Knox Bible

1

Since he, who is omnipotent, determines every event, how is it that those who know him wait in vain for his doom to fall?✻

Literally, ‘Times are not hidden from the omnipotent, but those who know him are ignorant of his days’.

2

Here are men that alter their neighbour’s landmark, drive stolen cattle to pasture,

3

rob the orphan of his ass, take the widow’s ox in pawn,

4

shoulder the poor aside, conspire to oppress the friendless;

5

leave others to make their living as best they may, like the wild ass in the desert, waking betimes to scrape food for hungry mouths at home.

6

Reap they the field that is none of theirs, strip they the vineyard wrongfully seized from its owner;

7

let men go bare, their garments snatched away,

8

defenceless against cold and rain on the mountain-side, so that they are fain to hug the rocks for lack of shelter.

9

Their violence robs the helpless children, despoils the poor and simple;

10

back and side must go bare, and never a stalk left for hungry men to glean;

11

nor any vintager of theirs lies down between the rows at noon, but goes thirsty!✻

vv. 2-11. The Latin version is here in disagreement, occasionally, with the Hebrew text, which is itself very difficult. It is not always easy to see whether the subject of a particular sentence is the wicked, or their victims.

12

A cry goes up from the city streets, where wounded men lie groaning; tell me, does not God allow it to pass unheeded?✻

It seems necessary to understand the end of this verse as a question; otherwise the Latin flatly contradicts the meaning, both of the Hebrew text and of the Septuagint Greek, nor can we easily suppose it to have been Job’s opinion.

13

How they shun the light, these rebels who ignore God’s precepts, leave his paths untrodden!

14

The murderer must be stirring before daybreak, to catch his helpless prey, or prowl, as the thieves prowl, at night.

15

For darkness, too, the adulterer waits, no eye must scan his muffled features;

16

under cover of darkness he will break into the house, to keep the tryst made yesterday; no daylight for him.

17

To him, the first flush of dawn is death’s shadow; deep gloom is the sunshine he walks by.

18

Light as foam on the waters, nor light the doom, surely, that awaits him on earth; not for him the vineyard’s sunny slope!

19

Swift as snow melts under the noon-day heat, let his guilty soul pass to the grave,

20

unpitied, with worms for its boon-companions, forgotten, overthrown like an unfruitful tree!

21

The childless woman was his prey;✻ in vain the widow looked to him for mercy;

‘Was his prey’; the Latin word used can mean either ‘fed’ or ‘fed upon’.

22

now, surely, God has pulled the tyrant down; firm he has stood, but now he despairs of life itself!

23

Time for repentance God gave him, by his pride misused, but ever on his doings kept a watchful eye;

24

now, their brief renown over, such men must pass, as all things pass, into the dust, be carried off, swept away like ears of corn!✻

vv. 18-24. These verses, with their threat of calamity to the wicked, should perhaps be understood as an ideal consummation which, as verse 25 points out, does not seem to be verified in fact. Their exact sense is largely open to dispute.

25

But no, never the day comes! Who dares give me the lie, challenge me in God’s sight?✻

The meaning of the Hebrew text is probably, ‘reduce my words to nothingness’.