Job 20:26 — ExegesisTAB

The verse opens with the maqqef-linked phrase kol-choshekh {כָּל־חֹשֶׁךְ֮ | kāl-ḥōšeḵ} ‘all darkness,’ a totalizing expression that frames the fate of the wicked as comprehensive calamity. The participle tamun {טָמ֢וּן | ṭā-mûn} ‘hidden/laid up’ functions predicatively, presenting the doom as already set aside rather than merely possible. The lamed phrase litsfunav {לִצְפּ֫וּנָ֥יו | liṣpûnāyw} ‘for his hidden treasures’ marks the sphere of loss: what was “stored” becomes the very occasion for stored-up disaster. The clause teakhlehu {תְּ֭אָכְלֵהוּ | təʾāḵəlēhû} ‘it will consume him’ uses verb-first order, with the subject supplied afterward by apposition: esh {אֵ֣שׁ | ʾēš} ‘fire,’ heightened by the descriptor lo-nuppakh {לֹֽא־נֻפָּ֑ח | lō-nuppāḥ} ‘not blown,’ portraying an unassisted, inexorable burning rather than a human-managed flame. The final clause yera {יֵ֖רַע | yēraʿ} ‘it will go badly’ shifts from imagery (“consume”) to outcome (“harm/ill”), and the subject remains the disaster just described; its effect reaches even the sarid {שָׂרִ֣יד | śārîḏ} ‘survivor’ within beaholo {בְּאָהֳלֽוֹ | bəʾāhŏlô} ‘his tent,’ extending judgment from the man to what remains of his household.