Job 14:12-16:12 | KD | STEP | But man dieth, he lieth there stretched out, Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? 11 The waters flow away from the sea, And a stream decayeth and dryeth up: 12 So man lieth down and riseth not again; Till the heavens pass away they wake not, And are not aroused from their sleep. How much less favoured is the final lot of man! He dies, and then lies there completely broken down and melted away (חלשׁ( yaw, in the neuter signification, confectum esse, rendered in the Targum by אתּבר and אתמקמק). The fut. consec. continues the description of the cheerless results of death: He who has thus once fallen together is gone without leaving a trace of life. In Job 14:11. this vanishing away without hope and beyond recovery is contemplated under the figure of running water, or of water that is dried up and never returns again to its channel. Instead of אזלוּ Isaiah uses נשּׁתוּ ( ) in the oracle on Egypt, a prophecy in which many passages borrowed from the book of Job are interwoven. The former means to flow away (related radically with נזל), the latter to dry up (transposed נתּשׁ, ). But he also uses יחרב, which signifies the drying in, and then ויבשׁ, which is the complete drying up which follows upon the drying in (vid., Genesis, S. 264). What is thus figuratively expressed is introduced by waw ( ), similar to the waw adaequationis of the emblematic proverbs mentioned at ; : so there is for man no rising (קוּם), no waking up (הקיץ), no ἐγείρεσθαι (נעור), and indeed not for ever; for what does not happen until the heavens are no more (comp. , till the moon is no more), never happens; because God has called the heavens and the stars with their laws into existence, לעד לעולם ( ), they never cease (Jer 31:35.), the days of heaven are eternal ( ). This is not opposed to declarations like , for the world’s history, according to the teaching of Scripture, closes with a change in all these, but not their annihilation. What is affirmed in of mankind in general, is, by the change to the plural in , affirmed of each individual of the race. Their sleep of death is עזלם שׁנת ( , ). What Sheôl summons away from the world, the world never sees again. Oh that it were otherwise! How would the brighter future have comforted him with respect to the sorrowful present and the dark night of the grave!

‏ Job 14:12-22

Job 14:10-12 10 But man dieth, he lieth there stretched out,

Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? 11 The waters flow away from the sea,

And a stream decayeth and dryeth up: 12 So man lieth down and riseth not again;

Till the heavens pass away they wake not,

And are not aroused from their sleep.

How much less favoured is the final lot of man! He dies, and then lies there completely broken down and melted away (חלשׁ( yaw, in the neuter signification, confectum esse, rendered in the Targum by אתּבר and אתמקמק). The fut. consec. continues the description of the cheerless results of death: He who has thus once fallen together is gone without leaving a trace of life. In Job 14:11. this vanishing away without hope and beyond recovery is contemplated under the figure of running water, or of water that is dried up and never returns again to its channel. Instead of אזלוּ Isaiah uses נשּׁתוּ (Job 19:5) in the oracle on Egypt, a prophecy in which many passages borrowed from the book of Job are interwoven. The former means to flow away (related radically with נזל), the latter to dry up (transposed נתּשׁ, Jer 18:14). But he also uses יחרב, which signifies the drying in, and then ויבשׁ, which is the complete drying up which follows upon the drying in (vid., Genesis, S. 264). What is thus figuratively expressed is introduced by waw (Job 14:12), similar to the waw adaequationis of the emblematic proverbs mentioned at Job 5:7; Job 11:12 : so there is for man no rising (קוּם), no waking up (הקיץ), no ἐγείρεσθαι (נעור), and indeed not for ever; for what does not happen until the heavens are no more (comp. Psa 72:7, till the moon is no more), never happens; because God has called the heavens and the stars with their laws into existence, לעד לעולם (Psa 148:6), they never cease (Jer 31:35.), the days of heaven are eternal (Psa 89:30). This is not opposed to declarations like Psa 102:27, for the world’s history, according to the teaching of Scripture, closes with a change in all these, but not their annihilation. What is affirmed in Job 14:10-12 of mankind in general, is, by the change to the plural in Job 14:12, affirmed of each individual of the race. Their sleep of death is עזלם שׁנת (Jer 51:39, Jer 51:57). What Sheôl summons away from the world, the world never sees again. Oh that it were otherwise! How would the brighter future have comforted him with respect to the sorrowful present and the dark night of the grave! Job 14:13-16 13 Oh that Thou wouldst hide me in Sheôl,

That Thou wouldst conceal me till Thine anger change,

That Thou wouldst appoint me a time and then remember me! 14 If man dieth, shall he live again?

All the days of my warfare would I wait,

Until my change should come. 15 Thou wouldst call and I would answer,

Thou wouldst have a desire for the work of Thy hands - 16 For now thou numberest my steps,

And dost not restrain thyself over my sins.

The optative יתּן מי introduces a wish that has reference to the future, and is therefore, as at Job 6:8, followed by futt.; comp. on the other hand, Job 23:3, utinam noverim. The language of the wish reminds one of such passages in the Psalms as Psa 31:21; Psa 27:5 (comp. Isa 26:20): “In the day of trouble He hideth me in His pavilion, and in the secret of His tabernacle doth He conceal me.” So Job wishes that Hades, into which the wrath of God now precipitates him for ever, may only be a temporary place of safety for him, until the wrath of God turn away (שׁוּב, comp. the causative, Job 9:13); that God would appoint to him, when there, a חק, i.e., a terminus ad quem (comp. Job 14:5), and when this limit should be reached, again remember him in mercy. This is a wish that Job marks out for himself. The reality is indeed different: “if (ἐὰν) a man dies, will he live again?” The answer which Job’s consciousness, ignorant of anything better, alone can give, is: No, there is no life after death. It is, however, none the less a craving of his heart that gives rise to the wish; it is the most favourable thought, - a desirable possibility, - which, if it were but a reality, would comfort him under all present suffering: “all the days of my warfare would I wait until my change came.” צבא is the name he gives to the whole of this toilsome and sorrowful interval between the present and the wished-for goal, - the life on earth, which he likens to the service of the soldier or of the hireling (Job 7:1), and which is subject to an inevitable destiny (Job 5:7) of manifold suffering, together with the night of Hades, where this life is continued in its most shadowy and dismal phase. And חליפה does not here signify destruction in the sense of death, as the Jewish expositors, by comparing Isa 2:18 and Sol 2:11, explain it; but (with reference to צבאי, comp. Job 10:17) the following after (Arab. chlı̂ft, succession, successor, i.e., of Mohammed), relief, change (syn. תּמוּרה, exchange, barter), here of change of condition, as Psa 55:20, of change of mind; Aquila, Theod., ἄλλαγμα. Oh that such a change awaited him! What a blessed future would it be if it should come to pass! Then would God call to him in the depth of Sheôl, and he, imprisoned until the appointed time of release, would answer Him from the deep. After His anger was spent, God would again yearn after the work of His hands (comp. Job 10:3), the natural loving relation between the Creator and His creature would again prevail, and it would become manifest that wrath is only a waning power (Isa 54:8), and love His true and essential attribute. Schlottman well observes: “Job must have had a keen perception of the profound relation between the creature and his Maker in the past, to be able to give utterance to such an imaginative expectation respecting the future.”

In Job 14:16, Job supports what is cheering in this prospect, with which he wishes he might be allowed to console himself, by the contrast of the present. עתּה כּי is used here as in Job 6:21; כי is not, as elsewhere, where עתה כי introduces the conclusion, confirmatory (indeed now = then indeed), but assigns a reason (for now). Now God numbers his steps (Job 13:27), watching him as a criminal, and does not restrain himself over his sin. Most modern expositors (Ew., Hlgst, Hahn, Schlottm.) translate: Thou observest not my sins, i.e., whether they are to be so severely punished or not; but this is poor. Raschi: Thou waitest not over my sins, i.e., to punish them; instead of which Ralbag directly: Thou waitest not for my sins = repentance or punishment; but שׁמר is not supported in the meaning: to wait, by Gen 37:11. Aben-Ezra: Thou lookest not except on my sins, by supplying רק, according to Ecc 2:24 (where, however, probably משׁיאכל should be read, and מ after אדם, just as in Job 33:17, has fallen away). The most doubtful is, with Hirzel, to take the sentence as interrogative, in opposition to the parallelism: and dost Thou not keep watch over my sins? It seems to me that the sense intended must be derived from the phrase אף שׁמר, which means to keep anger, and consequently to delay the manifestation of it (Amo 1:11). This phrase is here so applied, that we obtain the sense: Thou keepest not Thy wrath to thyself, but pourest it out entirely. Mercerus is substantially correct: non reservas nec differs peccati mei punitionem. Job 14:17-19 17 My transgression is sealed up in a bag,

And Thou hast devised additions to my iniquity. 18 But a falling mountain moveth indeed,

And a rock falleth from its place. 19 Water holloweth out stone,

Its overflowings carry away the dust of the earth,

And the hope of man - Thou destroyest.

The meaning of Job 14:17 is, not that the judgment which pronounces him guilty lies in the sealed-up bag of the judge, so that it requires only to be handed over for execution (Hirz., Ew., Renan), for although פּשׁע (though not exactly the punishment of sin, which it does not signify even in Dan 9:24) can denote wickedness, as proved and recorded, and therefore metonomically the penal sentence, the figure is, however, taken not from the mode of preserving important documents, but from the mode of preserving collected articles of value in a sealed bag. The passage must be explained according to Hos 13:12; Deu 32:34; Rom 2:5, comp. Jer 17:1. The evil Job had formerly (Job 13:26) committed according to the sentence of God, God has gathered together as in a money bag, and carefully preserved, in order now to bring them home to him. And not this alone, however; He has devised still more against him than his actual misdeeds. Ewald translates: Thou hast sewed up my punishment; but טפל (vid., on Job 13:4) signifies, not to sew up, but: to sew on,patch on, and gen. to add ( טפל , Rabb. accidens, a subordinate matter, opp. עקּר), after which the lxx translates ἐπεσημήνω (noted in addition), and Gecatilia Arab. ḥftṣt (added to in collecting). It is used here just as in the Aramaic phrase טפל שׁקרא (to patch on falsehood, to invent scandal).

The idea of the figures which follow is questionable. Hahn maintains that they do not describe destruction, but change, and that consequently the relation of Job 14:19 to what precedes is not similarity, but contrast: stones are not so hard, that they are not at length hollowed out, and the firm land is not so firm that it cannot be carried away by the flood; but man’s prospect is for ever a hopeless one, and only for him is there no prospect of his lot ever being changed. Thus I thought formerly it should be explained: considering the waw, Job 14:19, as indicative not of comparison, but of contrast. But the assumption that the point of comparison is change, not destruction, cannot be maintained: the figures represent the slow but inevitable destruction wrought by the elements on the greatest mountains, on rocks, and on the solid earth. And if the poet had intended to contrast the slow but certain changes of nature with the hopelessness of man’s lot, how many more appropriate illustrations, in which nature seems to come forth as with new life from the dead, were at his command! Raschi, who also considers the relation of the clauses to be antithetical, is guided by the right perception when he interprets: even a mountain that is cast down still brings forth fruit, and a rock removed from its place, even these are not without some signs of vitality in them, יבּול = (יבוּל) יעשׂהבוּל, which is indeed a linguistic impossibility. The majority of expositors are therefore right when they take the waw, Job 14:19, similarly to Job 5:7; Job 11:12; Job 12:11, as waw adaequationis. With this interpretation also, the connection of the clause with what precedes by ואוּלם (which is used exactly as in Job 1:11; Job 11:5; Job 12:7, where it signifies verum enim vero or attamen) is unconstrained. The course of thought is as follows: With unsparing severity, and even beyond the measure of my guilt, hast Thou caused me to suffer punishment for my sins, but (nevertheless) Thou shouldst rather be gentle and forbearing towards me, since even that which is firmest, strongest, and most durable cannot withstand ultimate destruction; and entirely in accordance with the same law, weak, frail man (אנושׁ) meets an early certain end, and at the same time Thou cuttest off from him every ground of hope of a continued existence. The waw, Job 14:19, is consequently, according to the sense, more quanto magis than sic, placing the things to be contrasted over against each other. הר־נופL is a falling, not a fallen (Ralbag) mountain; and having once received the impetus, it continues gradually to give way; Renan: s'effondre peu à peu. Carey, better: “will decay,” for נבל (cogn. נבל) signifies, decrease from external loses; specially of the falling off of leaves, Isa 34:4. The second figure, like Job 18:4, is to be explained according to Job 9:5 : a rock removes (not as Jerome translates, transfertur, which would be יעתק, and also not as lxx παλαιωθήσεται, Schlottm.: becomes old and crumbles away, although in itself admissible both as to language and fact; comp. on Job 21:7) from its place; it does not stand absolutely, immovably fast. In the third figure אבנים is a prominent object, as the accentuation with Mehupach legarmeh or (as it is found in correct Codd.) with Asla legarmeh rightly indicates שׁחק signifies exactly the same as Arab. sḥq , attere, conterere. In the fourth figure, ספיח must not be interpreted as meaning that which grows up spontaneously without re-sowing, although the Targum translates accordingly: it (the water) washes away its (i.e., the dust of the earth’s) after-growth (כּתהא), which Symm. follows (τὰ παραλελειμνένα). It is also impossible according to the expression; for it must have been עפר הארץ. Jerome is essentially correct: et alluvione paullatim terra consumitur. It is true that ספח in Hebrew does not mean effundere in any other passage (on this point, vid., on Hab 2:15), but here the meaning effusio or alluvio may be supposed without much hesitation; and in a book whose language is so closely connected with the Arabic, we may even refer to ספח = Arab. sfḥ (kindred to Arab. sfk, שׁפך), although the word may also (as Ralbag suggests), by comparison with מטר סחף, Pro 28:3, and Arab. sḥı̂qt, a storm of rain, be regarded as transposed from חיפיה, from סחף in Arab. to tear off, sweep away, Targ. to thrust away (= רחף), Syr., Talm. to overthrow, subvertere (whence s'chifto, a cancer or cancerous ulcer). The suffix refers to מים, and תּשׁטף before a plural subject is quite according to rule, Ges. §146, 3. ספיחיה is mostly marked with Mercha, but according to our interpretation Dechî, which is found here and there in the Codd., would be more correct.

