Job’s second confession concerns more than the failure of physical sight: he cannot discern God’s activity or comprehend the divine purpose in it. The verb אָבִין (ʾābîn), Qal imperfect first common singular of בִּין (bîn), commonly denotes discerning, understanding, or distinguishing. The attached לּוֹ (lô, “with respect to him” or “him”) identifies God as the one whose action remains unintelligible to Job. Thus, “I do not see him” describes God’s hiddenness from direct perception, while “I do not understand him” expresses Job’s inability to interpret what God is doing as he moves through Job’s life and the world. The imperfect verbs portray God’s movement as a recurring or characteristic reality, rather than necessarily a single visible appearance. In the immediate context, God performs “great things beyond searching out” and “wonders without number” (9:10), and no one can restrain him or demand an account of his actions (9:12). Job therefore does not deny God’s presence or power; he affirms both while lamenting that God’s sovereign activity eludes human inspection and explanation. The language recalls biblical descriptions of God’s “passing by,” especially Exodus 33:19-23, where even Moses is not permitted an unveiled sight of God’s glory. Job’s point, however, is directed toward providence and judgment: the God who is truly present and active remains beyond Job’s capacity to locate, confront, or comprehend in his affliction.

The wife's question deliberately echoes the Lord's declaration in 2:3: Job is “still holding fast” to his integrity (ʿodka maḥăzîq bĕtummāteka), corresponding closely to God's description, “he still holds fast to his integrity” (ʿōdénnû maḥăzîq bĕtummātô). The adverb ʿôd, with the second masculine singular suffix in ʿodka, means “still” or “yet”; it does not itself mean “how long,” though an English translation may bring out the implied temporal challenge. The Hiphil active participle maḥăzîq, from ḥāzaq, depicts continued resolute adherence. Her question is therefore incredulous and hostile: after the loss of his children and possessions and the ruin of his health, she regards Job's persistence in blameless fidelity as irrational. The repetition is narratively significant because “integrity” (tummâ) has already been affirmed by the narrator (1:1) and by God himself (1:8; 2:3). It denotes Job's wholeness or moral soundness before God, not a claim that Job is sinless or incapable of error. The wife's speech challenges precisely the reality that God has upheld against the satan's accusation. The satan had predicted that affliction would make Job renounce God; the wife now urges the course that would validate that prediction. Her words thus function as a renewed temptation within the trial, arising from the household most immediately affected by Job's catastrophe. The context does not authorize a comprehensive judgment upon the wife's entire character or motives beyond this utterance. She too has suffered the loss of children and security, and her despair is palpable. Yet the narrator's verdict in v. 10, that Job did not sin with his lips, confirms that Job's refusal of her counsel corresponds to the divine evaluation already given in 2:3. The echo consequently sets her skeptical question against God's authoritative testimony: what she treats as futile obstinacy is, in the book's own terms, Job's persevering integrity before God.

Elihu's command that Job be silent is a demand for temporary attention while Elihu completes his speech, not a permanent denial of Job's right to answer. The imperative הַחֲרֵשׁ (haḥărēš), Hiphil imperative masculine singular from חרשׁ (ḥrš), calls Job to cease speaking or remain quiet. Joined by waw to אָנֹכִי אֲדַבֵּר (ʾānōkî ʾădabbēr), “and I will speak,” it establishes the immediate order of discourse: Job is to listen while Elihu presents his case. The independent pronoun אָנֹכִי is emphatic, marking Elihu's insistence that his own argument now receive an uninterrupted hearing. The surrounding verses qualify the force of the silence command. In v. 32 Elihu immediately says, “If you have words, answer me; speak, for I desire to justify you.” The conditional invitation demonstrates that v. 31 does not impose absolute silence. Rather, Elihu requires Job to stop interrupting or defending himself long enough to hear the argument, while retaining an explicit opportunity to respond. Verse 33 similarly resumes the call to listen if Job has no answer: “Be silent, and I will teach you wisdom.” Elihu's procedural language reflects the disputational setting of the book. He claims the floor and seeks a hearing, yet represents himself as willing, at least formally, to hear a reply that could establish Job's case.

