Job 28:4-7 | KD | STEP | For there is a mine for the silver, And a place for gold which they fine. 2 Iron is taken out of the dust, And he poureth forth stone as copper. 3 He hath made an end of darkness, And he searcheth all extremities For the stone of darkness and of the shadow of death. 4 He breaketh away a shaft from those who tarry above: There, forgotten by every foot, They hang and swing far from men. According to the most natural connection demonstrated by us, Job desires to show that the final lot of the rich man is well merited, because the treasures which he made the object of his avarice and pride, though ever so costly, are still earthy in their nature and origin. Therefore he begins with the most precious metals, with silver, which has the precedence in reference to , and with gold. מוצא without any secondary notion of fulness (Schultens) signifies the issuing place, i.e., the place fro which anything naturally comes forth ( ), or whence it is obtained (1Ki 10:28); here in the latter sense of the place where a mineral is found, or the mine, as the parall. מקום, the place where the gold comes forth, therefore a gold mine. According to the accentuation ( Rebia mugrasch, Mercha, Silluk ), it is not to be translated: and a place for the gold where they refine it; but: a place for the gold which they refine. זקק, to strain, filter, is the technical expression for purifying the precious metals from the rock that is mingled with them (Mal 3:3) by washing. The pure gold or silver thus obtained is called מזקּק ( ; ; ). Diodorus, in his description of mining in Upper Egypt ( ), after having described the operation of crushing the stone to small fragments, proceeds: “Then artificers take the crushed stone and lay it on a broad table, which is slightly inclined, and pour water over it; this washes away the earthy parts, and the gold remains on the slab. This operation is repeated several times, the mass being at first gently rubbed with the hand; then they press it lightly with thin sponges, and thus draw off all that is earthy and light, so that the gold dust is left quite clean. And, finally, other artificers take it up in a mass, shake it in an earthen crucible, and add a proportionate quantity of lead, grains of salt, and a little tin and barley bran; they then place a close-fitting cover over the crucible, and cement it with clay, and leave it five days and nights to seethe constantly in the furnace. After this they allow it to cool, and then finding nothing of the flux in the crucible, they take the pure gold out with only slight diminution.” The expression for the first of these operations, the separation of the gold from the quartz by washing, or indeed sifting (straining, Seihen ), is זקק; and for the other, the separation by exposure to heat, or smelting, is צרף.

‏ Job 28:4-7

Job 28:1-4 1 For there is a mine for the silver,

And a place for gold which they fine. 2 Iron is taken out of the dust,

And he poureth forth stone as copper. 3 He hath made an end of darkness,

And he searcheth all extremities

For the stone of darkness and of the shadow of death. 4 He breaketh away a shaft from those who tarry above:

There, forgotten by every foot,

They hang and swing far from men. ^{▼▼Among the expositors of this and the two following strophes, are two acquainted with mining: The director of mines, von Veltheim, whose observations J. D. Michaelis has contributed in the Orient. u. exeg. Bibliothek, xxiii. 7-17; and the inspector of mines, Rudolf Nasse, in Studien und Krit. 1863, 105-111. Umbreit’s Commentary contains some observations by von Leonhard; he understands Job 28:4 as referring to the descent upon a cross bar attached to a rope, Job 28:5 of the lighting up by burning poles, Job 28:6 of the lapis lazuli, and Job 28:10 of the earliest mode of “letting off the water.”}

According to the most natural connection demonstrated by us, Job desires to show that the final lot of the rich man is well merited, because the treasures which he made the object of his avarice and pride, though ever so costly, are still earthy in their nature and origin. Therefore he begins with the most precious metals, with silver, which has the precedence in reference to Job 27:16, and with gold. מוצא without any secondary notion of fulness (Schultens) signifies the issuing place, i.e., the place fro which anything naturally comes forth (Job 38:27), or whence it is obtained (1Ki 10:28); here in the latter sense of the place where a mineral is found, or the mine, as the parall. מקום, the place where the gold comes forth, therefore a gold mine. According to the accentuation (Rebia mugrasch, Mercha, Silluk), it is not to be translated: and a place for the gold where they refine it; but: a place for the gold which they refine. זקק, to strain, filter, is the technical expression for purifying the precious metals from the rock that is mingled with them (Mal 3:3) by washing. The pure gold or silver thus obtained is called מזקּק (Psa 12:7; 1Ch 28:18; 1Ch 29:4). Diodorus, in his description of mining in Upper Egypt (Job 3:11), after having described the operation of crushing the stone to small fragments, ^{▼▼Vid., the whole account skilfully translated in Klemm’s Allgem. Cultur-Geschichte, v. 503f.} proceeds: “Then artificers take the crushed stone and lay it on a broad table, which is slightly inclined, and pour water over it; this washes away the earthy parts, and the gold remains on the slab. This operation is repeated several times, the mass being at first gently rubbed with the hand; then they press it lightly with thin sponges, and thus draw off all that is earthy and light, so that the gold dust is left quite clean. And, finally, other artificers take it up in a mass, shake it in an earthen crucible, and add a proportionate quantity of lead, grains of salt, and a little tin and barley bran; they then place a close-fitting cover over the crucible, and cement it with clay, and leave it five days and nights to seethe constantly in the furnace. After this they allow it to cool, and then finding nothing of the flux in the crucible, they take the pure gold out with only slight diminution.” The expression for the first of these operations, the separation of the gold from the quartz by washing, or indeed sifting (straining, Seihen), is זקק; and for the other, the separation by exposure to heat, or smelting, is צרף. Job 28:5-8 5 The earth-from it cometh forth bread,

And beneath it is turned up like fire. 6 The place of the sapphire are its stones,

And it containeth gold ore. 7 The way, that no bird of prey knoweth,

And the eye of the hawk hath not gazed at, 8 Which the proud beast of prey hath not trodden,

Over which the lion hath not walked.