The point of the four illustrations is not that not one of them is restored to its former condition (Oetinger, Hirz.), but that in spite of their stability they are overwhelmed by destruction, and that irrecoverably. Even the most durable things cannot defy decay, and now even as to mortal man - Thou hast brought his hope utterly to nought (האבדת with Pathach in pause as frequently; vid., Psalter ii. 468). The perf. is praegnans: all at once, suddenly - death, the germ of which he carries in him even from his birth, is to him an end without one ray of hope, - it is also the death of his hope. Job 14:20-22 20 Thou siezest him for ever, then he passeth away;

Thou changest his countenance and castest him forth. 21 If his sons come to honour, he knoweth it not;

Or to want, he observeth them not. 22 Only on his own account his flesh suffereth pain,

And on his own account is his soul conscious of grief.

The old expositors thought that תּתקפהוּ must be explained by תתקף נמנו (Thou provest thyself stronger than he, according to Ges. §121, 4), because תּקף is intrans.; but it is also transitive in the sense of seizing forcibly and grasping, Job 15:24; Ecc 4:12, as Talm. תּקף (otherwise commonly אתקף as החזיק), Arab. taqifa, comprehendere. The many sufferings which God inflicts on him in the course of his life are not meant; לנצח does not signify here: continually, without intermission, as most expositors explain, but as Job 4:20; Job 20:7, and throughout the book: for ever (Rosenm., Hahn, Welte). God gives him the death-stroke which puts an end to his life for ever, he passes away βαίνει, οἴχεται (comp. Job 10:21); disfiguring his countenance, i.e., in the struggle of death and in death by the gradual working of decay, distorting and making him unlike himself, He thrusts him out of this life (שׁלּח like Gen 3:23). The waw consec. is used here as e.g., Psa 118:27.

When he is descended into Hades he knows nothing more of the fortune of his children, for as Ecc 9:6 says: the dead have absolutely no portion in anything that happens under the sun. In Job 14:21 Job does not think of his own children that have died, nor his grandchildren (Ewald); he speaks of mankind in general. כּבד and צער are not here placed in contrast in the sense of much and little, but, as in Jer 30:19, in the wider sense of an important or a destitute position; כּבד, to be honoured, to attain to honour, as Isa 66:5. בּין (to observe anything) is joined with ל of the object, as in Psa 73:17 (on the other hand, להּ, Job 13:1, was taken as dat. ethicus). He neither knows nor cares anything about the welfare of those who survive him: “Nothing but pain and sadness is the existence of the dead; and the pain of his own flesh, the sadness of his own soul, alone engage him. He has therefore no room for rejoicing, nor does the joyous or sorrowful estate of others, though his nearest ones, affect him” (Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, i. 495). This is certainly, as Ewald and Psychol. S. 444, the meaning of Job 14:22; but עליו is hardly to be translated with Hofmann “in him,” so that it gives the intensive force of ἴδιος to the suff. For it is improbable that in this connection, - where the indifference of the deceased respecting others, and the absolute reference to himself of the existence of pain on his own account, are contrasted, - עליו, Job 14:22, is to be understood according to Job 30:16 (Psychol. S. 152), but rather objectively (over him). On the other hand, Job 14:22 is not to be translated: over himself only does his flesh feel pain (Schlottm., Hirz., and others); for the flesh as inanimate may indeed be poetically, so to speak zeugmatically, represented as conscious of pain, but not as referring its pain to another, and consequently as self-conscious. On this account, עליו, Job 14:22, is to be taken in the signification, over him = upon him, or as Job 14:22 (beyond him), which is doubtful; or it signifies, as we have sought to render it in our translation in both cases, propter eum. Only on his own account does his flesh suffer, i.e., only applying to himself, only on his own account does his soul mourn, i.e., only over his own condition. He has no knowledge and interest that extends beyond himself; only he himself is the object of that which takes place with his flesh in the grave, and of that on which his soul reflects below in the depths of Hades. According to this interpretation אך belongs to עליו, after the hyperbaton described at Job 2:10, comp. Job 13:15, Isa 34:15. And he עליו, Job 14:22, implies the idea (which is clearly expressed in Isa 66:24, and especially in Judith 16:17: δοῦναι πῦρ καὶ σκώληκας εἰς σάρκας αὐτῶν καὶ κλαύσονται ἐν αἰσθήσει ἕως αἰῶνος) that the process of the decomposition of the body is a source of pain and sorrow to the departed spirit, - a conception which proceeds from the supposition, right in itself, that a connection between body and soul is still continued beyond the grave, - a connection which is assumed by the resurrection, but which, as Job viewed it, only made the future still more sorrowful.

This speech of Job (Job 12-14), which closes here, falls into three parts, which correspond to the divisions into chapters. In the impassioned speech of Zophar, who treats Job as an empty and conceited babbler, the one-sided dogmatical standpoint of the friends was maintained with such arrogance and assumption, that Job is obliged to put forth all his power in self-defence. The first part of the speech (Job 12) triumphantly puts down this arrogance and assumption. Job replies that the wisdom, of which they profess to be the only possessors, is nothing remarkable, and the contempt with which they treat him is the common lot of the innocent, while the prosperity of the ungodly remains undisturbed. In order, however, to prove to them that what they say of the majesty of God, before which he should humble himself, can neither overawe nor help him, he refers them to creation, which in its varied works testifies to this majesty, this creative power of God, and the absolute dependence of every living thin on Him, and proves that he is not wanting in an appreciation of the truth contained in the sayings of the ancients by a description of the absolute majesty of God as it is manifested in the works of nature, and especially in the history of man, which excels everything that the three had said. This description is, however, throughout a gloomy picture of disasters which God brings about in the world, corresponding to the gloomy condition of mind in which Job is, and the disaster which is come upon himself.

As the friends have failed to solace him by their descriptions of God, so his own description is also utterly devoid of comfort. For the wisdom of God, of which he speaks, is not the wisdom that orders the world in which one can confide, and in which one has the surety of seeing every mystery of life sooner or later gloriously solved; but this wisdom is something purely negative, and repulsive rather than attractive, it is abstract exaltation over all created wisdom, whence it follows that he puts to shame the wisdom of the wise. Of the justice of God he does not speak at all, for in the narrow idea of the friends he cannot recognise its control; and of the love of God he speaks as little as the friends, for as the sight of the divine love is removed from them by the one-sidedness of their dogma, so is it from him by the feeling of the wrath of God which at present has possession of his whole being. Hegel has called the religion of the Old Testament the religion of sublimity (die Religion der Erhabenheit); and it is true that, so long as that manifestation of love, the incarnation of the Godhead, was not yet realized, God must have relatively transcended the religious consciousness. From the book of Job, however, this view can be brought back to its right limits; for, according to the tendency of the book, neither the idea of God presented by the friends nor by Job is the pure undimmed notion of God that belongs to the Old Testament. The friends conceive of God as the absolute One, who acts only according to justice; Job conceives of Him as the absolute One, who acts according to the arbitrariness of His absolute power. According to the idea of the book, the former is dogmatic one-sidedness, the latter the conception of one passing through temptation. The God of the Old Testament consequently rules neither according to justice alone, nor according to a “sublime whim.”

After having proved his superiority over the friends in perception of the majesty of God, Job tells them his decision, that he shall turn away from them. The sermon they address to him is to no purpose, and in fact produces an effect the reverse of that intended by them. And while it does Job no good, it injures them, because their very defence of the honour of God incriminates themselves in the eyes of God. Their aim is missed by them, for the thought of the absolute majesty of God has no power to impart comfort to any kind of sufferer; nor can the thought of His absolute justice give any solace to a sufferer who is conscious that he suffers innocently. By their confidence that Job’s affliction is a decree of the justice of God, they certainly seem to defend the honour of God; but this defence is reversed as soon as it is manifest that there exists no such just ground for inflicting punishment on him. Job’s self-consciousness, however, which cannot be shaken, gives no testimony to its justice; their advocacy of God is therefore an injustice to Job, and a miserable attempt at doing God service, which cannot escape the undisguised punishment of God. It is to be carefully noted that in Job 13:6-12 Job seriously warns the friends that God will punish them for their partiality, i.e., that they have endeavoured to defend Him at the expense of truth.

We see from this how sound Job’s idea of God is, so far as it is not affected by the change which seems, according to the light which his temptation casts upon his affliction, to have taken place in his personal relationship to God. While above, ch. 9, he did not acknowledge an objective right, and the rather evaded the thought, of God’s dealing unjustly towards him, by the desperate assertion that what God does is in every case right because God does it, he here recognises an objective truth, which cannot be denied, even in favour of God, and the denial of which, even though it were a pientissima fraus, is strictly punished by God. God is the God of truth, and will therefore be neither defended nor honoured by any perverting of the truth. By such pious lies the friends involve themselves in guilt, since in opposition to their better knowledge they regard Job as unrighteous, and blind themselves to the incongruities of daily experience and the justice of God. Job will therefore have nothing more to do with them; and to whom does he now turn? Repelled by men, he feels all the more strongly drawn to God. He desires to carry his cause before God. He certainly considers God to be his enemy, but, like David, he thinks it is better to fall into the hands of God than into the hands of man (2Sa 24:14). He will plead his cause with God, and prove to Him his innocence: he will do it, even though he be obliged to expiate his boldness with his life; for he knows that morally he will not be overcome in the contest. He requires compliance with but two conditions: that God would grant a temporary alleviation of his pain, and that He would not overawe him with the display of His majesty. Job’s disputing with God is as terrible as it is pitiable. It is terrible, because he uplifts himself, Titan-like, against God; and pitiable, because the God against which he fights is not the God he has known, but a God that he is unable to recognise, - the phantom which the temptation has presented before his dim vision instead of the true God. This phantom is still the real God to him, but in other respects in no way differing from the inexorable ruling fate of the Greek tragedy. As in this the hero of the drama seeks to maintain his personal freedom against the mysterious power that is crushing him with an iron arm, so Job, even at the risk of sudden destruction, maintains the stedfast conviction of his innocence, in opposition to a God who has devoted him, as an evil-doer, to slow but certain destruction. The battle of freedom against necessity is the same as in the Greek tragedy. Accordingly one is obliged to regard it as an error, arising from simple ignorance, when it has been recently maintained that the boundless oriental imagination is not equal to such a truly exalted task as that of representing in art and poetry the power of the human spirit, and the maintenance of its dignity in the conflict with hostile powers, because a task that can only be accomplished by an imagination formed with a perception of the importance of recognising ascertained phenomena. ^{▼▼Vid., Arnold Ruge, Die Academie, i. S. 29.}

In treating this subject, the book of Job not only attains to, but rises far above, the height attained by the Greek tragedy: for, on the one hand, it brings this conflict before us in all the fearful earnestness of a death-struggle; on the other, however, it does not leave us to the cheerless delusion that an absolute caprice moulds human destiny. This tragic conflict with the divine necessity is but the middle, not the beginning nor the end, of the book; for this god of fate is not the real God, but a delusion of Job’s temptation. Human freedom does not succumb, but it comes forth from the battle, which is a refining fire to it, as conqueror. The dualism, which the Greek tragedy leaves unexplained, is here cleared up. The book certainly presents much which, from its tragic character, suggests this idea of destiny, but it is not its final aim - it goes far beyond: it does not end in the destruction of its hero by fate; but the end is the destruction of the idea of this fate itself.