The singular suffixes and verb forms indicate that Job addresses Eliphaz particularly, not the three friends indiscriminately. The Hiphil imperfect יַמְרִיצְךָ (yamrîtsekā, “provokes, impels, or irritates you”) takes a second masculine singular suffix, and תַעֲנֶה (taʿăneh, Qal imperfect, second masculine singular, “you answer”) continues the direct address. This follows naturally upon Eliphaz’s lengthy speech in chap. 15, to which Job’s discourse in 16:1 begins as an answer. Although Job soon indicts the friends collectively as “miserable comforters” (16:2), the immediate verbal exchange is with Eliphaz as the most recent and principal speaker. The singular also has a rhetorical edge. Eliphaz has presented himself as compelled by inner disturbance to reply: “A spirit answers me” (15:13), and “a spirit from my understanding gives me an answer” (15:18). Job now challenges the legitimacy of that compulsion. What, he asks, has actually stirred Eliphaz to continue answering with such empty speech? The question does not deny that Eliphaz has spoken, nor does it seek information concerning an external provocation. It exposes the absence of a sound moral or theological basis for his accusations. Eliphaz’s claimed insight has yielded words that Job judges to be as unsubstantial as wind, and his personal address to Eliphaz prepares for the broader condemnation of the friends’ consolations.

Job’s closing declaration dissociates him from the wicked whose undisturbed prosperity he has just described. The clause עֲצַת רְשָׁעִים רָחֲקָה מֶנִּי, “the counsel of the wicked is far from me,” employs רָחֲקָה (rahaqah), a Qal perfect feminine singular agreeing with עֲצַת (ʿatsat, “counsel”). “Counsel” denotes their settled purpose, policy, or moral course, rather than advice offered to Job. Job is therefore not commending their impiety because he reports that they flourish. His argument is precisely that the observable prosperity of the wicked cannot sustain the friends’ simple assertion that present circumstances invariably disclose a person’s moral standing. The first clause, “Behold, their good is not in their hand,” remains syntactically compressed and has been understood in more than one way. In context it most naturally qualifies the preceding catalogue of prosperity by denying that the wicked finally possess or control their good as autonomous masters. Their wealth and security are real, yet they are not self-originating or beyond God’s dominion. This reservation coheres with Job’s rejection of their counsel: he neither denies the scandal of their apparent success nor accepts the self-sufficient, anti-God posture displayed in 21:14-15. Eliphaz later repeats this language in 22:18, after acknowledging that God filled the wicked’s houses with good. There the words are presented as a citation or ironic appropriation of Job’s position: Eliphaz immediately counters, in effect, that the counsel of the wicked is far from him. The repetition confirms that Job 21:16 functions as Job’s own protest against any association with wickedness, not as a detached narrator’s verdict or a concession that the wicked are righteous. Yet Eliphaz misconstrues the force of Job’s argument, treating Job’s account of wicked prosperity as though it minimized divine judgment. Job’s point is narrower and more troubling: divine judgment is certain, but it is not distributed in the immediate and mechanically visible manner claimed by the friends.

“The men of my tent” are best understood as the members of Job’s household, especially those who lived and worked under his authority, rather than as a reference limited to relatives or passing guests. The expression מְתֵי אָהֳלִי (metê ʾoholî), literally “men of my tent,” uses the construct plural מְתֵי, “men of,” with “my tent” as the sphere of domestic life. In a patriarchal household, the tent included dependents, servants, and resident retainers as well as the immediate family. These persons were well positioned to testify concerning the master’s ordinary treatment of those in his care. The verse forms part of Job’s oath of clearance in Job 31. The conditional אִם־לֹא (“if not”) introduces a claim whose denial would expose Job to judgment: even those nearest him could not truthfully complain that they had been denied provision. Their reported saying, rendered more idiomatically, is “Who has not been satisfied with his meat?” The term בָּשָׂר (bāśār), “flesh,” denotes meat or food supplied from Job’s table, while נִשְׂבָּע (niśbaʿ), a Niphal form of שׂבע, means “has been satisfied” or “has had enough.” Job therefore adduces the testimony of his own household to establish habitual generosity, a claim immediately extended in v. 32 to the stranger who did not lodge in the street.

