Job 20:17 — ExegesisTAB

The verse opens with the prohibitive negation al-yere {אַל־יֵרֶא | ʾal-yērēʾ} ‘he will not see,’ where the negative particle with the imperfect verb expresses firm denial of future experience. What follows is a piling up of abundance imagery through a chain of water terms: biflaggot {בִפְלַגּוֹת | bip̄laggôṯ} ‘streams’ is specified by the construct naharei {נַהֲרֵי | nahărê} ‘of rivers,’ which is further extended by nakhalei {נַחֲלֵי | naḥălê} ‘of wadis,’ creating a compressed, poetic stack that heightens the sense of overflowing plenty. The final pair dvash {דְּבַשׁ | dəḇaš} ‘honey’ and khem’ah {חֶמְאָה | ḥemʾāh} ‘curds’ functions as the climactic object of the construct chain: not merely watercourses, but watercourses imagined as flowing with delicacies. In English, the formal rendering keeps the asyndetic accumulation (“streams, rivers, wadis”) to reflect the Hebrew crescendo, while the dynamic rendering reshapes the construct stacking into natural parallel phrases without introducing a new action beyond “see,” preserving the verse’s point: complete deprivation of the very symbols of prosperity.