it.

14:22 Only his flesh has pain for himself, ¹² 

and he mourns for himself.” ¹³ 

[14:18]  ¹ tn The indication that this is a simile is to be obtained from the conjunction beginning 19c (see GKC 499 §161.a).

[14:18]  ² tn The word יִבּוֹל (yibbol) usually refers to a flower fading and so seems strange here. The LXX and the Syriac translate “and will fall”; most commentators accept this and repoint the preceding word to get “and will surely fall.” Duhm retains the MT and applies the image of the flower to the falling mountain. The verb is used of the earth in Isa 24:4, and so NIV, RSV, and NJPS all have the idea of “crumble away.”

[14:19]  ³ tn Heb “the overflowings of it”; the word סְפִיחֶיהָ (sÿfikheyha) in the text is changed by just about everyone. The idea of “its overflowings” or more properly “its aftergrowths” (Lev 25:5; 2 Kgs 19:29; etc.) does not fit here at all. Budde suggested reading סְחִפָה (sÿkhifah), which is cognate to Arabic sahifeh, “torrential rain, rainstorm” – that which sweeps away” the soil. The word סָחַף (sakhaf) in Hebrew might have a wider usage than the effects of rain.

[14:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “[the] dust of [the] earth.”

[14:19]  ⁵ sn The meaning for Job is that death shatters all of man’s hopes for the continuation of life.

[14:20]  ⁶ tn D. W. Thomas took נֵצַח (netsakh) here to have a superlative meaning: “You prevail utterly against him” (“Use of netsach as a superlative in Hebrew,” JSS 1 [1956]: 107). Death would be God’s complete victory over him.

[14:20]  ⁷ tn The subject of the participle is most likely God in this context. Some take it to be man, saying “his face changes.” Others emend the text to read an imperfect verb, but this is not necessary.

[14:21]  ⁸ tn The clause may be interpreted as a conditional clause, with the second clause beginning with the conjunction serving as the apodosis.

[14:21]  ⁹ tn There is no expressed subject for the verb “they honor,” and so it may be taken as a passive.

[14:21]  ¹⁰ sn Death is separation from the living, from the land of the living. And ignorance of what goes on in this life, good or bad, is part of death. See also Eccl 9:5-6, which makes a similar point.

[14:21]  ¹¹ tn The verb is בִּין (bin, “to perceive; to discern”). The parallelism between “know” and “perceive” stress the point that in death a man does not realize what is happening here in the present life.

[14:22]  ¹² tn The prepositional phrases using עָלָיו (’alayv, “for him[self]”) express the object of the suffering. It is for himself that the dead man “grieves.” So this has to be joined with אַךְ (’akh), yielding “only for himself.” Then, “flesh” and “soul/person” form the parallelism for the subjects of the verbs.

[14:22]  ¹³ sn In this verse Job is expressing the common view of life beyond death, namely, that in Sheol there is no contact with the living, only separation, but in Sheol there is a conscious awareness of the dreary existence.