The alternation between אֱלֹהִים (ʾelohim) and אֵל (ʾel) does not mark two different divine agents or two distinguishable aspects of deity. Both terms designate the one God who assigns the wicked man's allotted end. The second colon restates and intensifies the first in characteristic Hebrew parallelism: the "portion" (ḥēleq) from God corresponds to the "inheritance" (naḥălat) from El. Although ʾel can occur as a generic designation for a god in some settings, its use here, following ʾelohim and governing the same judicial outcome, plainly refers to Israel's God. Job frequently employs El alongside Eloah, Shaddai, and Elohim, particularly in the elevated diction of the dialogues. Such variation is idiomatic and poetic, allowing parallel lines to avoid simple repetition while preserving the identity of the referent. The preposition מִן (min), attached to both divine names, identifies God as the source and giver of the wicked person's appointed lot. The paired titles therefore reinforce Zophar's central assertion rather than qualifying it. What the wicked man receives is neither accidental misfortune nor merely the consequence of human retaliation; it is his divinely apportioned "portion" and "inheritance." The vocabulary is deliberately ironic, since inheritance language ordinarily evokes a desirable allotted possession, whereas here it denotes the doom that, according to Zophar's retributive argument, belongs to the wicked.

The expression הַשָּׂטָן (haśśāṭān), literally “the adversary” or “the accuser,” presents the figure by title or function rather than by an anarthrous personal name. The definite article is retained in Job 2:6, as throughout the prologue (1:6-12; 2:1-7), and the noun śāṭān denotes one who opposes or accuses. The rendering “the satan” consequently preserves an important feature of the Hebrew, whereas “Satan” necessarily treats the title as a proper name. Yet the title does not reduce the satan to an impersonal function or merely to a human legal opponent. In the immediate heavenly-court setting, he appears among the “sons of God,” addresses the LORD, receives a restricted commission, and carries it out deliberately against Job. He is therefore a personal supernatural adversary whose activity is accusatory and destructive, though he remains wholly subordinate to the divine King. The article indicates his role in this scene, not an absence of personal identity. Later biblical revelation identifies Satan as the chief personal enemy of God’s people, the deceiver and accuser (for example, Zech 3:1-2; Luke 22:31; Rev 12:9-10). Job 2:6 should be read consistently with that canonical portrait, while allowing the narrator’s designation, “the satan,” to emphasize his judicially adversarial office. The verse thus depicts Satan neither as an autonomous rival to the LORD nor as a mere abstraction, but as a personal accuser operating only under God’s explicit and bounded permission.

The imperative הָפֵץ (hāpēṣ), Hiphil imperative of פּוּץ (pûṣ, “scatter, disperse”), calls Job to send forth anger in active judicial execution, not to dissipate or suppress an inward emotion. Its object, עֶבְרוֹת אַפֶּךָ (ʿeḇrôt ʾappekā), literally “the outbursts of your anger,” depicts wrath as breaking forth in repeated and effective acts against its proper objects. The plural עֶבְרוֹת (ʿeḇrôt), construct plural of עֶבְרָה (ʿeḇrâ), commonly denotes overflowing fury or indignation. It does not imply several conflicting passions; it presents anger in its manifestations, the concrete judgments issuing from it. The following imperatives define the intended direction of this wrath: Job must look upon every proud person and bring him low. Thus the divine challenge concerns the administration of righteous rule. In the immediate context, the Lord has asked whether Job possesses an arm like God’s and a voice like thunder (40:9); now Job is challenged to perform the judicial work that belongs to the divine King, namely, to expose pride and abase the wicked. The language resembles Old Testament depictions of the Lord’s anger as a holy, public opposition to arrogant rebellion, rather than an uncontrolled human temper. Verse 11 therefore forms part of the argument that Job cannot establish his own vindication by exercising the prerogatives of universal judgment. Verse 12 repeats the command to look upon the proud and abase them, and verse 14 draws the inference that, if Job could do this, God would acknowledge that Job’s own right hand could save him. The plural “outbursts” intensifies the challenge: Job would need neither a single act of indignation nor private moral discernment, but comprehensive, effective judgment against all human pride.

The clause אִם־יָדַעְתָּ בִינָה (ʾim-yādaʿtā bînâ, “if you know understanding”) functions ironically within the divine interrogation. God commands Job, הַגֵּד (haggēd), a Hiphil imperative of נגד (nagad), “declare” or “make known,” to state where he was when the earth was founded, but the condition immediately exposes his inability to supply such knowledge. The point is not that Job may possibly possess the required information, but that his earlier speeches have pressed claims about God’s governance which exceed the limits of creaturely understanding. The particle אִם (ʾim) commonly introduces a real condition, but in rhetorical questions and challenges it can carry a concessive or testing force: “if indeed you know.” The perfect יָדַעְתָּ (yādaʿtā, “you have known”) refers to knowledge that Job would have had to possess already, namely knowledge extending back to the founding of the earth. The object בִּינָה (bînâ) denotes discernment or understanding, especially the capacity to grasp rightly the order and meaning of reality. Thus the expression is stronger than a request for information; it tests whether Job possesses the wisdom necessary to assess the Creator’s administration of the world. The immediate context confirms this reading. Job 38:2 has charged Job with darkening counsel “without knowledge,” and the questions beginning in v. 4 unfold the immense gap between Job’s temporal, creaturely perspective and God’s comprehensive knowledge of creation. Yet the irony does not deny that Job has any true knowledge of God, nor does it portray his suffering as proof of secret wickedness. Rather, it rebukes his presumption in bringing God’s justice under final human judgment. The speeches that follow establish that the wisdom by which God governs creation cannot be measured by Job’s restricted access to its origins, purposes, and ordering.

