Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 20:21
There shall none of his meat be left; therefore shall no man look for his goods.
21. his goods ] This may mean his prosperity. In all these verses the retribution corresponds to the sin the insatiable greediness is recompensed by utter loss and want.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
There shall none of his meat be left Margin, or, be none left for his meat. Noyes renders it, Because nothing escaped his greatness. Prof. Lee, no surviver shall remain for his provision. But the meaning, probably, is, nothing shall remain of his food, or it shall all be wasted, or dissipated.
Therefore, shall no man look for his goods – Or rather, his goods or his property shall not endure. But a great variety of interpretations has been given to the passage. The Hebrew word rendered shall look, yachyl, is from chul, which means, to turn round, to twist, to whirl; and thence, arises the notion of being firm, stable, or strong – as a rope that is twisted is strong. That is the idea here; and the sense is, that his property should not be secure or firm; or that he should not prosper. Jerome renders it, Nothing shall remain of his goods. The Septuagint, Therefore his good things – autou ta agatha – shall not flourish – anthesei.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 21. There shall none of his meat be left] Coverdale translates thus: He devoured so gredily, that he left nothinge behynde, therefore his goodes shal not prospere. He shall be stripped of every thing.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
None of his meat be left for his own future use; but he shall be stripped of all.
Therefore shall no man look for his goods; it being publicly known and observed that he was totally ruined, none of his kindred or friends shall trouble themselves to seek for any relics of his estate, as is usually done after mens deaths. But this verse is and may be rendered otherwise, There shall none be left for his meat, (i.e. he shall leave no heir who shall possess or enjoy his goods,) because, (for so the Hebrew particle al-chen is oft used; as Gen 38:26; Num 14:13; Psa 42:7; Jer 48:36) none of his goods shall remain, either for his heir or any other; all shall be utterly lost.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
21. look forrather, “becausehis goods,” that is, prosperity shall have no endurance.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
There shall none of his meat be left,…. Not in his belly, all shall be cast up; none of his substance left for himself or others; none of his riches for his children or heirs, all being consumed: or this may respect either the profuseness or niggardliness of his living, that he should live in great luxury himself, but take no care of the poor; or else keep so mean a table, that there would be nothing left for the poor, not so much as a few crumbs to fall from it; but the first sense seems best; though some render the words, “there shall be none left for his meat” b, or his substance; he shall leave no children, have no heirs, all his family shall be cut off, see
Job 18:19;
therefore shall no man look for his goods; for there shall be none to look for them; or rather there shall be none to look for, all being gone: a man in good circumstances of life, his heirs expect to enjoy much at his death, but when he is stripped of all, as Job was, his relations and friends are in no expectation of having anything at his death; and therefore do not think it worth their while to look out, or make an inquiry whether there is anything for them or not, see
Job 20:28.
b “non erit superstes haeres qui ejus bonis fruetur”; so some in Mercer. Drusius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
21 Nothing escaped his covetousness,
Therefore his prosperity shall not continue.
22 In the fulness of his need it shall be strait with him,
Every hand of the needy shall come upon him.
23 It shall come to pass: in order to fill his belly,
He sendeth forth the glow of His anger into him,
And He causeth it to rain upon him into his flesh.
24 He must flee from an iron weapon,
Therefore a brazen bow pierceth him through.
25 It teareth, then it cometh forth out of his body,
And the steel out of his gall,
The terrors of death come upon him.
