Job 3:1-7:1 | KD | STEP | Job’s first longer utterance now commences, by which he involved himself in the conflict, which is his seventh temptation or trial. 1, 2 After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed his day. And Job spake, and said.

‏ Job 3

Job’s first longer utterance now commences, by which he involved himself in the conflict, which is his seventh temptation or trial. 1, 2 After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed his day. And Job spake, and said. Job 3:2

Job 3:2 consists only of three words, which are separated by Rebia; and ויאמר, although Milel, is vocalized ויּאמר, because the usual form ויּאמר, which always immediately precedes direct narration, is not well suited to close the verse. ענה, signifies to begin to speak from some previous incitement, as the New Testament ἀποκρίνεσθαι (not always = השׁיב) is also sometimes used. ^{▼▼Vid., on this use of ἀποκρίνεσθαι, Quaestio xxi. of the Amphilochia of Photius in Ang. Maji Collectio, i. 229f.}

The following utterance of Job, with which the poetic accentuation begins, is analysed by modern critics as follows: Job 3:3-10, Job 3:11-19, Job 3:20-26. Schlottmann calls it three strophes, Hahn three parts, in the first of which delirious cursing of life is expressed; in the second, eager longing for death; in the third, reproachful inquiry after the end of such a life of suffering. In reality they are not strophes. Nevertheless Ebrard is wrong when he maintains that, in general, strophe-structure is as little to be found in the book of Job as in Wallenstein’s Monologue. The poetical part of the book of Job is throughout strophic, so far as the nature of the drama admits it. So also even this first speech. Stickel has correctly traced out its divisions; but accidentally, for he has reckoned according to the Masoretic verses. That this is false, he is now fully aware; also Ewald, in his Essay on Strophes in the Book of Job, is almost misled into this groundless reckoning of the strophes according to the Masoretic verses (Jahrb. iii. X. 118, Anm. 3). The strophe-schema of the following speech is as follows: 8. 10. 6. 8. 6. 8. 6. The translation will show how unmistakeably it may be known. In the translation we have followed the complete lines of the original, and their rhythm: the iambic pentameter into which Ebrard, and still earlier Hosse (1849), have translated, disguises the oriental Hebrew poetry of the book with its variegated richness of form in a western uniform, the monotonous impression of which is not, as elsewhere, counter-balanced in the book of Job by the change of external action. After the translation we give the grammatical explanation of each strophe; and at the conclusion of the speech thus translated and explained, its higher exposition, i.e., its artistic importance in the connection of the drama, and its theological importance in relation to the Old and New Testament religion and religious life. Job 3:3-5 3 Perish the day wherein I was born.

And the night which said, A man-child is conceived! 4 Let that day become darkness;

Let not Eloah ask after it from above,

And let not the light shine on it. 5 May darkness and the shadow of death purchase it back;

Let a cloud lie upon it;

May that which obscures the day terrify it.

The curse is against the day of his birth and the night of his conception as recurring yearly, not against the actual first day (Schlottm.), to which the imprecations which follow are not pertinent. Job wishes his birth-day may become dies ater, swallowed up by darkness as into nothing. The elliptical relative clauses, Job 3:3 (Ges. §123, 3; cf. 127, 4, c), become clear from the translation. Transl. the night (לילה with parag. He is masc.) which said, not: in which they said; the night alone was witness of this beginning of the development of a man-child, and made report of it to the High One, to whom it is subordinate. Day emerges from the darkness as Eloah from above (as Job 31:2, Job 31:28), i.e., He who reigns over the changes here below, asks after it; interests Himself in His own (דּרשׁ). Job wishes his birth-day may not rejoice in this. The relations of this his birth-day are darkness and the shadow of death. These are to redeem it, as, according to the right of kinsmen, family property is redeemed when it has got into a stranger’s hands. This is the meaning of גּאל (lxx ἐκλάβοι), not = גּעל, inquinent (Targ.). עננה is collective, as נהרה, mass of cloud. Instead of כּמרירי (the Caph of which seems pointed as praepos), we must read with Ewald (§157, a), Olshausen, (§187, b), and others, כּמרירי, after the form חכליל, darkness, dark flashing (vid., on Psa 10:8), שׁפריר, tapestry, unless we are willing to accept a form of noun without example elsewhere. The word signifies an obscuring, from כּמר, to glow with heat, because the greater the glow the deeper the blackness it leaves behind. All that ever obscures a day is to overtake and render terrible that day. ^{▼▼We may compare here, and further, on, Constance’s outburst of despair in King John (3:1 and 3:4). Shakespeare, like Goethe, enriches himself from the book of Job.} Job 3:6-9 6 That night! let darkness seize upon it;

Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;

Let it not come into the number of the month. 7 Lo! let that night become barren;

Let no sound of gladness come to it. 8 Let those who curse the day curse it,

Who are skilled in stirring up leviathan. 9 Let the stars of its early twilight be darkened;

Let it long for light and there be none;

And let it not refresh itself with eyelids of the dawn.

Darkness is so to seize it, and so completely swallow it up, that it shall not be possible for it to pass into the light of day. It is not to become a day, to be reckoned as belonging to the days of the year and rejoice in the light thereof. יחדּ, for יחדּ, fut. Kal from חדה (Exo 18:9), with Dagesh lene retained, and a helping Pathach (vid., Ges. §75, rem. 3, d); the reverse of the passage Gen 49:6, where יחד, from יחד, uniat se, is found. It is to become barren, גּלמוּד, so that no human being shall ever be conceived and born, and greeted joyfully in it. ^{▼▼Fries understands רננה, song of the spheres (concentum coeli, Job 38:37, Vulg.); but this Hellenic conception is without support in holy Scripture.} “Those who curse days” are magicians who know how to change days into dies infausti by their incantations. According to vulgar superstition, from which the imagery of Job 3:8 is borrowed, there was a special art of exciting the dragon, which is the enemy of sun and moon, against them both, so that, by its devouring them, total darkness prevails. The dragon is called in Hindu râhu; the Chinese, and also the natives of Algeria, even at the present day make a wild tumult with drums and copper vessels when an eclipse of the sun or moon occurs, until the dragon will release his prey. ^{▼▼On the dragon râhu, that swallows up sun and moon, vid., Pott, in the Hallische Lit. Zeitschr. 1849, No. 199; on the custom of the Chinese, Käuffer, Das chinesische Volk, S. 123. A similar custom among the natives of Algeria I have read of in a newspaper (1856). Moreover, the clouds which conceal the sky the Indians represent as a serpent. It is ahi, the cloud-serpent, which Indra chases away when he divides the clouds with his lightning. Vid., Westergaard in Weber’s Indischer Zeitschr. 1855, S. 417.}

Job wishes that this monster may swallow up the sun of his birth-day. If the night in which he was conceived or born is to become day, then let the stars of its twilight (i.e., the stars which, as messengers of the morning, twinkle through the twilight of dawn) become dark. It is to remain for ever dark, never behold with delight the eyelids of the dawn. בּ ראה, to regale one’s self with the sight of anything, refresh one’s self. When the first rays of morning shoot up in the eastern sky, then the dawn raises its eyelids; they are in Sophocles’s Antigone, 103, χρυσέης ἡμέρας βλέφαρον, the eyelid of the golden day, and therefore of the sun, the great eye. Job 3:10-12 10 Because it did not close the doors of my mother’s womb,

Nor hid sorrow from my eyes. 11 Why did I not die from the womb,

Come forth from the womb and expire? 12 Why have the knees welcomed me?

And why the breasts, that I should suck?