We have seen in this speech (comp. Job 13:23, Job 13:26; Job 14:16.), as often already, that Job is as little able as the friends to disconnect suffering from the idea of the punishment of sin. If Job were mistaken or were misled by the friends respecting his innocence, the history of his sufferings would be no material for a drama, because there would be no inner development. But it is just Job’s stedfast conviction of his innocence, and his maintenance of it in spite of the power which this prejudice exercises over him, that makes the history of his affliction the history of the development of a new and grand idea, and makes him as the subject, on whom it is developed, a tragic character. In conformity with his prepossession, Job sees himself put down by his affliction as a great sinner; and his friends actually draw the conclusion from false premises that he is such. But he asserts the testimony of his conscience to his innocence; and because this contradicts those premises, the one-sidedness of which he does not discern, God himself appears to him to be unjust and unmerciful. And against this God, whom the temptation has distorted and transformed to the miserable image of a ruler, guided only by an absolute caprice, he struggles on, and places the truth and freedom of his moral self-consciousness over against the restraint of the condemnatory sentence, which seems to be pronounced over him in the suffering he has to endure. Such is the struggle against God which we behold in the second part of the speech (ch. 13): ready to prove his innocence, he challenges God to trial; but since God does not appear, his confidence gives place to despondency, and his defiant tone to a tone of lamentation, which is continued in the third part of the speech (ch. 14).

While he has raised his head towards heaven with the conscious pride of a תמים צדיק, first in opposition to the friends and then to God, he begins to complain as one who is thrust back, and yielding to the pressure of his affliction, begins to regard himself as a sinner. But he is still unable to satisfy himself respecting God’s dealings by any such forcible self-persuasion. For how can God execute such strict judgment upon man, whose life is so short and full of care, and who, because he belongs to a sinful race, cannot possibly be pure from sin, without allowing him the comparative rest of a hireling? How can he thus harshly visit man, to whose life He has set an appointed bound, and who, when he once dies, returns to life no more for ever? The old expositors cannot at all understand this absolute denial of a new life after death. Brentius erroneously observes on donec coelum transierit: ergo resurget; and Mercerus, whose exposition is free from all prejudice, cannot persuade himself that the elecus et sanctus Dei vir can have denied not merely a second earthly life, but also the eternal imperishable life after death. And yet it is so: Job does not indeed mean that man when he dies is annihilated, but he knows of no other life after death but the shadowy life in Sheôl, which is no life at all. His laments really harmonize with those in Moschos iii. 106ff.: Αἲ αἲ, ταὶ μαλάχαι μὲν ἐπὰν κατὰ κᾶπον ὄλωνται, Ἤ τὰ χλωρὰ σέλινα, τό τ ̓ εὐθαλὲς οὖλον ἄνηθον, Ὕστερον αὖ ζώοντι καὶ εἰς ἔτος ἄλλο φύοντι· Ἄμμες δ ̓ οἱ μεγάλοι καὶ καρτεροὶ ἢ σοφοὶ ἄνδρες, Ὁππότε πρῶτα θάνωμες, ἀνάκοοι ἐν χθονὶ κοίλᾳ Εὔδομες εὖ μάλα μακρὸν ἀτέρμονα νήγρετον ὕπνον.

Alas! alas! the mallows, after they are withered in the garden,

Or the green parsley and the luxuriant curly dill,

Live again hereafter and sprout in future years;

But we men, the great and brave, or the wise,

When once we die, senseless in the bosom of the earth

We sleep a long, endless, and eternal sleep.

And with that of Horace, Od. iv. 7, 1:Nos ubi decidimus Quo pius Aeneas, quo dives Tullus et Ancus, Pulvis et umbra sumus;

Or with that of the Jagur Weda: “While the tree that has fallen sprouts again from the root fresher than before, from what root does mortal man spring forth when he has fallen by the hand of death?” ^{▼▼Vid., Carey, The Book of Job, p. 447. We append here an extract from a letter of Consul Wetzstein, as giving an explanation of Job 14:7-9, derived from personal observation: “The practice of cutting down the trees in order to obtain a new and increased use from them, is an important part of husbandry in the country east of the Jordan. It is, however, now almost confined to the region round Damascus, in consequence of the devastation of the country. This operation is called gemm (גמם), and is performed only with the axe, because the stump would decay away if sawn. When the vine, after bearing from sixty to eighty years, loses its fruitfulness and begins to decay, it is cut down close to the ground in the second kânûn (January). The first year it bears little or nothing, but throws out new branches and roots; and afterwards it bears plenteously, for the vine-stock has renewed its youth. The fig-tree (tı̂ne) and the pomegranate (rummâne), when old and decayed, are cut down in like manner. Their shoots are very numerous, and in the following winter as many as ten young plants may be taken from the pomegranate. Those that are left on the old stem bear fruit in the fourth year. The walnut-tree (gôze) ceases to bear much after 100 years, and becomes hollow and decayed. It is then cut down to within two or three yards from the ground. If the trees are well watered, the new shoots spring up in a year in uncommon luxuriance, and bear fruit in the second year. The new shoot is called darbûne. From many trees, as the citron (lı̂mûne), ash (dardâre), and mulberry (tûte), this new shoot often attains a length of twelve feet in the first year, provided the tree has the conditio sine qua non which Job styles ריח מים - a plentiful supply of water.”}

These laments echo through the ancient world from one end to the other, and even Job is without any superior knowledge respecting the future life. He denies a resurrection and eternal life, not as one who has a knowledge of them and will not however know anything about them, but he really knows nothing of them: our earthly life seems to him to flow on into the darkness of Sheôl, and onward beyond Sheôl man has no further existence.

We inquire here: Can we say that the poet knew nothing of a resurrection and judgment after death? If we look to the psalms of the time of David and Solomon, we must reply in the negative. Since, however, as the Grecian mysteries fostered and cherished ἡδυστέρας ἐλπίδας, the Israelitish Chokma also, by its constant struggles upwards and onwards, anticipated views of the future world which reached beyond the present (Psychol. S. 410): it may be assumed, and from the book of Job directly inferred, that the poet had a perception of the future world which went beyond the dim perception of the people, which was not yet lighted up by any revelation. For, on the one hand, he has reproduced for us a history of the patriarchal period, not merely according to its external, but also according to its internal working, with as strict historical faithfulness as delicate psychological tact; on the other, he has with a master hand described for us in the history of Job what was only possible from an advanced standpoint of knowledge, - how the hope of a life beyond the present, where there is no express word of promise to guide it, struggles forth from the heart of man as an undefined desire and longing, so that the word of promise is the fulfilment and seal of this desire and yearning. For when Job gives expression to the wish that God would hide him in Sheôl until His anger turn, and then, at an appointed time, yearning after the work of His hands, raise him again from Sheôl (Job 14:13-17), this wish it not to be understood other than that Sheôl might be only his temporary hiding-place from the divine anger, instead of being his eternal abode. He wishes himself in Sheôl, so far as he would thereby be removed for a time from the wrath of God, in order that, after an appointed season, he might again become an object of the divine favour. He cheers himself with the delightful thought, All the days of my warfare would I wait till my change should come, etc.; for then the warfare of suffering would become easy to him, because favour, after wrath and deliverance from suffering and death, would be near at hand. We cannot say that Job here expresses the hope of a life after death; on the contrary, this hope is wanting to him, and all knowledge respecting the reasons that might warrant it. The hope exists only in imagination, as Ewald rightly observes, without becoming a certainty, since it is only the idea, How glorious it would be if it were so, that is followed up. But, on the one side, the poet shows us by this touching utterance of Job how totally different would be his endurance of suffering if he but knew that there was really a release from Hades; on the other side, he shows us, in the wish of Job, the incipient tendency of the growing hope that it might be so, for what a devout mind desires has a spiritual power which presses forward from the subjective to the objective reality. The hope of eternal life is a flower, says one of the old commentators, which grows on the verge of the abyss. The writer of the book of Job supports this. In the midst of this abyss of the feeling of divine wrath in which Job is sunk, this flower springs up to cheer him. In its growth, however, it is not hope, but only at first a longing. And this longing cannot expand into hope, because no light of promise shines forth in that night, by which Job’s feeling is controlled, and which makes the conflict darker than it is in itself. Scarcely has Job feasted for a short space upon the idea of that which he would gladly hope for, when the thought of the reality of that which he has to fear overwhelms him. He seems to himself to be an evil-doer who is reserved for the execution of the sentence of death. If it is not possible in nature for mountains, rocks, stones, and the dust of the earth to resist the force of the elements, so is it an easy thing for God to destroy the hope of a mortal all at once. He forcibly thrust him hence from this life; and when he is descended to Hades, he knows nothing whatever of the lot of his own family in the world above. Of the life and knowledge of the living, nothing remains to him but the senseless pain of his dead body, which is gnawed away, and the dull sorrow of his soul, which continues but a shadowy life in Sheôl.

Thus the poet shows us, in the third part of Job’s speech, a grand idea, which tries to force its way, but cannot. In the second part, Job desired to maintain his conviction of innocence before God: his confidence is repulsed by the idea of the God who is conceived of by him as an enemy and a capricious ruler, and changes to despair. In the third part, the desire for a life after death is maintained; but he is at once overwhelmed by the imagined inevitable and eternal darkness of Sheôl, but overwhelmed soon to appear again above the billows of temptation, until, in ch. 19, the utterance of faith respecting a future life rises as a certain confidence over death and the grave: the γνῶσις which comes forth from the conflict of the πίστις anticipates that better hope which in the New Testament is established and ratified by the act of redemption wrought by the Conqueror of Hades.

‏ Job 15

Job 15:1-6 1 Then began Eliphaz the Temanite, and said: 2 Doth a wise man utter vain knowledge,

And fill his breast with the east wind? 3 Contending with words, that profit not,

And speeches, by which no good is done? 4 Moreover, thou makest void the fear of God,

And thou restrainest devotion before God; 5 For thy mouth exposeth thy misdeeds,

And thou choosest the language of the crafty. 6 Thine own mouth condemneth thee and not I,

And thine own lips testify against thee.

The second course of the controversy is again opened by Eliphaz, the most respectable, most influential, and perhaps oldest of the friends. Job’s detailed and bitter answers seem to him as empty words and impassioned tirades, which ill become a wise man, such as he claims to be in assertions like Job 12:3; Job 13:2. החלם with He interr., like העלה, Job 13:25. רוּח, wind, is the opposite of what is solid and sure; and קדים in the parallel (like Hos 12:2) signifies what is worthless, with the additional notion of vehement action. If we translate בּטן by “belly,” the meaning is apt to be misunderstood; it is not intended as the opposite of לב fo et (Ewald), but it means, especially in the book of Job, not only that which feels, but also thinks and wills, the spiritually receptive and active inner nature of man (Psychol. S. 266); as also in Arabic, el - battin signifies that which is within, in the deepest mystical sense. Hirz. and Renan translate the inf. abs. הוכח, which follows in Job 15:3, as verb. fin.: se défend-il par des vaines paroles; but though the inf. abs. is so used in an historical clause (Job 15:35), it is not an interrogative. Ewald takes it as the subject: “to reprove with words-avails not, and speeches - whereby one does no good;” but though דּבר and מלּים might be used without any further defining, as in λογομαχεῖν (2Ti 2:14) and λογομαχία (1Ti 6:4), the form of Job 15:3 is opposed to such an explanation. The inf. abs. is connected as a gerund (redarguendo s. disputando) with the verbs in the question, Job 15:2; and the elliptical relative clause יסכּן לא is best, as referring to things, according to Job 35:3 : sermone (דּבד from דּבר, as sermo from serere) qui non prodest; בּם יועיל לא, on the other hand, to persons, verbis quibus nil utilitatis affert. Eliphaz does not censure Job for arguing, but for defending himself by such useless and purposeless utterances of his feeling. But still more than that: his speeches are not only unsatisfactory and unbecoming, אף, accedit quod (cumulative like Job 14:3), they are moreover irreligious, since by doubting the justice of God they deprive religion of its fundamental assumption, and diminish the reverence due to God. יראה in such an objective sense as Psa 19:10 almost corresponds to the idea of religion. שׂיחה לפני־אל is to be understood, according to Psa 102:1; Psa 142:3 (comp. Psa 64:2; Psa 104:34): before God, and consequently customary devotional meditation, here of the disposition of mind indispensable to prayer, viz., devotion, and especially reverential awe, which Job depreciates (גּרע, detrahere). His speeches are mostly directed towards God; but they are violent and reproachful, therefore irreverent in form and substance. Job 15:7-10 7 Wast thou as the first one born as a man,

And hast thou been brought forth before the hills? 8 Hast thou attended to the counsel of Eloah,

And hast thou kept wisdom to thyself? 9 What dost thou know that we have not known?