The words of Job 20:21 are: there was nothing that escaped ( , as Job 18:19, from , Arab. sarada , aufugere ) his eating (from , not from ), i.e., he devoured everything without sparing, even to the last remnant; therefore , his prosperity, his abundant wealth, will not continue or hold out ( , as Psa 10:5, to be solid, powerful, enduring, whence , Arab. hlat , hawl ). Hupf. transl. differently: nihil ei superstes ad vescendum, itaque non durant ejus bona ; but signifies first elapsum, and propterea ; and we may retain these first significations, especially since Job 20:21 is not future like Job 20:21. The tone of prediction taken up in Job 20:21 is continued in what follows. The inf. constr. (prop. , but with Cholem by the Aleph, since the Waw is regarded as , superfluous), formed after the manner of the verbs Lamed He (Ew. 238, c), is written like , Jdg 8:1 (comp. on the other hand the scriptio devectiva , Lev 8:33; Lev 12:4); and (with Sin, as Norzi decides after Codd., Kimchi, and Farisol, not Samech) is to be derived from ( ), sufficientia (comp. the verb, 1Ki 20:10): if his sufficiency exists in abundance, not from = Arab. safqat , safqat , complosio , according to which Schultens explains: if his joyous clapping of hands has reached its highest point (Elizabeth Smith: “while clapping the hands in the fulness of joy”), to which is not suitable, and which ought at least to be . Therefore: in the fulness of his need shall he be straitened ( with the tone drawn back for on account of the following monosyllable, although also apocopated futt. follow further on in the strict future signification, according to poetic usage), by which not merely the fearful foreboding is meant, which just in the fullest overflow makes known his impending lot, but the real calamity, into which his towering prosperity suddenly changes, as Job 20:22 shows: All the hands of the destitute come upon him ( seq. acc.: invadere) to avenge on him the injustice done to the needy. It is not necessary to understand merely such as he has made destitute, it is ; the assertion is therefore general: the rich uncompassionate man becomes a defenceless prey of the proletaries.
Job 20:23 The which opens this verse (and which also occurs elsewhere, e.g., Job 18:12, in a purely future signification), here, like , 2Sa 5:24 (Ew. 333, b), serves to introduce the following (it shall happen: He shall send forth); (e.g., Gen 40:1) frequent in the historical style, and in the prophetical, are similarly used. In order to fill his belly, which is insatiable, God will send forth against him His glowing wrath (comp. Lam 1:13, from on high hath He sent fire into my bones), and will rain upon him into his flesh, or his plumpness (Arab. fi lachmihi ). Thus we believe must be understood by referring to Zep 1:17; where, perhaps not without reference to this speech of Zophar, the , which serves to explain Job 20:7, coincides with , which serves to explain this ; and the right meaning is not even missed by the lxx, which translates .
(Note: This passage is translated: and their blood is poured forth as dust, i.e., useless rubbish (Arab. el – ghabra ), and their flesh as filth. The form of inflection is referable to after the form .)
A suitable thought is obtained if is taken in the signification, food: He will rain upon him his food, i.e., what is fit for him (with Beth of the instrument instead of the accusative of the object), or: He will rain down (His wrath) upon him as his food (with Beth essent., according to which Ew.: what can satisfy him; Bridel: pour son aliment ; Renan: en guise de pain ); but we give the preference to the other interpretation, because it is at once natural in this book, abounding in Arabisms, to suppose for the signification of the Arab. lahm , which is also supported in Hebrew by Zep 1:17; further, because the Targ. favours it, which transl. , and expositors, as Aben-Ezra and Ralbag, who interpret by ; finally, because it gives an appropriate idea, to which Lam 1:13 presents a commendable parallel, comp. also Jam 5:3, and Koran, Sur. 2, 169: “those who hide what God has sent down by the Scripture, and thereby obtain a small profit, eat only fire into their belly.” That can be used pathetically for is unmistakeably clear from Job 22:2, comp. Job 27:23, and on Psa 11:7; the morally indignant speech which threatens punishment, intentionally seeks after rare solemn words and darksome tones. Therefore: Upon his flesh, which has been nourished in unsympathizing greediness, God rains down, i.e., rain of fire, which scorches it. This is the hidden background of the lot of punishment, the active principle of which, though it be effected by human agency, is the punitive power of the fire of divine wrath. Job 20:24 describe, by illustration, how it is worked out. The evil-doer flees from a hostile superior power, is hit in the back by the enemy’s arrows; and since he, one who is overthrown, seeks to get free from them, he is made to feel the terrors of inevitably approaching death.
Job 20:24 The two futt. may be arranged as in a conditional clause, like Psa 91:7, comp. Amo 9:2-4; and this is, as it seems, the mutual relation of the two expressions designed by the poet (similar to Isa 24:18): if he flee from the weapons of iron, i.e., the deadly weapon in the thick of the fight, he succumbs to that which is destructive by and by: the bow of brass ( poet. for , as Psa 18:35, although it might also be an adj., since eth, as the Arab. qaws shows, is really a feminine termination) will pierce him through ( fut. Kal of , Arab. chlf , to press further and further, press after, here as in Jdg 5:26). The flight of the disheartened is a punishment which is completed by his being hit while fleeing by the arrow which the brazen bow sends with swift power after him. In Job 20:25 the Targ. reads with He mappic., and translates: he (the enemy, or God) draws ( stringit), and it (the sword) comes out of its sheath, which is to be rejected because cannot signify vagina. Kimchi and most Jewish expositors interpret by ; the lxx also translates it . To understand it according to (back), of the hinder part of the body, gives no suitable sense, since the evil-doer is imagined as hit in the back, the arrow consequently passing out at the front;
(Note: Thus sings the warrior Cana’an Tjr (died about 1815) after the loss of his wife: –
“My grief for her is the brief of him whose horse is dashed in pieces in the desert.