The whole strophe contains strong reason for his cursing the night of his conception or birth. It should rather have closed (i.e., make the womb barren, to be explained according to 1Sa 1:5; Gen 16:2) the doors of his womb (i.e., the womb that conceived concepit him), and so have withdrawn the sorrow he now experiences from his unborn eyes (on the extended force of the negative, vid., Ges. §152, 3). Then why, i.e., to what purpose worth the labour, is he then conceived and born? The four questions, Job 3:11., form a climax: he follows the course of his life from its commencement in embryo (מרהם, to be explained according to Jer 20:17, and Job 10:18, where, however, it is מן local, not as here, temporal) to the birth, and from the joy of his father who took the new-born child upon his knees (comp. Gen 50:23) to the first development of the infant, and he curses this growing life in its four phases (Arnh., Schlottm.). Observe the consecutio temp. The fut. אמוּת has the signification moriebar, because taken from the thought of the first period of his conception and birth; so also ואגוע, governed by the preceding perf., the signification et exspirabam (Ges. §127, 4, c). Just so אינק, but modal, ut sugerem ea. Job 3:13-16 13 So should I now have lain and had quiet,

I should have slept, then it would have been well with me, 14 With kings and councillors of the earth,

Who built ruins for themselves, 15 Or with princes possessing gold,

Who filled their houses with silver: 16 Or like a hidden untimely birth I had not been,

And as children that have never seen the light.The perf. and interchanging fut. have the signification of oriental imperfecta conjunctivi, according to Ges. §126, 5; עתּה כּי is the usual expression after hypothetical clauses, and takes the perf. if the preceding clause specifies a condition which has not occurred in the past (Gen 31:42; Gen 43:10; Num 22:29, Num 22:33; 1Sa 14:30), the fut. if a condition is not existing in the present (Job 6:3; Job 8:6; Job 13:19). It is not to be translated: for then; כי rather commences the clause following: so I should now, indeed then I should. Ruins, הרבות, are uninhabited desolate buildings, elsewhere such as have become, here such as are from the first intended to remain, uninhabited and desolate, consequently sepulchres, mausoleums; probably, since the book has Egyptian allusions, in other passages also, a play upon the pyramids, in whose name (III-XPAM, according to Coptic glossaries) III is the Egyptian article (vid., Bunsen, Aeg. ii. 361); Arab. without the art. hirâm or ahrâm (vid., Abdollatîf, ed. de Sacy, p. 293, s.). ^{▼▼We think that חרבות sounds rather like חרמות, the name of the pyramids, as the Arabic haram (instead of hharam), derived from XPAM, recalls harmân (e.g., beith harmân, a house in ruins), the synonym of hhardân (חרבאן).}

Also Renan: Qui se bâtissent des mausolées. Böttch. de inferis, §298 (who, however, prefers to read רחבות, wide streets), rightly directs attention to the difference between החרבות בנה (to rebuild the ruins) and לו בנה ח (to build ruins for one’s self). With או like things are then ranged after one another. Builders of the pyramids, millionaires, abortions (vid., Ecc 6:3), and the still-born: all these are removed from the sufferings of this life in their quiet of the grave, be their grave a “ruin” gazed upon by their descendants, or a hole dug out in the earth, and again filled in as it was before. Job 3:17-19 17 There the wicked cease from troubling,

And the weary are at rest. 18 The captives dwell together in tranquillity;

They hear not the voice of the taskmaster. 19 The small and great, - they are alike there;

And the servant is free from his lord.

There, i.e., in the grave, all enjoy the rest they could not find here: the troublers and the troubled ones alike. רגן corresponds to the radical idea of looseness, broken in pieces, want of restraint, therefore of Turba (comp. Isa 57:20; Jer 6:7), contained etymologically in רשׁע. The Pilel שׁאנן vid., Ges. §55, 2) signifies perfect freedom from care. In הוּא שׁם, הוּא is more than the sign of the copula (Hirz., Hahn, Schlottm.); the rendering of the lxx, Vulg., and Luther., ibi sunt, is too feeble. As it is said of God, Isa 41:4; Isa 43:13; Psa 102:28, that He is הוּא, i.e., He who is always the same, ὁ αὐτός; so here, הוּא, used purposely instead of המּה, signifies that great and small are like one another in the grave: all distinction has ceased, it has sunk to the equality of their present lot. Correctly Ewald: Great and small are there the same. יחד, Job 3:18, refers to this destiny which brings them together. Job 3:20-23 20 Why is light given to the wretched,

And life to the sorrowful in soul? 21 Who wait for death, and he comes not,

Who dig after him more than for treasure, 22 Who rejoice with exceeding joy,

Who are enraptured, when they can find the grave? 23 To the man whose way is hidden,

And whom Eloah hath hedged round?