Doest thou understand what we have not been acquainted with? 10 Both grey-haired and aged are among us,

Older in days than thy father.

The question in Job 15:7 assumes that the first created man, because coming direct from the hand of God, had the most direct and profoundest insight into the mysteries of the world which came into existence at the same time as himself. Schlottman calls to mind an ironical proverbial expression of the Hindus: “Yea, indeed, he is the first man; no wonder that he is so wise” (Roberts, Orient. Illustr. p. 276). It is not to be translated: wast thou born as the first man, which is as inadmissible as the translation of אחת מעט, Hag 2:6, by “a little” (vid., Köhler in loc.); rather ראישׁון (i.e., ראישׁון, as Jos 21:10, formed from ראשׁ, like the Arabic raı̂s, from ras, if it is not perhaps a mere incorrect amalgamation of the forms ראשׁון and רשׁון, Job 8:8) is in apposition with the subject, and אדם is to be regarded as predicate, according to Ges. §139, 2. Raschi’s translation is also impossible: wast thou born before Adam? for this Greek form of expression, πρῶτος μον, Joh 1:15, Joh 1:30; Joh 15:18 (comp. Odyss. xi. 481f., σεῖο μακάρτατος), is strange to the Hebrew. In the parallel question, Job 15:7, Umbr., Schlottm., and Renan (following Ewald) see a play upon Pro 8:24.: art thou the demiurgic Wisdom itself? But the introductory proverbs (Prov 1-9) are more recent than the book of Job (vid., supra, p. 24), and indeed probably, as we shall show elsewhere, belong to the time of Jehoshaphat. Consequently the more probable relation is that the writer of Pro 8:24. has adopted words from the book of Job in describing the pre-existence of the Chokma. Was Job, a higher spirit-nature, brought forth, i.e., as it were amidst the pangs of travail (חוללת, Pulal from חול, חיל), before the hills? for the angels, according to Scripture, were created before man, and even before the visible universe (vid., Job 38:4.). Hirz., Ew., Schlottm., and others erroneously translate the futt. in the questions, Job 15:8, as praes. All the verbs in Job 15:7, Job 15:8, are under the control of the retrospective character which is given to the verses by ראישׁון; comp. Job 10:10., where זכר־נא has the same influence, and also Job 3:3, where the historical sense of אוּלד depends not upon the syntax, but upon logical necessity. Translate therefore: didst thou attend in the secret council (סוד, like Jer 23:18, comp. Psa 89:8) of Eloah (according to the correct form of writing in Codd. and in Kimchi, Michlol 54 a, הבסוד, like Job 15:11 המעט and Job 22:13 הבעד, with Beth raph. and without Gaja), ^{▼▼As a rule, the interrogative He, when pointed with Pathach, has Gaja against the Pathach 2Sa 7:5; this, however, falls away (among other instances) when the syllable immediately following the He has the tone, as in the two examples given above (comp. also האל, Job 8:3; הלאל, Job 13:7), or the usual Gaja (Metheg) which stands in the antepenultima (Bär, Metheg-Setzung, §23} and didst then acquire for thyself (גרע, here attrahere, like the Arabic, sorbere, to suck in) wisdom? by which one is reminded of Prometheus’ fire stolen from heaven. Nay, Job can boast of no extraordinary wisdom. The friends - as Eliphaz, Job 15:9, says in their name - are his contemporaries; and if he desires to appeal to the teaching of his father, and of his ancestors generally, let them know that there are hoary-headed men among themselves, whose discernment is deeper by reason of their more advanced age. גּם is inverted, like Job 2:10 (which see); and at the same time, since it is sued twice, it is correlative: etiam inter nos et cani et senes. Most modern expositors think that Eliphaz, “in modestly concealed language” (Ewald), refers to himself. But the reference would be obvious enough; and wherefore this modest concealing, which is so little suited to the character of Eliphaz? Moreover, Job 15:10 does not sound as if speaking merely of one, and in Job 15:10 Eliphaz would make himself older than he appears to be, for it is nowhere implied that Job is a young man in comparison with him. We therefore with Umbreit explain בּנוּ: in our generation. Thus it sounds more like the Arabic, both in words (kebı̂r Arab., usual in the signif. grandaevus) and in substance. Eliphaz appeals to the source of reliable tradition, since they have even among their races and districts mature old men, and since, indeed, according to Job’s own admission (Job 12:12), there is “wisdom among the ancient ones.” Job 15:11-13 11 Are the consolations of God too small for thee,

And a word thus tenderly spoken with thee? 12 What overpowers thy hearts?

And why do thine eyes wink, 13 That thou turnest thy snorting against God,

And sendest forth such words from thy mouth?

By the consolations of God, Eliphaz means the promises in accordance with the majesty and will of God, by which he and the other friends have sought to cheer him, of course presupposing a humble resignation to the just hand of God. By “a word (spoken) in gentleness to him,” he means the gentle tone which they have maintained, while he has passionately opposed them. לאט, elsewhere לאט (e.g., Isa 8:6, of the softly murmuring and gently flowing Siloah), from אט (declined, אטּי), with the neutral, adverbial ל (as לבטה), signifies: with a soft step, gently, The word has no connection with לוּט, לאט, to cover over, and is not third praet. (as it is regarded by Raschi, after Chajug): which he has gently said to you, or that which has gently befallen you; in which, as in Fürst’s Handwörterbuch, the notions secrete (Jdg 4:21, Targ. בּרז, in secret) and leniter are referred to one root. Are these divine consolations, and these so gentle addresses, too small for thee (מעט ממך, opp. 1Ki 19:7), i.e., beneath thy dignity, and unworthy of they notice? What takes away (לקה, auferre, abripere, as frequently) thy heart (here of wounded pride), and why do thine eyes gleam, that thou turnest (השׁיב, not revertere, but vertere, as freq.) thy ill-humour towards God, and utterest מלּין (so here, not מלּים) words, which, because they are without meaning and intelligence, are nothing but words? רזם, ἅπ. γεγρ., is transposed from רמז, to wink, i.e., to make known by gestures and grimaces, - a word which does not occur in biblical, but is very common in post-biblical, Hebrew (e.g., חרשׁ רומז ונרמז, a deaf and dumb person expresses himself and is answered by a language of signs). Modern expositors arbitrarily understand a rolling of the eyes; it is more natural to think of the vibration of the eye-lashes or eye-brows. רוּח, Job 15:13, is as in Jdg 8:3; Isa 25:4, comp. Job 13:11, and freq. used of passionate excitement, which is thus expressed because it manifests itself in πνέειν (Act 9:1), and has its rise in the πνεῦμα (Ecc 7:9). Job ought to control this angry spirit, θυμός (Psychol. S. 198); but he allows it to burst forth, and makes even God the object on which he vents his anger in impetuous language. How much better it would be for him, if he would search within himself (Lam 3:39) for the reason of those sufferings which so deprive him of his self-control! Job 15:14-16 14 What is mortal man that he should be pure,

And that he who is born of woman should be righteous? 15 He trusteth not His holy ones,

And the heavens are not pure in His eyes: 16 How much less the abominable and corrupt,

Man, who drinketh iniquity as water!

The exclamation in Job 15:14 is like the utterance: mortal man and man born flesh of flesh cannot be entirely sinless. Even “the holy ones” and “the heavens” are not. The former are, as in Job 5:1, according to Job 4:18, the angels as beings of light (whether קדשׁ signifies to be light from the very first, spotlessly pure, or, vid., Psalter, i. 588f., to be separated, distinct, and hence exalted above what is common); the latter is not another expression for the אנגּלי מרומא (Targ.), the “angels of the heights,” but שׁמים is the word used for the highest spheres in which they dwell (comp. Job 25:5); for the angels are certainly not corporeal, but, like all created things, in space, and the Scriptures everywhere speak of angels and the starry heavens together. Hence the angels are called the morning stars in Job 38:7, and hence both stars and angels are called צבא השׁמים and צבאות (vid., Genesis. S. 128). Even the angels and the heavens are finite, and consequently are not of a nature absolutely raised above the possibility of sin and contamination.

Eliphaz repeats here what he has already said, Job 4:18.; but he does it intentionally, since he wishes still more terribly to describe human uncleanness to Job (Oetinger). In that passage אף was merely the sign of an anti-climax, here כּי אף is quanto minus. Eliphaz refers to the hereditary infirmity and sin of human nature in Job 15:14, here (Job 15:16) to man’s own free choice of that which works his destruction. He uses the strongest imaginable words to describe one actualiter and originaliter corrupted. נתעב denotes one who is become an abomination, or the abominated = abominable (Ges. §134, 1); נאלח, one thoroughly corrupted (Arabic alacha, in the medial VIII conjugation: to become sour, which reminds one of ζύμη, Rabb. שׂאר שׁבּעסּה, as an image of evil, and especially of evil desire). It is further said of him (an expression which Elihu adopts, Job 34:7), that he drinks up evil like water. The figure is like Pro 26:6, comp. on Psa 73:10, and implies that he lusts after sin, and that it is become a necessity of his nature, and is to his nature what water is to the thirsty. Even Job does not deny this corruption of man (Job 14:4), but the inferences which the friends draw in reference to him he cannot acknowledge. The continuation of Eliphaz' speech shows how they render this acknowledgment impossible to him. Job 15:17-19 17 I will inform thee, hear me!

And what I have myself seen that I will declare, 18 Things which wise men declare

Without concealment from their fathers - 19 To them alone was the land given over,

And no stranger had passed in their midst - :

Eliphaz, as in his first speech, introduces the dogma with which he confronts Job with a solemn preface: in the former case it had its rise in a revelation, here it is supported by his own experience and reliable tradition; for חזיתי is not intended as meaning ecstatic vision (Schlottm.). The poet uses חזה also of sensuous vision, Job 8:17; and of observation and knowledge by means of the senses, not only the more exalted, as Job 19:26., but of any kind (Job 23:9; Job 24:1; Job 27:12, comp. Job 36:25; Job 34:32), in the widest sense. זה is used as neuter, Gen 6:15; Exo 13:8; Exo 30:13; Lev 11:4, and freq. ^{▼▼So also Psa 56:10, where I now prefer to translate “This I know,” זה neuter, like Pro 24:12, and referring forward as above, Job 15:17.} (comp. the neuter הוּא, Job 13:16, and often), and זה־חזיתי is a relative clause (Ges. §122, 2): quod conspexi, as Job 19:19 quos amo, and Psa 74:2 in quo habitas, comp. Psa 104:8, Psa 104:26; Pro 23:22, where the punctuation throughout proceeds from the correct knowledge of the syntax. The waw of ואספרה is the waw apodosis, which is customary (Nägelsbach, §111, 1, b) after relative clauses (e.g., Num 23:3), or what is the same thing, participles (e.g., Pro 23:24): et narrabo = ea narrabo. In Job 15:18 ולא כחדו is, logically at least, subordinate to יגידו, as in Isa 3:9, ^{▼▼Heidenheim refers to Hos 8:2 for the position of the words, but there Israel may also be an apposition: we know thee, we Israel.} as the Targum of the Antwerp Polyglott well translates: “what wise men declare, without concealing (ולא מכדבין), from the tradition of their fathers;” whereas all the other old translations, including Luther’s, have missed the right meaning. These fathers to whom this doctrine respecting the fate of evil-doers is referred, lived, as Eliphaz says in Job 15:19, in the land of their birth, and did not mingle themselves with strangers, consequently their manner of viewing things, and their opinions, have in their favour the advantage of independence, of being derived from their own experience, and also of a healthy development undisturbed by any foreign influences, and their teaching may be accounted pure and unalloyed.

Eliphaz thus indirectly says, that the present is not free from such influences, and Ewald is consequently of opinion that the individuality of the Israelitish poet peeps out here, and a state of things is indicated like that which came about after the fall of Samaria in the reign of Manasseh. Hirzel also infers from Eliphaz' words, that at the time when the book was written the poet’s fatherland was desecrated by some foreign rule, and considers it an indication for determining the time at which the book was composed. But how groundless and deceptive this is! The way in which Eliphaz commends ancient traditional lore is so genuinely Arabian, that there is but the faintest semblance of a reason for supposing the poet to have thrown his own history and national peculiarity so vividly into the working up of the rôle of another. Purity of race was, from the earliest times, considered by “the sons of the East” as a sign of highest nobility, and hence Eliphaz traces back his teaching to a time when his race could boast of the greatest freedom from intermixture with any other. Schlottmann prefers to interpret Job 15:19 as referring to the “nobler primeval races of man” (without, however, referring to Job 8:8), but הארץ does not signify the earth here, but: country, as in Job 30:8; Job 22:8, and elsewhere, and Job 15:19 seems to refer to nations: זר = barbarus (perhaps Semitic: בּרבּר, ὁ ἔξω). Nevertheless it is unnecessary to suppose that Eliphaz' time was one of foreign domination, as the Assyrian-Chaldean time was for Israel: it is sufficient to imagine it as a time when the tribes of the desert were becoming intermixed, from migration, commerce, and feud.

