to bolt · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
iron
בַּרְזֶ֑לbar.Zel
H1270
iron (as cutting) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
weapon
מִנֵּ֣שֶׁקmi.Ne.shek
H5402
military equipment · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
bow
קֶ֣שֶׁתKe.shet
H7198
a bow · noun, common feminine singular construct
steel
נְחוּשָֽׁהne.chu.Shah
H5154
copper · noun, common feminine singular absolute
through
תַּ֝חְלְפֵ֗הוּtach.le.Fe.hu
H2498
properly · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Isaiah 24:18 And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of…
Amos 5:19 As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.
2 Samuel 22:35 He teacheth my hands to war; so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.
1 Kings 20:30 But the rest fled to Aphek, into the city; and there a wall fell upon twenty and seven thousand of the men that were left. And Ben-hadad fle…
Proverbs 7:23 Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life.
Jeremiah 48:43-44 Fear, and the pit, and the snare, shall be upon thee, O inhabitant of Moab, saith the LORD.
Amos 9:1-3 I saw the Lord standing upon the altar: and he said, Smite the lintel of the door, that the posts may shake: and cut them in the head, all o…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 20:23–end
Zophar, having described the many embarrassments and vexations which commonly attend the wicked practices of oppressors and cruel men, here comes to show their utter ruin at last.
I. Their ruin will take its rise from God's wrath and vengeance, Job 20:23. The hand of the wicked was upon him (Job 20:22), every hand of the wicked. His hand was against every one, and therefore every man's hand will be against him. Yet, in grappling with these, he might go near to make his part good; but his heart cannot endure, nor his hands be strong, when God shall deal with him (Eze 22:14), when God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him and rain it upon him. Every word here speaks terror. It is not only…
steel--rather, "brass." While the wicked flees from one danger, he falls into a greater one from an opposite quarter [UMBREIT].
John Gill on Job 20:24
He shall flee from the iron weapon,.... The sword, for fear of being thrust through with it; the flaming sword of justice God sometimes threatens to take, and whet, and make use of against ungodly men; the sword of God, as Bar Tzemach observes, is hereby figuratively expressed; fleeing from it, or an attempt to flee from it, shows guilt in the conscience, danger, and a sense of it, and a fear of falling into it, and yet there is no escaping the hand of God, or fleeing from his presence:
and the bow of steel shall strike him through; that is, an arrow out of a bow, made of steel or brass, of which bows were formerly made, and reckoned the strongest and most forcible, see Psalm 18:34; signify…
21 Nothing escaped his covetousness,
Therefore his prosperity shall not continue.
22 In the fulness of his need it shall be strait with him,
Every hand of the needy shall come upon him.
23 It shall come to pass: in order to fill his belly,
He sendeth forth the glow of His anger into him,
And He causeth it to rain upon him into his flesh.
24 He must flee from an iron weapon,
Therefore a brazen bow pierceth him through.
25 It teareth, then it cometh forth out of his body,
And the steel out of his gall,
The terrors of death come upon him.
The words of Job 20:21 are: there was nothing that escaped (שׂריד, as Job 18:19, from שׂרד, Arab. šarada, aufugere) his eating (from אכל, not from אכל), i.e.…
The Church Fathers
"Let him be wounded with an arrow of brass. Who still remains in the wound.
Ver. 24. He shall flee from the iron weapons; and rush upon the bow of brass. 30. We ought to know, that avarice sometimes steals upon men from pride, and sometimes from apprehension. Thus there are some who whilst they aim to appear with greater power, are kindled to the going after the things of others; and there are some, who while they are afraid lest the necessaries of the aids of life should be wanting to them, freely give their minds to covetousness, and go after the things of others when they fancy that their own may not be enough for them. Now all necessity is not unaptly termed 'iron,' in that it pains the life of him that wants with the wound of grief, as it is likewise expressed concerning the necessities of him, who, being sold by his brethren, led an afflicted life; The iron entered into his soul. [Ps. 105, 18] What then are 'the iron weapons' but necessities of the present life, which press hard upon, and push to extremity, the life of the needy? Since iron is consumed by rust, but brass is naturally more difficult to be consumed by it. Therefore by 'iron' there is represented present necessity which is transient, but by 'brass' the eternal doom. And whereas the judgment Above is not heeded by the mind of the wicked man, it is justly likened to a 'bow,' since it strikes as it were out of ambush, whilst the person that is struck does not observe it. And thus, He shall flee from the iron weapons, and rush upon the bow of brass; in that whilst from dreading present necessities, he seizes things without number, through maliciousness he is exposing himself before the severe strokes of the final judgment; and, while he 'fleeth the weapons of iron,' he is encountered by the arrows from the bow of brass, in that, while foolishly providing against the ills of time, he is struck by eternal doom. For whosoever with guilt fleeth the hardness of need here, meets there an everlasting duration of just retribution. But before the time that he is hurried off to judgment, what are the things which this wicked man is busied in here, he yet further informs us.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Copper — Derived from the Greek kupros (the island of Cyprus), called “Cyprian brass,” occurs only in the Authorized Version in Ezra 8:27. Elsewhere the Hebrew word (nehosheth) is improperly rendered “brass,”…
Metals — The Hebrews, in common with other ancient nations, were acquainted with nearly all the metals known to modern metallurgy, whether as the products of their own soil or the results of intercourse with…
Steel — The “bow of steel” in (A.V.) 2 Sam. 22:35; Job 20:24; Ps. 18:34 is in the Revised Version “bow of brass” (Heb. kesheth-nehushah). In Jer. 15:12 the same word is used, and is also rendered in the…
Arms, Military · Made of iron, steel, or brass — Made of iron, steel, or brass
Bow · .Ma — .Ma
Bow, The · Usually of steel — Usually of steel
Iron · Weapons — Weapons
Steel · Bows of — Bows of
Worldliness · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The wicked cannot escape trouble (cp. Isa 24:17-18; Jer 15:2-3; Amos 5:19; 9:1-2). When they try to escape one threat, they fall victim to another.
Rashi on Job 20:24
shall pierce him Heb. תַּחְלְפֵהוּ The arrows that the bow will shoot will pierce his body, going through from one side to the other. Another version: תַּחְלְפֵהוּ is like תַּחְליִפֵהוּ (sic), a copper bow shall confront him.