The descriptive partt. Job 3:21, Job 3:22, are continued in predicative clauses, which are virtually relative clauses; Job 3:21 has the fut. consec., since the sufferers are regarded as now at least dead; Job 3:22 the simple fut., since their longing for the grave is placed before the eye (on this transition from the part. to the verb. fin., vid., Ges. §134, rem. (2). Schlottm. and Hahn wrongly translate: who would dig (instead of do dig) for him more than for treasure. אלי־גיל (with poetical אלי instead of אל) might signify, accompanied by rejoicing, i.e., the cry and gesture of joy. The translation usque ad exultationem, is however, more appropriate here as well as in Hos 9:1. With Job 3:23 Job refers to himself: he is the man whose way of suffering is mysterious and prospectless, and whom God has penned in on all sides (a fig. like Job 19:8; comp. Lam 3:5). סכך, sepire, above, Job 1:10, to hedge round for protection, here: forcibly straiten. Job 3:24-26 24 For instead of my food my sighing cometh,

And my roarings pour themselves forth as water. 25 For I fear something terrible, and it cometh upon me,

And that before which I shudder cometh to me. 26 I dwelt not in security, nor rested, nor refreshed myself:

Then trouble cometh.

That לפני may pass over from the local signification to the substitutionary, like the Lat. pro (e.g., pro praemio est), is seen from Job 4:19 (comp. 1Sa 1:16): the parallelism, which is less favourable to the interpretation, before my bread (Hahn, Schlottm., and others), favours the signification pro here. The fut. consec. ויּתּכוּ (Kal of נתך) is to be translated, according to Ges. §129, 3, a, se effundunt (not effuderunt): it denotes, by close connection with the preceding, that which has hitherto happened. Just so v. 25 a: I fear something terrible; forthwith it comes over me (this terrible, most dreadful thing). אתה is conjugated by the ה passing into the original א of the root (vid., Ges. §74, rem. 4). And just so the conclusion: then also forthwith רגן (i.e., suffering which disorders, rages and ransacks furiously) comes again. Schlottm. translates tamely and wrongly: then comes - oppression. Hahn, better: Nevertheless fresh trouble always comes; but the “nevertheless” is incorrect, for the fut. consec. indicates a close connection, not contrast. The praett., Job 3:26, give the details of the principal fact, which follows in the fut. consec.: only a short cessation, which is no real cessation; then the suffering rages afresh.

Why - one is inclined to ask respecting this first speech of Job, which gives rise to the following controversy - why does the writer allow Job, who but a short time before, in opposition to his wife, has manifested such wise submission to God’s dealings, all at once to break forth in such despair? Does it not seem as though the assertion of Satan were about to be confirmed? Much depends upon one’s forming a correct and just judgment respecting the state of mind from which this first speech proceeds. To this purpose, consider (1) That the speech contains no trace of what the writer means by את־האלהים ברך: Job nowhere says that he will have nothing more to do with God; he does not renounce his former faithfulness: (2) That, however, in the mind of the writer, as may be gathered from Job 2:10, this speech is to be regarded as the beginning of Job’s sinning. If a man, on account of his sufferings, wishes to die early, or not to have been born at all, he has lost his confidence that God, even in the severest suffering, designs his highest good; and this want of confidence is sin.

