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Job

About this book
Chapter 27

1 And Job took up his discourse again: 2 “As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice, the Almighty, who has made my life bitter— 3 for while my spirit is still in me, and the breath from God is in my nostrils, 4 my lips will not speak wickedness, and my tongue will whisper no deceit. 5 I will never declare that you three are in the right; until I die, I will not set aside my integrity! 6 I will maintain my righteousness and never let it go; my conscience will not reproach me for as long as I live. 7 “May my enemy be like the wicked, my adversary like the unrighteous. 8 For what hope does the godless have when he is cut off, when God takes away his life? 9 Does God listen to his cry when distress overtakes him? 10 Will he find delight in the Almighty? Will he call out to God at all times? 11 I will teach you about the power of God; what is on the Almighty’s mind I will not conceal. 12 If you yourselves have all seen this, Why in the world do you continue this meaningless talk? 13 This is the portion of the wicked man allotted by God, the inheritance that evildoers receive from the Almighty. 14 If his children increase—it is for the sword! His offspring never have enough to eat.⁠ 15 Those who survive him are buried by the plague, and their widows do not mourn for them. 16 If he piles up silver like dust and stores up clothing like mounds of clay, 17 what he stores up a righteous man will wear, and an innocent man will inherit his silver. 18 The house he builds is as fragile as a moth’s cocoon, like a hut that a watchman has made. 19 He goes to bed wealthy, but will do so no more. When he opens his eyes, it is all gone. 20 Terrors overwhelm him like a flood; at night a whirlwind carries him off. 21 The east wind carries him away, and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place. 22 It hurls itself against him without pity as he flees headlong from its power. 23 It claps its hands at him in derision and hisses him away from his place.

Texts in conversation

Compare Ezekiel 6:12 and Job 27:15

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Job says the unrighteous leave behind survivors who are killed by disease, their dishonor compounded because their widows do not mourn them. Ezekiel uses similar language when describing people killed by famine, sword, and plague.

Passages

Ezekiel 6:12

Hebrew Bible
10 They will know that I am the Lord; my threats to bring this catastrophe on them were not empty. 11 “‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Clap your hands, stamp your feet, and say, “Ah!” because of all the evil, abominable practices of the house of Israel, for they will fall by the sword, famine, and pestilence. 12 The one far away will die by pestilence, the one close by will fall by the sword, and whoever is left and has escaped these will die by famine. I will fully vent my rage against them. 13 Then you will know that I am the Lord when their dead lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill and on all the mountaintops, under every green tree and every leafy oak—the places where they have offered fragrant incense to all their idols. 14 I will stretch out my hand against them and make the land a desolate waste from the wilderness to Riblah, in all the places where they live. Then they will know that I am the Lord.’”
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Ezekiel

Job 27:15

Hebrew Bible
13 This is the portion of the wicked man allotted by God, the inheritance that evildoers receive from the Almighty. 14 If his children increase—it is for the sword! His offspring never have enough to eat. 15 Those who survive him are buried by the plague, and their widows do not mourn for them. 16 If he piles up silver like dust and stores up clothing like mounds of clay, 17 what he stores up a righteous man will wear, and an innocent man will inherit his silver.
500–401 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Job

References

"... Here the Israelite deity’s words are remembered. All the unfaithful Israelites were appointed to die in the wilderness over a broad period of time, and this is in fact what happened and is being recounted. Each of them “met an untimely demise” in the wilderness. They were not put to death in any formal or immediate way. This same notion could fit what is found in Gen 2:17 and 3:4. We find the idiom used in reference to eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ... There has always been debate regarding what the nature of the death warned against here would be, and it is not important to establish this here. Rather, had ‘θανάτῳ + θανατόω’ been used, a formal death penalty would have been envisaged, which, ostensibly, would mean the primeval couple would need to be killed forthrightly. We know the text does not include such a killing, and so it is fitting that the translator can leave open the timing and nature of this ‘death’ with the idiom. Outside the Pentateuch, “θανάτῳ + τελευτάω” occurs twice in the Septuagint ... Job 27:15; Ezekiel 6:12 ... While these books are largely regarded to be later translations than the LXX Pentateuch and could therefore be influenced by this earlier work, it is still valuable to mention them. This is because the translators have both chosen to use a translation of Hebrew texts that do not isomorphically conform to such a rendering ..."
Joel Korytko, Death of the Covenant Code: Evaluating the Translation of Laws with Capital Punishment in Old Greek Exodus 21:1–23:19 in Light of Graeco-Egyptian Law (Northwest Seminary and College, 2022), 68–69.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Ezekiel 6:12 and Job 27:15

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