from the future world? Now follows the declamatory conclusion of the speech.
Verses 20-21
Job 18:20-21 20 Those who dwell in the west are astonished at his day,
And trembling seizeth those who dwell in the east; 21 Surely thus it befalleth the dwellings of the unrighteous,
And thus the place of him that knew not God.
It is as much in accordance with the usage of Arabic as it is biblical, to call the day of a man's doom “his day,” the day of a battle at a place “the day of that place.” Who are the אחרנים who are astonished at it, and the קדמנים whom terror (שׂער as twice besides in this sense in Ezek.) seizes, or as it is properly, who seize terror, i.e., of themselves, without being able to do otherwise than yield to the emotion (as Job 21:6; Isa 13:8; comp. on the contrary Exo 15:14.)? Hirz., Schlottm., Hahn, and others, understand posterity by אחרנים, and by קדמנים their ancestors, therefore Job's contemporaries. But the return from the posterity to those then living is strange, and the usage of the language is opposed to it; for קדמנים is elsewhere always what belongs to the previous age in relation to the speaker (e.g., 1Sa 24:14, comp. Ecc 4:16). Since, then, קדמני is used in the signification eastern (e.g., הים הקדמוני, the eastern sea = the Dead Sea), and אחרון in the signification western (e.g., הים האחרון, the western sea = the Mediterranean), it is much more suited both to the order of the words and the usage of the language to understand, with Schult., Oetinger, Umbr., and Ew., the former of those dwelling in the west, and the latter of those dwelling in the east. In the summarizing Job 18:21, the retrospective pronouns are also praegn., like Job 8:19; Job 20:29, comp. Job 26:14 : Thus is it, viz., according to their fate, i.e., thus it befalls them; and אך here retains its original affirmative signification (as in the concluding verse of Psa 58:1-11), although in Hebrew this is blended with the restrictive. וזה