Now follows the doctrine of the wise men, which springs from a venerable primitive age, an age as yet undisturbed by any strange way of thinking (modern enlightenment and free thinking, as we should say), and is supported by Eliphaz' own experience. (Note: Communication from Consul Wetzstein: If this verse affirms that the freer a people is from intermixture with other races, the purer is its tradition, it gives expression to a principle derived from experience, which needs no proof. Even European races, especially the Scandinavians, furnish proof of this in their customs, language, and traditions, although in this case certain elements of their indigenous character have vanished with the introduction of Christianity. A more complete parallel is furnished by the wandering tribes of the 'Aneze and Sharârât of the Syrian deserts, people who have indeed had their struggles, and have even been weakened by emigration, but have certainly never lost their political and religious autonomy, and have preserved valuable traditions which may be traced to the earliest antiquity. It is unnecessary to prove this by special instance, when the whole outer and inner life of these peoples can be regarded as the best commentary on the biblical accounts of the patriarchal age. It is, however, not so much the fact that the evil-doer receives his punishment, in favour of which Eliphaz appeals to the teaching handed down from the fathers, as rather the belief in it, consequently in a certain degree the dogma of a moral order in the world. This dogma is an essential element of the ancient Abrahamic religion of the desert tribes - that primitive religion which formed the basis of the Mosaic, and side by side with it was continued among the nomads of the desert; which, shortly before the appearance of Christianity in the country east of Jordan, gave birth to mild doctrines, doctrines which tended to prepare the way for the teaching of the gospel; which at that very time, according to historical testimony, also prevailed in the towns of the Higâz, and was first displaced again by the Jemanic idolatry, and limited to the desert, in the second century after Christ, during the repeated migrations of the southern Arabs; which gave the most powerful impulse to the rise of Islam, and furnished its best elements; which, towards the end of the last century, brought about the reform of Islamism in the province of Negd, and produced the Wahabee doctrine; and which, finally, is continued even to the present day by the name of Dîn Ibrâhîm, “Religion of Abraham,” as a faithful tradition of the fathers, among the vast Ishmaelitish tribes of the Syrian desert, “to whom alone the land is given over, and into whose midst no stranger has penetrated.” Had this cultus spread among settled races with a higher education, it might have been taught also in writings: if, however, portions of writings in reference to it, which have been handed down to us by the Arabic, are to be regarded as unauthentic, it may also in 'Irâk have been mixed with the Sabian worship of the stars; but among the nomads it will have always been only oral, taught by the poets in song, and contained in the fine traditions handed down uncorrupted from father to son, and practised in life.

It is a dogma of this religion (of which I shall speak more fully in the introduction to my Anthologie von Poesien der Wanderstâmme), that the pious will be rewarded by God in his life and in his descendants, the wicked punished in his life and in his descendants; and it may also, in Job 15:19, be indirectly said that the land of Eliphaz has preserved this faith, in accordance with tradition, purer than Job’s land. If Eliphaz was from the Petraean town of Têmân (which we merely suggest as possible here), he might indeed rightly assert that no strange race had become naturalized there; for that hot, sterile land, poorly supplied with water, had nothing inviting to the emigrant or marauder, and its natives remain there only by virtue of the proverb: lôlâ hhibb el - wattan quat . tâl , lakân dâr eṡsû' charâb, “Did not the love of one’s country slay (him who is separated from it), the barren country would be uninhabited.” Job certainly could not affirm the same of his native country, if this is, with the Syrian tradition, to be regarded as the Nukra (on this point, vid., the Appendix). As the richest province of Syria, it has, from the earliest time to the present, always been an apple of contention, and has not only frequently changed its rulers, but even its inhabitants.) Job 15:20-24 20 So long as the ungodly liveth he suffereth,

And numbered years are reserved for the tyrant. 21 Terrors sound in his ears;

In time of peace the destroyer cometh upon him. 22 He believeth not in a return from darkness,

And he is selected for the sword. 23 He roameth about after bread: “Ah! where is it?”

He knoweth that a dark day is near at hand for him. 24 Trouble and anguish terrify him;

They seize him as a king ready to the battle.

All the days of the ungodly he (the ungodly) is sensible of pain. רשׁע stands, like Elohim in Gen 9:6, by the closer definition; here however so, that this defining ends after the manner of a premiss, and is begun by הוּא after the manner of a conclusion. מתחולל, he writhes, i.e., suffers inward anxiety and distress in the midst of all outward appearance of happiness. Most expositors translate the next line: and throughout the number of the years, which are reserved to the tyrant. But (1) this parallel definition of time appended by waw makes the sense drawling; (2) the change of עריץ (oppressor, tyrant) for רשׁע leads one to expect a fresh affirmation, hence it is translated by the lxx: ἔτη δὲ ἀριθμητὰ δεδομένα δυνάστῃ. The predicate is, then, like Job 32:7, comp. Job 29:10; Job 2:4 (Ges. §148), per attractionem in the plur. instead of in the sing., and especially with מספּר followed by gen. plur.; this attraction is adopted by our author, Job 21:21; Job 38:21. The meaning is not, that numbered, i.e., few, years are secretly appointed to the tyrant, which must have been sh'nôth mispâr , a reversed position of the words, as Job 16:22; Num 9:20 (vid., Gesenius’ Thes.); but a (limited, appointed) number of years is reserved to the tyrant (צפן as Job 24:1; Job 21:19, comp. טמן, Job 20:26; Mercerus: occulto decreto definiti), after the expiration of which his punishment begins. The thought expressed by the Targ., Syr., and Jerome would be suitable: and the number of the years (that he has to live unpunished) is hidden from the tyrant; but if this were the poet’s meaning, he would have written שׁניו, and must have written מן־העריץ.

With regard to the following Job 15:21-24, it is doubtful whether only the evil-doer’s anxiety of spirit is described in amplification of הוא מתחולל, or also how the terrible images from which he suffers in his conscience are realized, and how he at length helplessly succumbs to the destruction which his imagination had long foreboded. A satisfactory and decisive answer to this question is hardly possible; but considering that the real crisis is brought on by Eliphaz later, and fully described, it seems more probable that what has an objective tone in Job 15:21-24 is controlled by what has been affirmed respecting the evil conscience of the ungodly, and is to be understood accordingly. The sound of terrible things (startling dangers) rings in his ears; the devastator comes upon him (בוא seq. acc. as Job 20:22; Pro 28:22; comp. Isa 28:15) in the midst of his prosperity. He anticipates it ere it happens. From the darkness by which he feels himself menaced, he believes not (האמין seq. infin. as Psa 27:13, לראות, of confident hope) to return; i.e., overwhelmed with a consciousness of his guilt, he cannot, in the presence of this darkness which threatens him, raise to the hope of rescue from it, and he is really - as his consciousness tells him - צפוּ (like עשׂוּ, Job 41:25; Ges. §75, rem. 5; Keri צפוי, which is omitted in our printed copies, contrary to the testimony of the Masora and the authority of correct MSS), spied out for, appointed to the sword, i.e., of God (Job 19:29; Isa 31:8), or decreed by God. In the midst of abundance he is harassed by the thought of becoming poor; he wanders about in search of bread, anxiously looking out and asking where? (abrupt, like הנה, Job 9:19), i.e., where is any to be found, whence can I obtain it? The lxx translates contrary to the connection, and with a strange misunderstanding of the passage: κατατέτακται δὲ δἰς σῖτα γυψίν (איּה לחם, food for the vulture). He sees himself in the mirror of the future thus reduced to beggary; he knows that a day of darkness stands in readiness (נכון, like Job 18:12), is at his hand, i.e., close upon him (בּידו, elsewhere in this sense ליד, Psa 140:6; 1Sa 19:3, and על־ידי, Job 1:14).

In accordance with the previous exposition, we shall now interpret וּמצוּקה צר, Job 15:24, not of need and distress, but subjectively of fear and oppression. They come upon him suddenly and irresistibly; it seizes or overpowers him (תּתקפהוּ with neutral subject; an unknown something, a dismal power) as a king עתיד לכּידור. lxx ὥσπερ στρατηγὸς πρωτοστάτης πίπτων, like a leader falling in the first line of the battle, which is an imaginary interpretation of the text. The translation of the Targum also, sicut regem qui paratus est ad scabellum (to serve the conqueror as a footstool), furnishes no explanation. Another Targum translation (in Nachmani and elsewhere) is: sicut rex qui paratus est circumdare se legionibus. According to this, כידור comes from כּדר, to surround, be round (comp. כּתר, whence כּתר, Assyr. cudar, κίδαρις, perhaps also הזר, Syr. חדר, whence chedor, a circle, round about); and it is assumed, that as כּדּוּר signifies a ball (not only in Talmudic, but also in Isa 22:18, which is to be translated: rolling he rolleth thee into a ball, a ball in a spacious land), so כּידור, a round encampment, an army encamped in a circle, synon. of מעגּל. In the first signification the word certainly furnishes no suitable sense in connection with עתיד; but one may, with Kimchi, suppose that כידור, like the Italian torniamento, denotes the circle as well as the tournament, or the round of conflict, i.e., the conflict which moves round about, like tumult of battle, which last is a suitable meaning here. The same appropriate meaning is attained, however, if the root is taken, like the Arabic kdr, in the signification turbidum esse (comp. קדר, Job 6:16), which is adopted of misfortunes as troubled experiences of life (according to which Schultens translates: destinatus est ad turbulentissimas fortunas, beginning a new thought with עתיד, which is not possible, since כמלך by itself is no complete figure), and may perhaps also be referred to the tumult of battle, tumultus bellici conturbatio (Rosenm.); or of, with Fleischer, one starts from another turn of the idea of the root, viz., to be compressed, solid, thick, which is a more certain way gives the meaning of a dense crowd. ^{▼▼The Arab. verb kdr belongs to the root kd, to smite, thrust, quatere, percutere, tundere, trudere; a root that has many branches. It is I. transitive cadara (fut. jacduru, inf. cadr) - by the non-adoption of which from the original lexicons our lexicographers have deprived the whole etymological development of its groundwork - in the signification to pour, hurl down, pour out, e.g., cadara-l-mâa, he has spilt, poured out, thrown down the water; hence in the medial VII. form incadara intransitive, to fall, fall down, chiefly of water and other fluids, as of the rain which pours down from heaven, of a cascade, and the like; then improperly of a bird of prey which shoots down from the air upon its prey (e.g., in the poetry in Beidhâwi on Sur. 81, 2: “The hawk saw some bustards on the plain f'ancadara, and rushed down”); of a hostile host which rushes upon the enemy first possible signification for כידור]; of a man, horse, etc., which runs very swiftly, effuse currit, effuso curru ruit; of the stars that shall fall from heaven at the last day (Sur. 81, 2). Then also II. intransitive cadara (fut. jacdiru) with the secondary form cadira (fut. jacdaru) and cadura (fut. jacduru), prop. to be shaken and jolted; then also of fluid things, mixed and mingled, made turgid, unclean, i.e., by shaking, jolting, stirring, etc., with the dregs (the cudâre or cudâde); then gen. turbidum, non limpidum (opp. Arab. ṣf'), with a similar transition of meaning to that in turbare (comp. deturbare) and the German trüben (comp. traben or trappen, treiben, treffen). The primary meaning of the root takes another III. turn in the derived adjectives cudur, cudurr, cundur, cunâdir, compressed, solid, thick; the last word with us (Germans) forms a transition from cadir, cadr, cadîr, dull, slimy, yeasty, etc., inasmuch as we speak of dickes Bier (thick beer), etc., cerevisia spissa, de la bière épaisse. Here the point of contact of the word כידור, tumult of battle, κλόνος ἀνδρῶν, seems indicated: a dense crowd and tumult, where one is close upon another; as also נלחם, מלחמה, signify not reciprocal destruction, slaughter, but to press firmly and closely upon one another, a dense crowd. - Fl.}

Since, therefore, a suitable meaning is obtained in two ways, the natural conjecture, which is commended by Pro 6:11, עתיד לכּידון, paratus ad hastam = peritus hastae (Hupf.), according to Job 3:8) where ערר = לערר), may be abandoned. The signification circuitus has the most support, according to which Saadia and Parchon also explain, and we have preferred to translate round of battle rather than tumult of conflict; Jerome’s translation, qui praeparatur ad praelium, seems also to be gained in the same manner. Job 15:25-30 25 Because he stretched out his hand against God,

And was insolent towards the Almighty; 26 He assailed Him with a stiff neck,

With the thick bosses of his shield; 27 Because he covered his face with his fatness,

And addeth fat to his loins, 28 And inhabited desolated cities,

Houses which should not be inhabited,

Which were appointed to be ruins. 29 He shall not be rich, and his substance shall not continue

And their substance boweth not to the ground. 30 He escapeth not darkness;

The flame withereth his shoots;

And he perisheth in the breath of His mouth.