Job 28:5 is not to be construed as Rosenm.: ad terram quod attinet, ex qua egreditur panis, quod subtus est subvertitur quasi igne; nor with Schlottm.: (they swing) in the earth, out of which comes bread, which beneath one turns about with fire; for Job 28:5 is not formed so that the Waw of ותחתּיה could be Waw apod., and ארץ cannot signify ”in the interior of the earth” as locativus; on the contrary, it stands in opposition to תחתיה, that which is beneath the earth, as denoting the surface of the earth (the proper name of which is אדמה, from the root דם, with the primary notion of a flat covering). They are two grammatically independent predicates, the first of which is only the foil of the other: the earth, out of it cometh forth bread (לחם as Psa 104:14), and beneath it (the surface of the earth) = that which lies beneath it (ותחתיה only virtually a subj. in the sense of ותחתּיּותיה, since תּחתּי occurs only as a preposition), is turned about (comp. the construction of the sing. of the verb with the plur. subj. Job 30:15) as (by) fire Instar ignis, scil. subvertentis); i.e., the earth above furnishes nourishment to man, but that not satisfying him, he also digs out its inward parts (comp. Pliny, h. n. xxxiii. proaem.: in sede Manium opes quaerimus, tanquam parum benigna fertilique quaqua calcatur), since this is turned or tossed about (comp. מהפּכה, the special word for the overthrow of Sodom by fire) by mining work, as when fire breaks out in a house, or even as when a volcanic fire rumbles within a mountain (Castalio: agunt per magna spatia cuniculos et terram subeunt non secus ac ignis facet ut in Aetna et Vesuvio). The reading במו (Schlottm.) instead of כמו is natural, since fire is really used to blast the rock, and to separate the ore from the stone; but, with the exception of Jerome, who has arbitrarily altered the text (terra, de qua oriebatur panis in loco suo, igni subversa est), all the old translations reproduce כמו, which even Nasse, in opposition to von Veltheim, thinks suitable: Man’s restless search, which rummages everything through, is compared to the unrestrainable ravaging fire.

Job 28:6 also consists of two grammatically independent assertions: the place (bed) of the sapphire is its rock. Must we refer לו to ספּיר, and translate: “and it contains fine dust of gold” (Hirz., Umbr., Stick., Nasse)? It is possible, for Theophrastus (p. 692, ed. Schneider) says of the sapphire it is ὥσπερ χρυσόπαστος, as it were covered with gold dust or grains of gold; and Pliny, h. n. xxxvii. 9, 38f.: Inest ei (cyano) aliquando et aureus pulvis qualis in sapphiris, in iis enim aurum punctis conlucet, which nevertheless does not hold good of the proper sapphire, but of the azure stone (lapis lazuli) which is confounded with it, a variegated species of which, with gold, or rather with iron pyrites glittering like gold, is specially valued. ^{▼▼Comp. Quenstedt, Handbuch der Mineralogie (1863), S. 355 and 302.}

But Schultens rightly observes: vix cerdiderim, illum auratilem pulvisculum sapphiri peculiari mentione dignum; and Schlottm.: such a collateral definition to ספיר, expressed in a special clause (not a relative one), has something awkward about it. On the other hand, עפרת זהב is a perfectly suitable appellation of gold ore. “The earth, which is in itself black,” says Diodorus in the passage quoted before, “is interspersed with veins of marble, which is of such pre-eminent whiteness, that its brilliance surpasses everything that glitters, and from it the overseers of the mine prepare gold with a large number of workmen.” And further on, of the heating of this gold ore he says: “the hardest auriferous earth they burn thoroughly in a large fire; thus they make it soft, so that it can be worked by the hand.” עפרת זהב is a still more suitable expression for such auriferous earth and ore than for the nuggets of ἄπυρος χρυσός (i.e., unsmelted) of the size of a chestnut, which, according to Diodorus, ii. 50, are obtained in mines in Arabia (μεταλλεύεται). But it is inadmissible to refer לו to man, for the clause would then require to be translated: and gold ore is to him = he has, while it is the rather intended to be said that the interior of the earth has gold ore. לו is therefore, with Hahn and Schlottm., to be referred to מקום: and this place of the sapphire, it contains gold. The poet might have written להּ but לו implies that where the sapphire is found, gold is also found. The following נתיב (with Dechî), together with the following relative clause, is connected with אבניה, or even with מקום, which through Job 28:6 is become the chief subj.: the place of the sapphire and of the gold is the rock of the bowels of the earth, - a way, which, etc., i.e., such a place is the interior of the earth, accessible to no living being of the earth’s surface except to man alone. The sight of the bird of prey, the עיט, ἀετός, and of the איּה, i.e., the hawk or kite, reaches from above far and wide beneath; ^{▼▼The איה - says the Talmud b. Chullin, 63 b - is in Babylon, and seeth a carcase in the land of Israel.} the sons of pride, שׁחץ (also Talmud. arrogance, ferocia, from שׁחץ = Arab. šachaṣa, to raise one’s self, not: fatness, as Meier, after Arab. šachuṣa, to be fat, thick), i.e., the beasts of prey, especially the lion, שׁחל (vid., on Job 4:10, from שׁחל, Arab. sḥl, to roar, Arab. of the ass, comp. the Lat. rudere used both of the lion and of the ass), seek the most secret retreat, and shun no danger; but the way by which man presses forward to the treasures of the earth is imperceptible and inaccessible to them.