Job 24:18–25
Who is speaking?
These verses describe the wicked swept away, which sounds like the friends rather than Job. All manuscripts give them to Job. Modern scholars propose quotation, curse, or a displaced friend's speech.
Same letters, different readings: the consonants agree, but ancient readers vocalized or interpreted them differently
The family tree
Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.
✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives
- Same line, through lost copies
- Translation
Every witness, in order
Poem often dated 6th–4th century BC (debated)
Original Job
No original survives. Small Hebrew fragments of Job are known from Qumran (2Q15, 4Q99–101).
c. AD 390s, from Hebrew
Jerome's Vulgate
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).
Levis est super faciem aquæ: maledicta sit pars ejus in terra, nec ambulet per viam vinearum. Ad nimium calorem transeat ab aquis nivium, et usque ad inferos peccatum illius. Obliviscatur ejus misericordia; dulcedo illius vermes: non sit in recordatione, sed conteratur quasi lignum infructuosum.
AD 1008
Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.
קַֽל־ה֤וּא ׀ עַל־פְּנֵי־מַ֗יִם תְּקֻלַּ֣ל חֶלְקָתָ֣ם בָּאָ֑רֶץ לֹֽא־יִ֝פְנֶה דֶּ֣רֶךְ כְּרָמִֽים׃ צִיָּ֤ה גַם־חֹ֗ם יִגְזְל֥וּ מֵֽימֵי־שֶׁ֗לֶג שְׁא֣וֹל חָטָֽאוּ׃ יִשְׁכָּ֘חֵ֤הוּ רֶ֨חֶם ׀ מְתָ֘ק֤וֹ רִמָּ֗ה ע֥וֹד לֹֽא־יִזָּכֵ֑ר וַתִּשָּׁבֵ֖ר כָּעֵ֣ץ עַוְלָֽה׃
1611
King James Bible
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).
He is swift as the waters; their portion is cursed in the earth: he beholdeth not the way of the vineyards. Drought and heat consume the snow waters: so doth the grave those which have sinned. The womb shall forget him; the worm shall feed sweetly on him; he shall be no more remembered; and wickedness shall be broken as a tree.
Printed Septuagint; translated 1872
Greek Job, filled-out text (library: Giguet's French)
How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.
Ils fuient rapidement comme s’ils glissaient sur l’eau. Maudite soit leur part sur la terre. Que leurs rejetons apparaissent desséchés sur le sol; car ils ont ravi la gerbe de l’orphelin. Dieu, ensuite, s’est souvenu de leur péché; ils se sont évanouis comme la vapeur de la rosée. Puissent-ils être rétribués selon leurs œuvres! que tout homme inique soit brisé comme le bois pourri!
Greek via Giguet's French (filled-out printed text); not checked against Ziegler's critical edition.
What changed, and why
No manuscript evidence supports moving the verses; the proposals are literary. The site keeps the received speaker. The library's Sahidic Coptic lacks 24:15–17 nearby, consistent with a shorter Old Greek.
What the evidence shows
- 24:18–25 belongs to another speaker. Modern proposal only.
Sources
Related lessons
- The Poor of the Earth Hide Themselves →Why does the Almighty not set days for judgment? People move boundary stones, steal flocks, take the orphan's donkey and the widow's ox as pledge. The poor hide; like wild asses they forage in the desert, sleep naked in the cold, are soaked by mountain rain; they carry sheaves while hungry and tread winepresses while thirsty. In the city the dying groan, "yet God layeth not folly to them." Murderers, adulterers and thieves love the dark. The last verses (24:18–25) seem to say the wicked do perish, and who speaks them is debated.