This strophe has periodic members: Job 15:25-28 an antecedent clause with a double beginning (כּי־נטה because he has stretched out, כּי־כסּה because he has covered; whereas ירוּץ may be taken as more independent, but under the government of the כי that stands at the commencement of the sentence); Job 15:29, Job 15:30, is the conclusion. Two chief sins are mentioned as the cause of the final destiny that comes upon the evil-doer: (1) his arrogant opposition to God, and (2) his contentment on the ruins of another’s prosperity. The first of these sins is described Job 15:25-27. The fut. consec. is once used instead of the perf., and the simple fut. is twice used with the signification of an imperf. (as Job 4:3 and freq.). The Hithpa. התגּבּר signifies here to maintain a heroic bearing, to play the hero; התעשּׁר to make one’s self rich, to play the part of a rich man, Pro 13:7. And בּצוּאר expresses the special prominence of the neck in his assailing God אל רוּץ, as Dan 8:6, comp. על, Job 16:14); it is equivalent to erecto collo (Vulg.), and in meaning equivalent to ὕβρει (lxx). Also in Psa 75:6, בצואר (with Munach, which there represents a distinctive) ^{▼▼Vid., Dachselt’s Biblia Accentuata, p. 816.)} is absolute, in the sense of stiff-necked or hard-headed; for the parallels, as Psa 31:19; Psa 94:4, and especially the primary passage, 1Sa 2:3, show that עתק is to be taken as an accusative of the object. The proud defiance with which he challengingly assails God, and renders himself insensible to the dispensations of God, which might bring him to a right way of thinking, is symbolized by the additional clause: with the thickness (עבי cognate form to עבי) of the bosses of his shields. גּב is the back (Arab. dhr) or boss (umbo) of the shield; the plurality of shields has reference to the diversified means by which he hardens himself. Job 15:27, similarly to Psa 73:4-7, pictures this impregnable carnal security against all unrest and pain, to which, on account of his own sinfulness and the distress of others, the nobler-minded man is so sensitive: he has covered his face with his fat, so that by the accumulation of fat, for which he anxiously labours, it becomes a gross material lump of flesh, devoid of mind and soul, and made fat, i.e., added fat, caused it to accumulate, upon his loins (כּסל for כּסליו); עשׂה (which has nothing to do with Arab. gšâ, to cover) is used as in Job 14:9, and in the phrase corpus facere (in Justin), in the sense of producing outwardly something from within. פּימה reminds one of πιμ-ελή (as Aquila and Symmachus translate here), o-pim-us, and of the Sanscrit piai , to be fat (whence adj. pı̂van , pı̂vara , πιαρός, part. pı̂na , subst. according to Roth pı̂vas); the Arabic renders it probable that it is a contraction of פּאימה (Olsh. §171, b). The Jewish expositors explain it according to the misunderstood פּים, 1Sa 13:21, of the furrows or wrinkles which are formed in flabby flesh, as if the ah were paragogic.

Job 15:28 describes the second capital sin of the evil-doer. The desolated cities that he dwells in are not cities that he himself has laid waste; Job 15:28 distinctly refers to a divinely appointed punishment, for התעתּדוּ does not signify: which they (evil-doers) have made ruins (Hahn), which is neither probable from the change of number, nor accords with the meaning of the verb, which signifies “to appoint to something in the future.” Hirzel, by referring to the law, Deu 13:13-18 (comp. 1Ki 16:34), which forbids the rebuilding of such cities as are laid under the curse, explains it to a certain extent more correctly. But such a play upon the requirements of the Mosaic law is in itself not probable in the book of Job, and here, as Löwenthal rightly remarks, is the less indicated, since it is not the dwelling in such cities that is forbidden, but only the rebuilding of them, so far as they had been destroyed; here, however, the reference is only to dwelling, not to rebuilding. The expression must therefore be understood more generally thus, that the powerful man settles down carelessly and indolently, without any fear of the judgments of God or respect for the manifestations of His judicial authority, in places in which the marks of a just divine retribution are still visible, and which are appointed to be perpetual monuments of the execution of divine judgments. ^{▼▼For the elucidation of this interpretation of the passage, Consul Wetzstein has contributed the following: “As one who yields to inordinate passion is without sympathy cast from human society because he is called muqâtal rabbuh, 'one who is beaten in the conflict against his God' (since he has sinned against the holy command of chastity), and as no one ventures to pronounce the name of Satan because God has cursed him (Gen 3:14), without adding 'alêh el-la'ne, 'God’s curse upon him!' so a man may not presume to inhabit places which God has appointed to desolation. Such villages and cities, which, according to tradition, have perished and been frequently overthrown (maqlûbe, muqêlîbe, munqualibe) by the visitation of divine judgment, are not uncommon on the borders of the desert. They are places, it is said, where the primary commandments of the religion of Abraham (Dîn Ibrâhim) have been impiously transgressed. Thus the city of Babylon will never be colonized by a Semitic tribe, because they hold the belief that it has been destroyed on account of Nimrod’s apostasy from God, and his hostility to His favoured one, Abraham. The tradition which has even been transferred by the tribes of Arabia Petraea into Islamism of the desolation of the city of Higr (or Medâin Sâlih) on account of disobedience to God, prevents any one from dwelling in that remarkable city, which consists of thousands of dwellings cut in the rock, some of which are richly ornamented; without looking round, and muttering prayers, the desert ranger hurries through, even as does the great procession of pilgrims to Mekka, from fear of incurring the punishment of God by the slightest delay in the accursed city. The destruction of Sodom, brought about by the violation of the right of hospitality (Gen 19:5, comp. Job 31:32), is to be mentioned here, for this legend certainly belongs originally to the 'Din Ibrâhîm' rather than to the Mosaic. At the source of the Rakkâd (the largest river of the Golan region) there are a number of erect and remarkably perforated jasper formations, which are called 'the bridal procession' (el-fârida). This bridal procession was turned to stone, because a woman of the party cleaned her child that had made itself dirty with a bread-cake (qurss). Near it is its village (Ufûne), which in spite of repeated attempts is no more to be inhabited. It remains forsaken, as an eternal witness that ingratitude (kufrân en-ni'ma), especially towards God, does not remain unpunished.}

Only by this rendering is the form of expression of the elliptical clause לא־ישׁבוּ למו explained. Hirz. refers למו to בּתּים: in which they do not dwell; but ל ישׁב does not signify: to dwell in a place, but: to settle down in a place; Schlottm. refers למו to the inhabitants: therein they dwell not themselves, i.e., where no one dwelt; but the אשׁר which would be required in this case as acc. localis could not be omitted. One might more readily, with Hahn, explain: those to whom they belong do not inhabit them; but it is linguistically impossible for למו to stand alone as the expression of this subject (the possessors). The most natural, and also an admissible explanation, is, that yshbw refers to the houses, and that למו, which can be used not only of persons, but also of things, is dat. ethicus. The meaning, however, is not: which are uninhabited, which would not be expressed as future, but rather by אין בהם יושׁב or similarly, but: which shall not inhabit, i.e., shall not be inhabited to them (ישׁב to dwell = to have inhabitants, as Isa 13:10; Jer 50:13, Jer 50:39, and freq.), or, as we should express it, which ought to remain uninhabited.

Job 15:29 begins the conclusion: (because he has acted thus) he shall not be rich (with a personal subject as Hos 12:9, and יעשּׁר to be written with a sharpened שׁ, like יעצר above, Job 12:15), and his substance shall not endure (קוּם, to take place, Isa 7:7; to endure, 1Sa 13:14; and hold fast, Job 41:18), and מנלם shall not incline itself to the earth. The interpretation of the older expositors, non extendet se in terra, is impossible - that must be בּארץ eb tsum taht - elbi ינּטה; whereas Kal is commonly used in the intransitive sense to bow down, bend one’s self or incline (Ges. §53, 2). But what is the meaning of the subject מנלם? We may put out of consideration those interpretations that condemn themselves: לם מן, ex iis (Targ.), or לם מן, quod iis, what belongs to them (Saad.), or מלּם, their word (Syr. and Gecatilia), and such substitutions as σκιάν (צלם or צללם) of the lxx, and radicem of Jerome (which seems only to be a guess). Certainly that which throws most light on the signification of the word is כּנּלתך (for כּהנלתך with Dag. dirimens, as Job 17:2), which occurs in Isa 33:1. The oldest Jewish lexicographers take this הנלה (parall. התם .ll) as a synonym of כּלּה in the signification, to bring to an end; on the other hand, Ges., Knobel, and others, consider כּכלּתך to be the original reading, because the meaning perficere is not furnished for נלה from the Arab. nâl, and because נל, standing thus together, is in Arabic an incompatible root combination (Olsh. §9, 4). This union of consonants certainly does not occur in any Semitic root, but the Arab. nâla (the long a of which can in the inflection become a short changeable bowel) furnishes sufficient protection for this one exception; and the meaning consequi, which belongs to the Arab. nâla , fut. janı̂lu , is perfectly suited to Isa 33:1 : if thou hast fully attained (Hiph. as intensive of the transitive Kal, like הזעיק, הקנה) to plundering. If, however, the verb נלה is established, there is no need for any conjecture in the passage before us, especially since the improvement nearest at hand, מכלם (Hupf. מגּלה), produces a sentence (non figet in terra caulam) which could not be flatter and tamer; whereas the thought that is gained by Olshausen’s more sensible conjecture, מגּלם (their sickle does not sink to the earth, is not pressed down by the richness of the produce of the field), goes to the other extreme. ^{▼▼Carey proposes to take מנלם = נמלם, their cutting, layer for planting; but the verb-group מלל, מול, נמל (vid., supra, p. 224) is not favourable to the supposition of a substantive נמל in this signification, according to the usual application of the language.}

Juda b. Karisch (Kureisch) has explained the word correctly by Arab. mnâlhm : that which they have offered (from nâla , janûlu) or attained (nâla , janı̂lu), i.e., their possession ^{▼▼Freytag has erroneously placed the infinitives nail and manâl under Arab. nâl med. Wau, instead of under Arab. nâl me. Je, where he only repeats nail, and erroneously gives manâl the signification donum, citing in support of it a passage from Fâkihat al-chulafâ, where 'azîz al-manâl (a figure borrowed from places difficult of access, and rendered strong and impregnable by nature or art) signifies “one who was hard to get at” (i.e., whose position of power is made secure). The true connection is this: Arab. nâl med. Wau signifies originally to extend, reach, to hand anything to any one with outstretched arm or hand, the correlatum Arab. nâl med. Je: to attain, i.e., first to touch or reach anything with outstretched arm or hand, and then really to grasp and take it, gen. adipisci, consequi, assequi, impetrare, with the ordinary infinitives nail and manâl. Therefore manâl (from Arab. nâl med. Je) signifies primarily as abstract, attainment; it may then, however, like nail and the infinitives generally, pass over to the concrete signification: what one attains to, or what one has attained, gotten, although I can give no special example in support of it. - Fl.} (not: their perfection, as it is chiefly explained by the Jewish expositors, according to נלה = כלה). When the poet says, “their prosperity inclines not to the ground,” he denies to it the likeness to a field of corn, which from the weight of the ears bows itself towards the ground, or to a tree, whose richly laden branches bend to the ground. We may be satisfied with this explanation (Hirz., Ew., Stickel, and most others): מנלם from מנלה (with which Kimchi compares מכרם, Num 20:19, which however is derived not from מכרה, but from מכר), similar in meaning to the post-biblical ממון, μαμωνᾶς; the suff., according to the same change of number as in Job 15:35; Job 20:23, and freq., refers to רשׁעים.