The unexpressed plural subject of יָשִׂימוּ (yasimu, Qal imperfect third masculine plural, “they make” or “they set”) is best understood as Job’s companions, especially the friends who continue to press him toward a hopeful construction of his circumstances. The immediate context supports this identification. Verse 10 directly addresses the group, “But you all, return, come now,” and denies that any wise man is found among them. Verse 12 then reports their contrary assessment in language that likely summarizes their counsel: they treat night as day and declare that light is near despite darkness. The “mockers” of v. 2 are conceivable antecedents, since the verbal root associated with mockery occurs there, but they are not the nearest or most coherent referent. Job’s dispute throughout the dialogue is principally with his friends, whose assertions about divine justice require them to anticipate some restoration if Job will abandon his protest and accept their moral diagnosis. The plural can therefore embrace the speakers collectively without requiring that each of the three had used these exact words. Verse 11 clarifies the force of the complaint. Job has said that his days, plans, and heart’s desires have been broken off; against this settled experience, the friends maintain that אור קרוב מפני־חשך (ʾor qarob mippenê-ḥōšek), “light is near before the darkness,” or “in the presence of darkness.” The phrase does not deny that Job presently inhabits darkness. Rather, it faults the friends for speaking as though an imminent reversal were evident when Job sees death and Sheol approaching. Their conventional hope is thus exposed as inadequate to the depth of Job’s affliction and to the divine estrangement that he believes he endures.

Job does not deny God’s power to save; he confesses that no creature can compel God to release one whom he has seized in judgment or affliction. The clause וְאֵין מִיָּדְךָ מַצִּיל (weʾên miyyādeka maṣṣîl) employs ʾên, “there is none,” with the Hiphil active participle maṣṣîl, “one delivering” or “rescuer.” The participle functions substantivally: there is no deliverer from God’s hand. Job’s point is that no independent power exists capable of intervening against the divine action directed toward him. This language coheres with Job’s earlier confession: when God takes away, “who can turn him back?” (9:12), and no one can summon him to account (9:19). In the present context, however, that confession is uttered as a lament. God knows that Job is not wicked in the sense alleged by his friends, yet God’s irresistible hand continues to press upon him (10:6-8). The statement therefore intensifies Job’s forensic perplexity: the one who knows his relative integrity is also the one from whose hand no external judge, advocate, or rescuer can deliver him. The assertion does not make divine deliverance impossible, since throughout the Old Testament the Lord himself is repeatedly the deliverer of his people. Rather, Job excludes rescue by another party over against God. His anguish arises precisely because appeal must finally be made to God alone, while God presently appears as the adversary. The verse thus preserves God’s absolute sovereignty without resolving Job’s complaint concerning the justice of his suffering.

The הַנְּעָרִים (hannĕʿārîm, “the young men”) are Job’s servants or farm attendants, not his sons. The report concerns the oxen plowing and the female donkeys feeding beside them (v. 14), and the definite noun naturally denotes the personnel assigned to those animals. The Sabeans seized the livestock and struck these attendants “at the edge of the sword,” an idiom meaning by the sword's blade. The messenger alone escaped from that particular group in order to bring the report. Although נַעַר (naʿar) can denote a boy, its semantic range includes a servant, attendant, or subordinate, without requiring childhood. English renderings such as “boys” can therefore be misleading if taken as a reference to children. The narrative carefully reserves a distinct report for the death of Job’s sons and daughters in vv. 18-19; they are identified there as “his sons” and “his daughters” and are located in the eldest brother’s house, not in the fields. The slaughter in v. 15 thus marks the destruction of Job’s agricultural household and labor force, while the later report announces the separate and climactic loss of his children.