The way is wild, and there is no help from the travellers who have hurried on before.
My groaning is like the groaning of one who, mortally wounded between the shoulders,
Will flee, and trails after him the lance that is fastened in him.”
– Wetzst.)
whereas the signification body is suitable, and is also made sufficiently certain by the cognate form . The verb , however, is used as in Jdg 3:22: he who is hit drawn the arrow out, then it comes out of his body, into which it is driven deep; and the glance, i.e., the metal head of the arrow (like , Jdg 3:22, the point in distinction from the shaft), out of his gall ( = , Job 16:13, so called from its bitterness, as , , comp. , , from the green-yellow colour), since, as the Syriac version freely translates, his gall-bladder is burst.
(Note: Abulwalid (in Kimchi) understands the red gall, i.e., the gall-bladder, by , after the Arabic marare . If this is pierced, its contents are emptied into the lower part of the body, and the man dies.)
Is , as a parallel word to , to be connected with , or with what follows? The accentuation varies. The ordinary interpunction is with Dech, Mercha, or more correctly Mercha-Zinnorith, Rebia mugrasch (according to which, Ew., Umbr., Vaih., Welte, Hahn, Schlottm., and Olsh. divide); is, however, also found with Athnach. Although the latter mode of accentuation is only feebly supported, we nevertheless consider it as the more correct, for , in the mind of the poet, can hardly have formed a line of the verse. If, however, is now taken together, it is a matter for inquiry whether it is to be explained: he passes away, since terrors come upon him (Schult., Rosenm., Hirz., Von Gerl., Carey), or: terrors come upon him (lxx, Targ., Syr., Jer., Ramban). We consider the latter as the only correct interpretation; for if ought to be understood after Job 14:20; Job 16:22, the poet would have expressed himself ambiguously, since it is at least as natural to consider as the subject of , as to take as an adverbial clause. The former, however, is both natural according to the syntax (vid., Ges. 147, a) and suitable in matter: terrors (i.e., of certain death to him in a short time) draw on upon him, and accordingly we decide in its favour.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(21) There shall none of his meat be left.Rather, There was nothing left that he devoured not, therefore his prosperity shall not endure.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
21. His goods Nothing escaped his devouring. Therefore his good, , shall not endure. “By the word good is intended his summum bonum, or what seemed such to the bad man. It sounds like a sentence of judgment after the arraignment in the previous items.” Tayler Lewis. Kindred is the expression of Milton’s fallen angel:
“Evil, be thou my good.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 20:21 There shall none of his meat be left; therefore shall no man look for his goods.
Ver. 21. There shall none of his meat be left ] Zophar still pursueth the allegory of the belly; and in all striketh at poor Job, who had scarce a bit of bread to eat, but yet was not without the hidden manna, the feast of a good conscience, which made him say with Luther, Manducato pane hic vivamus, &c., Let us take up with coarse fare here, since we have better within, and better yet we shall have in heaven; in our Father’s house is bread enough, &c.
Therefore no man shall look for his goods
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
none of his meat be left: or, be none left for his meat, Job 18:19, Jer 17:11, Luk 16:24, Luk 16:25
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 20:21-22. There shall none of his meat be left, &c. For his future use; but he shall be stripped of all, which being publicly known, none of his kindred or friends shall trouble themselves to seek for any relics of his estate. But the Hebrew, , een shorid leachlo, rather means, There shall none be left for his meat, that is, he shall leave no heir who shall possess or enjoy his goods. In the fulness of his sufficiency, &c. In the height of his prosperity he shall be distressed. Every hand of the wicked shall be upon him So his wickedness shall be punished by those as wicked as himself.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
20:21 There shall none of his {k} meat be left; therefore shall no man look for his goods.
(k) He will leave nothing to his posterity.