In Job 15:30, also, a figure taken from a plant is interwoven with what is said of the person of the ungodly: the flame withers up his tender branch without its bearing fruit, and he himself does not escape darkness, but rather perishes by the breath of His mouth, i.e., God’s mouth (Job 4:9, not of his own, after Isa 33:11). The repetition of יסוּר (“he escapes not,” as Pro 13:14; “he must yield to,” as 1Ki 15:14, and freq.) is an impressive play upon words. Job 15:31-35 31 Let him not trust in evil-he is deceived,

For evil shall be his possession. 32 His day is not yet, then it is accomplished,

And his palm-branch loseth its freshness. 33 He teareth off as a vine his young grapes,

And He casteth down as an olive-tree his flower. 34 The company of the hypocrite is rigid,

And fire consumeth the tents of bribery. 35 They conceive sorrow and bring forth iniquity,

And their inward part worketh self-deceit. אל does not merely introduce a declaration respecting the future (Luther: he will not continue, which moreover must have been expressed by the Niph.), but is admonitory: may he only not trust in vanity (Munach here instead of Dechî, according to the rule of transformation, Psalter, ii. 504, §4) - he falls, so far as he does it, into error, or brings himself into error (נתעה, 3 praet., not part., and Niph. like Isa 19:14, where it signifies to be thrust backwards and forwards, or to reel about helplessly), - a thought one might expect after the admonition (Olsh. conjectures נתעב, one who is detestable): this trusting in evil is self-delusion, for evil becomes his exchange (תּמוּרה not compensatio, but permutatio, acquisitio). We have translated שׁוא by “evil” (Unheil), by which we have sought elsewhere to render און, in order that we might preserve the same word in both members of the verse. In Job 15:31, שׁוא (in form = שׁוא from שׁוא, in the Chethib שוּ, the Aleph being cast away, like the Arabic sû', wickedness, form the v. cavum hamzatum sâ-'a = sawu'a) is waste and empty in mind, in Job 15:31 (comp. Hos 12:12) waste and empty in fortune; or, to go further from the primary root, in the former case apparent goodness, in the latter apparent prosperity - delusion, and being undeceived “evil” in the sense of wickedness, and of calamity. תּמּלא, which follows, refers to the exchange, or neutrally to the evil that is exchanged: the one or the other fulfils itself, i.e., either: is realized (passive of מלּא, 1Ki 8:15), or: becomes complete, which means the measure of the punishment of his immorality becomes full, before his natural day, i.e., the day of death, is come (comp. for expression, Job 22:16; Ecc 7:17). The translation: then it is over with him (Ges., Schlottm., and others), is contrary to the usage of the language; and that given by the Jewish expositors, תּמּלא = תּמּלל (abscinditur or conteritur), is a needlessly bold suggestion. - Job 15:32. It is to be observed that רעננה is Milel, and consequently 3 praet., not as in Sol 1:16 Milra, and consequently adj. כּפּה is not the branches generally (Luzzatto, with Raschi: branchage), but, as the proverbial expression for the high and low, Isa 9:13; Isa 19:15 (vid., Dietrich, Abhandlung zur hebr. Gramm. S. 209), shows, the palm-branch bent downwards (comp. Targ. Est 1:5, where כּפּין signifies seats and walks covered with foliage). “His palm-branch does not become green, or does not remain green” (which Symm. well renders: οὐκ εὐθαλήσει), means that as he himself, the palm-trunk, so also his family, withers away. In Job 15:33 it is represented as בּסר (= בּסר), wild grapes, or even unripe grapes of a vine, and as נצּה, flowers of an olive. ^{▼▼In order to appreciate the point of the comparison, it is needful to know that the Syrian olive-tree bears fruit plentifully the first, third, and fifth years, but rests during the second, fourth, and sixth. It blossoms in these years also, but the blossoms fall off almost entirely without any berries being formed. The harvest of the olive is therefore in such years very scanty. With respect to the vine, every year an enormous quantity of grapes are used up before they are ripe. When the berries are only about the size of a pea, the acid from them is used in housekeeping, to prepare almost every kind of food. The people are exceedingly fond of things sour, a taste which is caused by the heat of the climate. During the months of June, July, and August, above six hundred horses and asses laden with unripe grapes come daily to the market in Damascus alone, and during this season no one uses vinegar; hence the word בסרא signifies in Syriac the acid (vinegar) κατ ̓ ἐξοχήν. In Arabic the unripe grapes are exclusively called hhossrum (Arab. htsrm), or, with a dialectic distinction, hissrim. - Wetzst.}

In Job 15:32 the godless man himself might be the subject: he casts down, like an olive-tree, his flowers, but in Job 15:32 this is inadmissible; if we interpret: ”he shakes off (Targ. יתּר, excutiet), like a vine-stock, his young grapes,” this (apart from the far-fetched meaning in יחמס) is a figure that is untrue to nature, since the grapes sit firmer the more unripe they are; and if one takes the first meaning of חמס, “he acts unjustly, as a vine, to his omphax” (e.g., Hupf.), whether it means that he does not let it ripen, or that he does not share with it any of the sweet sap, one has not only an indistinct figure, but also (since what God ordains for the godless is described as in operation) an awkward comparison. The subject of both verbs is therefore other than the vine and olive themselves. But why only an impersonal “one”? In Job 15:30 רוח פיו was referred to God, who is not expressly mentioned. God is also the subject here, and יחמס, which signifies to act with violence to one’s self, is modified here to the sense of tearing away, as Lam 2:6 (which Aben-Ezra has compared), of tearing out; כגפן, כזית, prop. as a vine-stock, as an olive-tree, is equivalent to even as such an one.

Job 15:34 declares the lot of the family of the ungodly, which has been thus figuratively described, without figure: the congregation (i.e., here: family-circle) of the ungodly (חנף according to its etymon inclinans, propensus ad malum, vid., on Job 13:16) is (as it is expressed from the standpoint of the judgment that is executed) גּלמוּד, a hard, lifeless, stony mass (in the substantival sense of the Arabic galmûd instead of the adject. גלמודה, Isa 49:21), i.e., stark dead (lxx θάνατος; Aq., Symm., Theod., ἄκαρπος), and fire has devoured the tents of bribery (after Ralbag: those built by bribery; or even after the lxx: οἴκους δωροδεκτῶν). The ejaculatory conclusion, Job 15:35, gives the briefest expression to that which has been already described. The figurative language, Job 15:35, is like Psa 7:15; Isa 59:4 (comp. supra, p. 257); in the latter passage similar vividly descriptive infinitives are found (Ges. §131, 4, b). They hatch the burdens or sorrow of others, and what comes from it is evil for themselves. What therefore their בּטן, i.e., their inward part, with the intermingled feelings, thoughts, and strugglings (Olympiodorus: κοιλίαν ὅλον τὸ ἐντὸς χωρίον φησὶ καὶ αὐτὴν τῆν ψυχήν), prepares or accomplishes (יכין similar to Job 27:17; Job 38:41), that on which it works, is מרמה, deceit, with which they deceive others, and before all, themselves (New Test. ἀπάτη).

With the speech of Eliphaz, the eldest among the friends, who gives a tone to their speeches, the controversy enters upon a second stage. In his last speech Job has turned from the friends and called upon them to be silent; he turned to God, and therein a sure confidence, but at the same time a challenging tone of irreverent defiance, is manifested. God does not enter into the controversy which Job desires; and the consequence is, that that flickering confidence is again extinguished, and the tone of defiance is changed into despair and complaint. Instead of listening to the voice of God, Job is obliged to content himself again with that of the friends, for they believe the continuance of the contest to be just as binding upon them as upon Job. They cannot consider themselves overcome, for their dogma has grown up in such inseparable connection with their idea of God, and therefore is so much raised above human contradiction, that nothing but a divine fact can break through it. And they are too closely connected with Job by their friendship to leave him to himself as a heretic; they regard Job as one who is self-deluded, and have really the good intention of converting their friend.

Eliphaz' speech, however, also shows that they become still more and more incapable of producing a salutary impression on Job. For, on the one hand, in this second stage of the controversy also they turn about everywhere only in the circle of their old syllogism: suffering is the punishment of sin, Job suffers, therefore he is a sinner who has to make atonement for his sin; on the other hand, instead of being disconcerted by an unconditioned acceptation of this maxim, they are strengthened in it. For while at the beginning the conclusio was urged upon them only by premises raised above any proof, so that they take for granted sins of Job which were not otherwise known to them; now, as they think, Job has himself furnished them with proof that he is a sinner who has merited such severe suffering. For whoever can speak so thoughtlessly and passionately, so vexatiously and irreverently, as Job has done, is, in their opinion, his own accuser and judge. It remains unperceived by them that Job’s mind has lost its balance by reason of the fierceness of his temptation, and that in it nature and grace have fallen into a wild, confused conflict. In those speeches they see the true state of Job’s spirit revealed. What, before his affliction, was the determining principle of his inner life, seems to them now to be brought to light in the words of the sufferer. Job is a godless one; and if he does affirm his innocence so solemnly and strongly, and challenges the decision of God, this assurance is only hypocritical, and put on against his better knowledge and conscience, in order to disconcert his accusers, and to evade their admonitions to repentance. It is לשׁון ערומים, a mere stratagem, like that of one who is guilty, who thinks he can overthrow the accusations brought against him by assuming the bold bearing of the accuser. Seb. Schmid counts up quinque vitia, with which Eliphaz in the introduction to his speech (Job 15:1-13) reproaches Job: vexatious impious words, a crafty perversion of the matter, blind assumption of wisdom, contempt of the divine word, and defiance against God. Of these reproaches the first and last are well-grounded; Job does really sin in his language and attitude towards God. With respect to the reproach of assumed wisdom, Eliphaz pays Job in the same coin; and when he reproaches Job with despising the divine consolations and gentle admonitions they have addressed to him, we must not blame the friends, since their intention is good. If, however, Eliphaz reproaches Job with calculating craftiness, and thus regards his affirmation of his innocence as a mere artifice, the charge cannot be more unjust, and must certainly produce the extremest alienation between them. It is indeed hard that Eliphaz regards the testimony of Job’s conscience as self-delusion; he goes still further, and pronounces it a fine-spun lie, and denies not only its objective but also its subjective truth. Thus the breach between Job and the friends widens, the entanglement of the controversy becomes more complicated, and the poet allows the solution of the enigma to ripen, by its becoming increasingly enigmatical and entangled.

In this second round of the friends’ speeches we meet with no new thoughts whatever; only “in the second circle of the dispute everything is more fiery than in the first” (Oetinger): the only new thing is the harsher and more decided tone of their maintenance of the doctrine of punishment, with which they confront Job. They cannot go beyond the narrow limits of their dogma of retribution, and confine themselves now to even the half of that narrowness; for since Job contemns the consolations of God with which they have hitherto closed their speeches, they now exclusively bring forward the terrible and gloomy phase of their dogma in opposition to him. After Eliphaz has again given prominence to the universal sinfulness of mankind, which Job does not at all deny, he sketches from his own experience and the tradition of his ancestors, which demands respect by reason of their freedom from all foreign influence, with brilliant lines, a picture of the evil-doer, who, being tortured by the horrors of an evil conscience, is overwhelmed by the wrath of God in the midst of his prosperity; and his possessions, children, and whole household are involved in his ruin. The picture is so drawn, that in it, as in a mirror, Job shall behold himself and his fate, both what he has already endured and what yet awaits him. מרמה is the final word of the admonitory conclusion of his speech: Job is to know that that which satisfies his inward nature is a fearful lie.

But what Job affirms of himself as the righteous one, is not מרמה. He knows that he is טמא מטמא (Job 14:4), but he also knows that he is as צדיק תמים (Job 12:4). He is conscious of the righteousness of his endeavour, which rests on the groundwork of a mind turned to the God of salvation, therefore a believing mind, - a righteousness which is also accepted of God. The friends know nothing whatever of this righteousness which is available before God. Fateor quidem, says Calvin in his Institutiones, iii. 12, in libro Iob mentionem fieri justitiae, quae excelsior est observatione legis; et hanc distinctionem tenere operae pretium est, quia etiamsi quis legi satisfaceret, ne sic quidem staret ad examen illius justitiae, quae sensus omnes exsuperat. Mercier rightly observes: Eliphas perstringit hominis naturam, quae tamen per fidem pura redditur. In man Eliphaz sees only the life of nature and not the life of grace, which, because it is the word of God, makes man irreproachable before God. He sees in Job only the rough shell, and not the kernel; only the hard shell, and not the pearl. We know, however, from the prologue, that Jehovah acknowledged Job as His servant when he decreed suffering for him; and this sufferer, whom the friends regard as one smitten of God, is and remains, as this truly evangelical book will show to us, the servant of Jehovah.

‏ Job 16:1-12

Job 16:1-5 1 Then began Job, and said: 2 I have now heard such things in abundance,

Troublesome comforters are ye all! 3 Are windy words now at an end,

Or what goadeth thee that thou answerest? 4 I also would speak like you,

If only your soul were in my soul’s stead.

I would weave words against you,

And shake my head at you; 5 I would encourage you with my mouth,

And the solace of my lips should soothe you.