Job 35:1 introduces a fresh literary division within Elihu’s address, conventionally identified as his fourth discourse (Job 35:1-37:24), though it need not imply an interruption or a new historical speaking occasion. The formula wayyaʿan ʾĕlîhû wayyōʾmar, “Elihu answered and said,” employs two Qal wayyiqtol forms: wayyaʿan, from ʿānâ (“answer, respond”), and wayyōʾmar, from ʾāmar (“say”). As a narrative speech-heading, the expression marks the resumption and formal presentation of speech rather than requiring that Job has just addressed Elihu directly. The book uses similar headings at the beginning of Elihu’s major movements: Job 32:6, 34:1, and 35:1 introduce speech, while 36:1 uses the related expression “Elihu added and said” (wayyōsep ʾĕlîhû wayyōʾmar). This repeated framing supports the traditional division of Elihu’s material into four speeches: 32-33, 34, 35, and 36-37. Yet chapter 35 remains closely connected to chapter 34 in subject matter. Having defended God’s justice against charges arising from Job’s protest, Elihu now takes up the more particular claim that righteousness seems to bring no advantage (35:2-3). The heading therefore signals a new argumentative unit within a continuing confrontation with Job’s words, rather than a sharply separated exchange in the narrative chronology.

The plural “his widows” (אַלְמְנֹתָיו, ʾalmenōtāyw) should not be treated as evidence that the wicked man himself necessarily had several wives. The masculine singular pronominal suffix, also found in “his survivors” (שְׂרִידָיו, śĕrîdāyw), identifies the afflicted household with the wicked man described in the preceding context. Since v. 14 has already spoken of his children, the widows most naturally include women bereaved by the death of males belonging to his family or household, especially the wives of his descendants. The suffix marks their relation to his ruined estate and lineage rather than specifying the precise marital relation of each widow to him personally. Polygyny was legally and socially possible in the Old Testament world, and the wording could include more than one wife left by the wicked man. Yet the plural is fully explained by the wider household catastrophe envisioned in vv. 14-15: his offspring are exposed to sword and famine, and even those who remain are carried to burial. The two plural groups, “survivors” and “widows,” portray the collapse of the family from two related angles, the death of its remaining men and the bereavement of its women. The final imperfect, תִבְכֶּינָה (tibkenâ, Qal imperfect third feminine plural), depicts the expected act of mourning as absent, an image suited to devastation so complete that ordinary funeral lamentation fails to occur.

The verbs in v. 10 recount God's original ordering of the sea, rather than primarily describing a continuing action in the present. Both וָאֶשְׁבֹּר (waʾešbōr, from šābar, "break") and וָאָשִׂים (wāʾāśîm, from śîm, "set, place") are first-person singular imperfect forms with prefixed waw functioning sequentially, often designated wayyiqtol or the waw-consecutive imperfect. In this context the construction carries preterite force: "I broke" or, according to the sense given to the first verb, "I prescribed," and "I set." English versions appropriately render the sequence as divine acts accomplished when the sea was brought under its appointed limits. The surrounding questions determine the temporal reference. Verses 8-9 portray the sea's emergence as though at birth, clothed by God with cloud and darkness; vv. 10-11 continue the same retrospective account by speaking of its boundary, bar, doors, and imposed command. The following statement, "Thus far shall you come, and no farther" (v. 11), expresses the enduring efficacy of that primordial decree, but it does not convert the verbs of v. 10 into present-progressive descriptions. God established the sea's limit in the ordering of creation, and that established limit remains operative by his sovereign rule. The poetic setting permits vivid metaphor without weakening the past reference. The sea is treated as a force whose divinely appointed confinement was effected by God himself. Thus the sequential forms contribute to the argument of the divine speeches: Job is confronted with acts of cosmic governance that preceded human existence and that remain beyond human authority.

Eliphaz’s words in v. 13 are an accusatory characterization of Job’s position, not an accurate statement of Job’s settled theology. The singular address, “and you say” (wĕʾāmarta, Qal perfect, second masculine singular), directly charges Job with denying that God knows or can judge. Eliphaz thus interprets Job’s protests concerning the prosperity of the wicked and the apparent absence of divine judgment as virtual atheism: Job is alleged to have concluded, “What does God know?” (mah-yādaʿ ʾēl), followed by the rhetorical question whether God can judge through the obscuring darkness. The larger dialogue does not sustain Eliphaz’s charge. Job has indeed described the wicked as speaking in terms very similar to this, especially in 21:14–15, where they tell God to depart and deny that service of him profits. Yet Job reports and contests their apparent security; he does not adopt their impiety as his creed. Elsewhere he explicitly affirms God’s exhaustive knowledge, declaring that God knows the way he takes (23:10), and he appeals to the divine Judge precisely because God knows his integrity (31:4–6). Job’s difficulty concerns the timing and visibility of God’s justice, whereas Eliphaz recasts that difficulty as a denial of God’s knowledge and judicial competence. The speech therefore advances Eliphaz’s increasingly rigid inference that suffering proves hidden wickedness, an inference the book’s conclusion will reject even while maintaining God’s omniscience and righteousness.