There is, however, a great difference between a man who has in general no trust in God, and in whom suffering only makes this manifest in a terrible manner, and the man with whom trust in God is a habit of his soul, and is only momentarily repressed, and, as it were, paralysed. Such interruption of the habitual state may result from the first pressure of unaccustomed suffering; it may then seem as though trust in God were overwhelmed, whereas it has only given way to rally itself again. It is, however, not the greatness of the affliction in itself which shakes his sincere trust in God, but a change of disposition on the part of God which seems to be at work in the affliction. The sufferer considers himself as forgotten, forsaken, and rejected of God, as many passages in the Psalms and Lamentations show: therefore he sinks into despair: and in this despair expression is given to the profound truth (although with regard to the individual it is a sinful weakness), that it is better never to have been born, or to be annihilated, than to be rejected of God (comp. Mat 26:24, καλὸν ἦ αὐτῷ ει ̓ οὐκ ἐγεννήθη ὁ ἄνθρωπος ἐκεῖνος). In such a condition of spiritual, and, as we know from the prologue, of Satanic temptation (Luk 22:31; Eph 6:16), is Job. He does not despair when he contemplates his affliction, but when he looks at God through it, who, as though He were become his enemy, has surrounded him with this affliction as with a rampart. He calls himself a man whose way is hidden, as Zion laments, Isa 40:27, “My way is hidden from Jehovah;” a man whom Eloah has hedged round, as Jeremiah laments over the ruins of Jerusalem, Lam 3:1-13 (in some measure a comment on Job 3:23), “I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath ... . He has hedged me round that I cannot get out, and made my chain heavy.”

In this condition of entire deprivation of every taste of divine goodness, Job breaks forth in curses. He has lost wealth and children, and has praised God; he has even begun to bear an incurable disease with submission to the providence of God. Now, however, when not only the affliction, but God himself, seems to him to be hostile (nunc autem occultato patre, as Brentius expresses it), ^{▼▼Fries, in his discussion of this portion of the book of Job, Jahrbb. für Deutsche Theologie, 1859, S. 790ff., is quite right that the real affliction of Job consists in this, that the inward feeling of being forsaken of God, which was hitherto strange to him, is come upon him. But the remark directed against me, that the feeling of being forsaken of God does not always stand in connection with other affliction, but may come on the favoured of God even in the midst of uninterrupted outward prosperity, does not concern me, since it is manifestly by the dispensations which deprive him of all his possessions, and at last affect him corporeally and individually, that Job is led to regard himself as one forsaken of God, and still more than that, one hated by God; and since, on the other hand also, this view of the tempted does not appear to be absolutely subjective, God has really withdrawn from Job the external proof, and at the same time the feeling, of His abiding love, in order to try the fidelity of His servant’s love, and prove its absoluteness.} we hear from his mouth neither words of praise (the highest excellence in affliction) nor words of resignation (duty in affliction), but words of despair: his trust in God is not destroyed, but overcast by thick clouds of melancholy and doubt.

It is indeed inconceivable that a New Testament believer, even under the strongest temptation, should utter such imprecations, or especially such a question of doubt as in Job 3:20 : Wherefore is light given to the miserable? But that an Old Testament believer might very easily become involved in such conflicts of belief, may be accounted for by the absence of any express divine revelation to carry his mind beyond the bounds of the present. Concerning the future at the period when the book of Job was composed, and the hero of the book lived, there were longings, inferences, and forebodings of the soul; but there was no clear, consoling word of God on which to rely, - no θεῖος λόγος which, to speak as Plato (Phaedo, p. 85, D), could serve as a rescuing plank in the shipwreck of this life. Therefore the πανταχοῦ θρυλλούμενον extends through all the glory and joy of the Greek life from the very beginning throughout. The best thing is never to have been born; the second best, as soon as possible thereafter, to die. The truth, that the suffering of this present time is not worthy of the glory which shall be revealed in us, was still silent. The proper disposition of mind, under such veiling of the future, was then indeed more absolute, as faith committed itself blindfold to the guidance of God. But how near at hand was the temptation to regard a troublous life as an indication of the divine anger, and doubtingly to ask, Why God should send the light of life to such! They knew not that the present lot of man forms but the one half of his history: they saw only in the one scale misery and wrath, and not in the other the heaven of love and blessedness to be revealed hereafter, by which these are outweighed; they longed for a present solution of the mystery of life, because they knew nothing of the possibility of a future solution. Thus it is to be explained, that not only Job in this poem, but also Jeremiah in the book of his prophecy, Job 20:14-18, curses the day of his birth. He curses the man who brought his father the joyous tidings of the birth of a son, and wishes him the fate of Sodom and Gomorrha. He wishes for himself that his mother might have been his grave, and asks, like Job, “Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, and that my days should be consumed in shame?” Hitzig remarks on this, that it may be inferred from the contents and form of this passage, there was a certain brief disturbance of spirit, a result of the general indescribable distress of the troublous last days of Zedekiah, to which the spirit of the prophet also succumbed. And it is certainly a kind of delirium in which Jeremiah so speaks, but there is no physical disorder of mind with it: the understanding of the prophet is so slightly and only momentarily disturbed, that he has the rather gained power over his faith, and is himself become one of its disturbing forces.