The speech of Eliphaz, as of the other two, is meant to be comforting. It is, however, primarily an accusation; it wounds instead of soothing. Of this kind of speech, says Job, one has now heard רבּות, much, i.e., (in a pregnant sense) amply sufficient, although the word might signify elliptically (Psa 106:43; comp. Neh 9:28) many times (Jer. frequenter); multa (as Job 23:14) is, however, equally suitable, and therefore is to be preferred as the more natural. Job 16:2 shows how כּאלּה is intended; they are altogether עמל מנחמי, consolatores onerosi (Jer.), such as, instead of alleviating, only cause עמל, molestiam (comp. on Job 13:4). In Job 16:3 Job returns their reproach of being windy, i.e., one without any purpose and substance, which they brought against him, Job 15:2.: have windy words an end, or (לו vel = אם in a disjunctive question, Ges. §155, 2, b) if not, what goads thee on to reply? מרץ has been already discussed on Job 6:25. The Targ. takes it in the sense of מלץ: what makes it sweet to thee, etc.; the Jewish interpreters give it, without any proof, the signification, to be strong; the lxx transl. παρενοχλήσει, which is not transparent. Hirz., Ew., Schlottm., and others, call in the help of the Arabic marida (Aramaic מרע), to be sick, the IV. form of which signifies “to make sick,” not “to injure.” ^{▼▼The primary meaning of Arabic marida (root mr, stringere) is maceratum esse, by pressing, rubbing, beating, to be tender, enervated (Germ. dialectic and popul. abmaracht); comp. the nearest related maratsa, then maraza, marasa, maraa, and further, the development of the meaning of morbus and μαλαακία; - originally and first, of bodily sickness, then also of diseased affections and conditions of spirit, as envy, hatred, malice, etc.; vid., Sur. 2, v. 9, and Beidhâwi thereon. - Fl.}

We keep to the primary meaning, to pierce, penetrate; Hiph. to goad, bring out, lacessere: what incites thee, that (כי as Job 6:11, quod not quum) thou repliest again? The collective thought of what follows is not that he also, if they were in his place, could do as they have done; that he, however, would not so act (thus e.g., Blumenfeld: with reasons for comfort I would overwhelm you, and sympathizingly shake my head over you, etc.). This rendering is destroyed by the shaking of the head, which is never a gesture of pure compassion, but always of malignant joy, Sir. 12:18; or of mockery at another’s fall, Isa 37:22; and misfortune, Psa 22:8; Jer 18:16; Mat 27:39. Hence Merc. considers the antithesis to begin with Job 16:5, where, however, there is nothing to indicate it: minime id facerem, quin potius vos confirmarem ore meo - rather: that he also could display the same miserable consolation; he represents to them a change of their respective positions, in order that, as in a mirror, they may recognise the hatefulness of their conduct. The negative antecedent clause si essem (with לוּ, according to Ges. §155, 2, f) is surrounded by cohortatives, which (since the interrogative form of interpretation is inadmissible) signify not only loquerer, but loqui possem, or rather loqui vellem (comp. e.g., Psa 51:18, dare vellem). When he says: I would range together, etc. (Carey: I would combine), he gives them to understand that their speeches are more artificial than natural, more declamations than the outgushings of the heart; instead of מלּים, it is בּמלּים, since the object of the action is thought is as the means, as in Job 16:4 ראשׁי במּו, capite meo (for caput meum, Psa 22:8), and בּפיהם, Job 16:10, for פּיּהם, comp. Jer 18:16; Lam 1:17, Ges. §138† ; Ew. takes חהביר by comparison of the Arabic chbr, to know (the IV. form of which, achbara , however, signifies to cause to know, announce), in a sense that belongs neither to the Heb. nor to the Arab.: to affect wisdom. In Job 16:5 the chief stress is upon “with my mouth,” without the heart being there, so also on the word “my lips,” solace (ניד ἅπ. λεγ., recalling Isa 57:19, ניב שׂפתים, offspring or fruit of the lips) of my lips, i.e., dwelling only on the lips, and not coming from the heart. In ''אאמּצכם (Piel, not Hiph.) the Ssere is shortened to Chirek (Ges. §60, rem. 4). According to Job 16:6, כאבכם is to be supplied to יחשׂך. He also could offer such superficial condolence without the sympathy which places itself in the condition and mood of the sufferer, and desires to afford that relief which it cannot. And yet how urgently did he need right and effectual consolation! He is not able to console himself, as the next strophe says: neither by words nor by silence is his pain assuaged. Job 16:6-9 6 If I speak, my pain is not soothed;

And if I forbear, what alleviation do I experience? 7 Nevertheless now hath He exhausted me;

Thou hast desolated all my household, 8 And Thou filledst me with wrinkles - for a witness was it,

And my leanness rose up against me

Complaining to my face. 9 His wrath tore me, and made war upon me;

He hath gnashed upon me with His teeth,

As mine enemy He sharpeneth His eyes against me. אם stands with the cohortative in the hypothetical antecedent clause Job 16:6, and in 6 b the cohortative stands alone as Job 11:17; Psa 73:16; Psa 139:8, which is more usual, and more in accordance with the meaning which the cohortative has in itself, Nägelsbach, §89, 3. The interrogative, What goes from me? is equivalent to, what (= nothing) of pain forsakes me. The subject of the assertion which follows (Job 16:7) is not the pain - Aben-Ezra thinks even that this is addressed in v. 7 b - still less Eliphaz, whom some think, particularly on account of the sharp expressions which follow, must be understood, but God, whose wrath Job regards as the cause of his suffering, and feels as the most intolerable part of it. A strained connection is obtained by taking אך either in an affirmative sense (Ew.: surely), as Job 18:21, or in a restrictive sense: only (= entirely) He has now exhausted me (Hirz., Hahn, also Schlottm.: only I feel myself oppressed, at least to express this), by which interpretation the עתּה, which stands between אך and the verb, is in the way. We render it therefore in the adversative signification: nevertheless (verum tamen) now he seeks neither by speaking to alleviate his pain, nor by silence to control himself; God has placed him in a condition in which all his strength is exhausted. He is absolutely incapable of offering any resistance to his pain, and care has also been taken that no solacing word shall come to him from any quarter: Thou hast made all my society desolate (Carey: all my clan); עדה of the household, as in Job 15:34. Jerome: in nihilum redacti sunt omnes artus mei (כל אברי, as explained by the Jewish expositors, e.g., Ralbag), as though the human organism could be called עדה. Hahn: Thou hast destroyed all my testimony, which must have been אדתי (from עוּד, whereas עדה, from ועד, has a changeable Ssere). He means to say that he stands entirely alone, and neither sees nor hears anything consolatory, for he does not count his wife. He is therefore completely shut up to himself; God has shrivelled him up; and this suffering form to which God has reduced him, is become an evidence, i.e., for himself and for others, as the three friends, an accusation de facto, which puts him down as a sinner, although his self-consciousness testifies the opposite to him. Job 16:10-11 10 They have gaped against me with their mouth,

In contempt they smite my cheeks;

They conspire together against me. 11 God left me to the mercy of the ungodly,

And cast me into the hands of the evil-doer.

He does not mean the friends by those who mock and vex him with their contemptuous words, but the men around him who envied his prosperity and now rejoice at his misfortune; those to whom his uprightness was a burden, and who now consider themselves disencumbered of their liege lord, the over-righteous, censorious, godly man. The perfects here also have not a present signification; he depicts his suffering according to the change it has wrought since it came upon him. The verb פּער is used with the instrumental Beth instead of with the acc., as Job 29:23 (comp. on במלים, Job 16:4): they make an opening with their mouth (similar to Psa 22:8, they make an opening with the lips, for diducunt labia). Smiting on the cheeks is in itself an insult (Lam 3:30); the additional בּחרפּה will therefore refer to insulting words which accompany the act. The Hithpa. התמלּא, which occurs only here, signifies not only to gather together a מלא in general, Isa 31:4, but (after the Arab. tamâla'a ‛ala, to conspire against any one) ^{▼▼Wetzstein thinks the signification conspirare for יתמלאון poor in this connection, and prefers to translate: All together they eat themselves full upon me, התמלּא as reflexive of מלּא, Job 38:39, synon. of נשׂבע, as in “the Lovers of Amâsiâ,” Ferhhât, after the death of his beloved, cries out: We are not separated! To-morrow (i.e., soon) the All-kind One will unite us in paradise, and we shall satisfy ourselves one with another (Arab. w-ntmll' mn b-'dnâ 'l-b'd). One would, however, expect ממּנּי instead of עלי; but perhaps we may refer to the interchange of התענג על, Job 22:26; Job 27:10, with התענג מן, Isa 66:11.} to complete one’s self, to strengthen one’s self (for a like hostile purpose): Reiske correctly: sibi invicem mutuam et auxiliatricem operam contra me simul omnes ferunt. ^{▼▼The signification to help, which belongs to the I. form Arab. mala'a, proceeds from malâ'un, to have abundance, to be well off; prop. to be able to furnish any one with the means (opes, copias) for anything, and thereby to place him in a position to accomplish it. Comp. the Lat. ops, opem ferre, opitulari, opes, opulentus (Arab. malâ'un). - Fl.}

The meaning of עויל is manifest from Job 21:11; from עוּל, to suckle, alere (Arab. ‛âl med . Wau , whence the inf. ‛aul , ‛uwûl , and ‛ijâle), it signifies boys, knaves; and it is as unnecessary to suppose two forms, עויל and עויל, as two meanings, puer and pravus, since the language and particularly the book of Job has coined עוּל for the latter signification: it signifies in all three passages (here and Job 19:18; Job 21:11) boys, or the boyish, childish, knavish. The Arabic warratta leaves no doubt as to the derivation and meaning of ירטני; it signifies to cast down to destruction (warttah, a precipice, ruin, danger), and so here the fut. Kal ירטני for יירטני (Ges. §69, rem. 3), praecipitem me dabat (lxx ἔῤῥιψε, Symm. ἐνέβαλε), as the praet. Kal, Num 22:32 : praeceps = exitiosa est via. The preformative Jod has Metheg in correct texts, so that we need not suppose, with Ralbag, a רטה, similar in meaning to ירט. Job 16:12-14 12 I was at ease, but He hath broken me in pieces;

And He hath taken me by the neck and shaken me to pieces,

And set me up for a mark for himself. 13 His arrows whistled about me;

He pierced my reins without sparing;

He poured out my gall upon the ground. 14 He brake through me breach upon breach,

He ran upon me like a mighty warrior.

He was prosperous and contented, when all at once God began to be enraged against him; the intensive form פּרפּר (Arab. farfara) signifies to break up entirely, crush, crumble in pieces (Hithpo. to become fragile, Isa 24:19); the corresponding intensive form פּצפּץ (from פּצץ, Arab. fḍḍ, cogn. נפץ), to beat in pieces (Polel of a hammer, Jer 23:29), to dash to pieces: taking him by the neck, God raised him on high in order to dash him to the ground with all His might. מטּרה (from נטר, τηρεῖν, like σκοπός from σκέπτισθαι) is the target, as in the similar passage, Lam 3:12, distinct from מפגּע, Job 7:20, object of attack and point of attack: God has set me up for a target for himself, in order as it were to try what He and His arrows can do. Accordingly רבּיו (from רבב = רבה, רמה, jacere) signifies not: His archers (although this figure would be admissible after Job 10:17; Job 19:12, and the form after the analogy of רב, רע, etc., is naturally taken as a substantival adj.), but, especially since God appears directly as the actor: His arrows (= הצּיו, Job 6:4), from רב, formed after the analogy of בּז, מס, etc., according to which it is translated by lxx, Targ., Jer., while most of the Jewish expositors, referring to Jer 50:29 (where we need not, with Böttch., point רבים, and here רביו), interpret by מורי החצים. On all sides, whichever way he might turn himself, the arrows of God flew about him, mercilessly piercing his reins, so that his gall-bladder became empty (comp. Lam 2:11, and vid., Psychol. S. 268). It is difficult to conceive what is here said; ^{▼▼The emptying of the gall takes place if the gall-bladder or any of its ducts are torn; but how the gall itself (without assuming some morbid condition) can flow outwardly, even with a severe wound, is a difficult question, with which only those who have no appreciation of the standpoint of imagery and poetry will distress themselves. [On the ”spilling of the gall” or “bursting of the gall-bladder” among the Arabs, as the working of violent and painful emotions, vid., Zeitschr. der deutschen morgenländ. Gesellsch. Bd. xvi. S. 586, Z. 16ff. - Fl.]} it is, moreover, not meant to be understood strictly according to the sense: the divine arrows, which are only an image for divinely decreed sufferings, pressed into his inward parts, and wounded the noblest organs of his nature. In Job 16:14 follows another figure. He was as a wall which was again and again broken through by the missiles or battering-rams of God, and against which He ran after the manner of besiegers when storming. פּרץ is the proper word for such breaches and holes in a wall generally; here it is connected as obj. with its own verb, according to Ges. §138, rem. 1. The second פרץ (פּרץ with Kametz) has Ssade minusculum, for some reason unknown to us.

The next strophe says what change took place in his own conduct in consequence of this incomprehensible wrathful disposition of God which had vented itself on him.