The clause portrays comprehensive calamity as reserved for the wicked man’s concealed possessions and household, rather than describing darkness as physically stored within his riches. “All darkness” (kol-ḥōšek) is the subject of the passive participle ṭāmûn, “hidden” or “kept in reserve.” The following expression, liṣpûnayw, derives from the passive participle of ṣāpan, “to hide, store up,” used substantivally with the third masculine singular suffix: “for his hidden things,” hence “for his treasures” or “secret stores.” The lamed marks what the darkness is destined to reach. English renderings that speak of darkness being “laid up for his treasures” preserve the compressed Hebrew, while “lies in wait for his wealth” makes its judicial sense explicit. In Zophar’s portrayal, the wicked person has gained and guarded wealth, yet the very goods thought secure are marked for destruction. This follows the preceding depiction of ill-gotten riches being forced from his stomach (20:15) and prepares for the ruin of his tent and remaining household in the latter half of the verse. “Darkness” therefore denotes the full, inescapable sphere of divine calamity, including loss, death, and the extinguishing of prosperity; it need not be restricted to the darkness of Sheol. The language of concealment is deliberately ironic: what the wicked hides cannot be protected from the judgment that has itself been hidden and reserved against it. The following unkindled fire supplies the means by which this stored darkness comes upon both the man and the survivor in his tent.

The singular qôl, “voice,” in the construct phrase qôl-negîdîm, “the voice of princes,” is a collective singular: it portrays the speech of the assembled leaders as one public voice. The plural Niphal perfect neḥbāʾû, “they were hidden” or “they withdrew,” then resumes the plural negîdîm. Job’s point is that the rulers who might ordinarily speak with authority ceased from public speech in his presence. The idiom of a voice being “hidden” extends the preceding description, in which elders rise and officials restrain their words (vv. 8-9); their voice disappears from the gathering because they yield the floor to Job. The second colon does not identify Job as “the wise one” whose palate receives the princes’ tongues. The Hebrew reads ûlešônām leḥikkām dābēqâ, literally, “and their tongue clung to their palate.” Both the noun lešôn, “tongue,” and ḥēk, “palate,” bear third masculine plural suffixes, referring to the princes. The feminine singular Qal perfect dābēqâ agrees with the feminine subject lešôn. “Cleave to the palate” is a conventional picture of speechlessness, whether from awe, fear, weakness, or forced restraint. Within Job 29 it conveys the deference of influential men who regarded Job’s counsel as decisive, rather than a transfer of their speech to Job’s mouth or an assertion that Job himself is called “the wise one.”

Zophar declares that the wicked will be deprived of every avenue of escape when judgment comes. The noun מָנוֹס (mānôs), derived from the verb נוּס (nûs, “flee”), denotes flight, escape, or a means of refuge. In this parallelism, “flight will perish from them” means that escape will no longer be available to them. It does not chiefly describe the destruction of a physical refuge, though the loss of any safe haven is included in the image. The wicked, whose “eyes” have been strained in expectation or anxious searching, will find neither deliverance nor concealment. The verbal sequence intensifies the certainty of the announcement. תִּכְלֶינָה (tiklenâ), a Qal imperfect feminine plural agreeing with “eyes,” portrays their failing, while אָבַד (ʾābad), a Qal perfect singular with מָנוֹס as its subject, states the loss of escape as an accomplished fact: “escape has perished from them.” Hebrew poetry regularly joins imperfect and perfect forms in descriptions of a future certainty; the perfect here presents the coming loss as settled. Similar prophetic and wisdom imagery depicts the ungodly as unable to flee divine judgment (cf. Amos 2:14; 9:1). In Zophar’s argument, this is the dark counterpart to the security promised in 11:13-19 to the one who puts away iniquity. The book as a whole will expose Zophar’s error in treating Job’s suffering as proof that he belongs among the wicked, but the general affirmation that no wicked person can finally evade God’s judgment accords with the book’s theology.