Without applying to this lyric piece either the standard of pedantic moralizing, or of minute criticism as poetry, the intense melancholy of this extremely plaintive prophet may have proceeded from the following reasoning: After I have lived ten long years of fidelity and sacrifice to my prophetic calling, I see that it has totally failed in its aim: all my hopes are blighted; all my exhortations to repentance, and my prayers, have not availed to draw Judah back from the abyss into which he is now cast, nor to avert the wrath of Jehovah which is now poured forth: therefore it had been better for me never to have been born. This thought affects the prophet so much the more, since in every fibre of his being he is an Israelite, and identifies the weal and woe of his people with his own; just as Moses would rather himself be blotted out form the book of life than that Israel should perish, and Paul was willing to be separated from Christ as anathema if he could thereby save Israel. What wonder that this thought should disburden itself in such imprecations! Had Jeremiah not been born, he would not have had occasion to sit on the ruins of Jerusalem. But his outburst of feeling is notwithstanding a paroxysm of excitement, for, though reason might drive him to despair, faith would teach him to hope even in the midst of downfall; and in reality, this small lyric piece in the collective prophecy of Jeremiah is only as a detached rock, over which, as a stream of clear living water, the prophecy flows on more joyous in faith, more certain of the future. In the book of Job it is otherwise; for what in Jeremiah and several of the psalms is compressed into a small compass, - the darkness of temptation and its clearing up, - is here the substance of a long entanglement dramatically presented, which first of all becomes progressively more and more involved, and to which this outburst of feeling gives the impulse. As Jeremiah, had he not been born, would not have sat on the ruins of Jerusalem; so Job, had he not been born, would not have found himself in this abyss of wrath. Neither of them knows anything of the future solution of every present mystery of life; they know nothing of the future life and the heavenly crown. This it is which, while it justifies their despair, casts greater glory round their struggling faith.

The first speaker among the friends, who now comes forward, is Eliphaz, probably the eldest of them. In the main, they all represent one view, but each with his individual peculiarity: Eliphaz with the self-confident pathos of age, and the mien of a prophet; ^{▼▼A. B. Davidson thinks Eliphaz is characterized as “the oldest, the most dignified, the calmest, and most considerate of Job’s friends.”}

Bildad with the moderation and caution befitting one poorer in thought; Zophar with an excitable vehemence, neither skilled nor disposed for a lasting contest. The skill of the writer, as we may here at the outset remark, is manifested in this, that what the friends say, considered in itself, is true: the error lies only in the inadequacy and inapplicability of what is said to the case before them.

‏ Job 4

Job 4:1

In reply to Sommer, who in his excellent biblische Abhandlungen, 1846, considers the octastich as the extreme limit of the compass of the strophe, it is sufficient to refer to the Syriac strophe-system. It is, however, certainly an impossibility that, as Ewald (Jahrb. ix. 37) remarks with reference to the first speech of Jehovah, Job 38-39, the strophes can sometimes extend to a length of 12 lines = Masoretic verses, consequently consist of 24 στίχοι and more. Then Eliphaz the Temanite began, and said: Job 4:2-5 2 If one attempts a word with thee, will it grieve thee?

And still to restrain himself from words, who is able? 3 Behold, thou hast instructed many,

And the weak hands thou hast strengthened. 4 The stumbling turned to thy words,

And the sinking knees thou hast strengthened. 5 But now it cometh to thee, thou art grieved;

Now it toucheth thee, thou despondest.

