Judgment Day

“But the eyes of the wicked will fail, and there will be no escape for them; and their hope is to breathe their last.”  Job 11:20 NASB

To breathe their last – Take a guess.

 וְ֜תִקְוָתָ֗ם מַֽפַּח־נָֽפֶשׁ (transliterated: ve-tikvatam mapach-nephish).  You’ll recognize the word translated “breath” (nephesh), remembering that its umbrella includes “soul, creature, person, appetite” and “mind.” Waltke points out that this word covers “synonyms for creature, ‘living thing, beast, fish,’ for appetite, ‘heart, pleasure, desire, lust, discontent,’ and ‘will.’ While ‘any(one), man,’ and ‘self (myself, etc.).’”^[1]  This helps us see why Alter translates the verse as:

And the eyes of the wicked will pine, escape will be lost to them, and their hope—a last gasp of breath.  Robert Alter

But then there’s Chabad:  And the eyes of the wicked shall fail, and they shall have no way to flee, and their hope shall result in intense grief.  Chabad

How is it possible for NASB to render, “breathe their last,” Alter to write “last gasp of breath,” and Chabad to pen “result in intense grief”?  These are not the same.

ve-tikvatam is the conjunctive plus the feminine, singular noun tiqwâ.  Interesting in itself since the attached pronoun is plural (“their hope”).  mapach, from the root nāpaḥ (to breathe) is a participial noun meaning “breathing out.”  It is coupled with nephesh, producing something like “expiring person.”  Perhaps Alter is close enough with the idiomatic expression.  But where does Chabad’s translation come from?  Nothing in the vocabulary suggests “results in intense grief.”  The statement seems to be about the end of the wicked, not their emotional condition.  But there is a sense in which nephesh could refer to “one’s spiritual/volitional appetite, that is, ‘desire’ or ‘will’”^[2]  Perhaps an emotional expression might be justified along these lines, but that seems to take away the finality of the declaration.  You will have to decide this issue yourself.

Now the larger question.  Is this statement true?  Eschatologically, perhaps, but in our world this seems only a dream.  The wicked prosper.  They despoil the creation.  They harm.  They brutalize.  They murder.  And more often than not, they don’t gasp at the last.  In the context of ancient Semitic thought, this statement seems quite impossible.  It demands a just world, not just in theory but in practical reality.  The only way Zophar’s announcement can be true is if there is something beyond the grave, and that stands in opposition to everything we know about the perspective of the Tanakh.  Maybe it wasn’t written during that ancient world view after all.

Topical Index: tiqwâ, hope, mapach, breathing, nephesh, person, justice, eschatology, Job 11:20

^[1] Waltke, B. K. (1999). 1395 נָפַשׁ. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament(electronic ed., p. 588). Moody Press.

^[2] Ibid.