Job 20:12-14

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 20:12 tn The conjunction אִם (ʾim) introduces clauses that are conditional or concessive. With the imperfect verb in the protasis it indicates what is possible in the present or future. See GKC 496 §159.q).
2. Job 20:12 sn The wicked person holds on to evil as long as he can, savoring the taste or the pleasure of it.
3. Job 20:13 tn Heb “in the middle of his palate.”
4. Job 20:14 tn The perfect verb in the apodosis might express the suddenness of the change (see S. R. Driver, Tenses in Hebrew, 204), or it might be a constative perfect looking at the action as a whole without reference to inception, progress, or completion (see IBHS 480-81 §30.1d). The Niphal perfect simply means “is turned” or “turns”; “sour” is supplied in the translation to clarify what is meant.
5. Job 20:14 tn The word is “in his loins” or “within him.” Some translate more specifically “bowels.”
6. Job 20:14 sn Some commentators suggest that the ancients believed that serpents secreted poison in the gall bladder, or that the poison came from the gall bladder of serpents. In any case, there is poison (from the root “bitter”) in the system of the wicked person; it may simply be saying it is that type of poison.