The question with which Eliphaz beings, is certainly one of those in which the tone of interrogation falls on the second of the paratactically connected sentences: Wilt thou, if we speak to thee, feel it unbearable? Similar examples are Job 4:21; Num 16:22; Jer 8:4; and with interrogative Wherefore? Isa 5:4; Isa 50:2 : comp. the similar paratactic union of sentences, Job 2:10; Job 3:11. The question arises here, whether נסּה is an Aramaic form of writing for נשּׂא (as the Masora in distinction from Deu 4:34 takes it), and also either future, Wilt thou, if we raise, i.e., utter, etc.; or passive, as Ewald formerly, ^{▼▼In the second edition, comp. Jahrb. ix. 37, he explains it otherwise: “If we attempt a word with thee, will it be grievous to thee quod aegre feras?” But that, however, must be נסּה; the form נסּה can only be third pers. Piel: If any one attempts, etc., which, according to Ewald’s construction, gives no suitable rendering.}

If a word is raised, i.e., uttered, דּבר נשׂא, like משׁל נשׂא, Job 27:1; or whether it is third pers. Piel, with the signification, attempt, tentare, Ecc 7:23. The last is to be preferred, because more admissible and also more expressive. נסּה followed by the fut. is a hypothetic praet., Supposing that, etc., wilt thou, etc., as e.g., Job 23:10. מלּין is the Aramaic plur. of מלּה, which is more frequent in the book of Job than the Hebrew plur. מלּים. The futt., Job 4:3., because following the perf., are like imperfects in the western languages: the expression is like Isa 35:3. In עתּה כּי, Job 4:5, כּי has a temporal signification, Now when, Ges. §155, 1, e, (b). Job 4:6-11 6 Is not thy piety thy confidence,

Thy Hope? And the uprightness of thy ways? 7 Think now: who ever perished, being innocent?!

And where have the righteous been cut off?! 8 As often as I saw, those who ploughed evil

And sowed sorrow, - they reaped the same. 9 By the breath of Eloah they perished,

By the breath of His anger they vanished away. 10 The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the shachal,

And the teeth of the young lions, are rooted out. 11 The lion wanders about for want of prey,

And the lioness’ whelps are scattered.

In Job 4:6 all recent expositors take the last waw as waw apodosis: And thy hope, is not even this the integrity of thy way? According to our punctuation, there is no occasion for supposing such an application of the waw apodosis, which is an error in a clause consisting only of substantives, and is not supported by the examples, Job 15:17; Job 23:12; 2Sa 22:41. ^{▼▼We will not, however, dispute the possibility, for at least in Arabic one can say, zı̂d f - hkı̂m Zeid, he is wise. Grammarians remark that Arab. zı̂d in this instance is like a hypothetical sentence: If any one asks, etc. 2Sa 15:34 is similar.} תקותך is the permutative of the ambiguous כסלתך, which, from כּסל, to be fat, signifies both the awkwardness of stupidity and the boldness of confidence. The addition of הוּא to מי, Job 4:7, like Job 13:19; Job 17:3, makes the question more earnest: quis tandem, like זה מי, quisnam (Ges. §122, 2). In Job 4:8, כּאשׁר is not comparative, but temporal, and yet so that it unites, as usual, what stands in close connection with, and follows directly upon, the preceding: When, so as, as often as I had seen those who planned and worked out evil (comp. Pro 22:8), I also saw that they reaped it. That the ungodly, and they alone, perish, is shown in Job 4:10. under the simile of the lions. The Hebrew, like the oriental languages in general, is rich in names for lions; the reason of which is, that the lion-tribe, although now become rarer in Asia, and of which only a solitary one is found here and there in the valley of the Nile, was more numerous in the early times, and spread over a wider area. ^{▼▼Vid., Schmarda, Geographische Verbreitung der Thiere, i. 210, where, among other things, we read: The lion in Asia is driven back at almost all points, and also in Africa has been greatly diminished; for hundreds of lions and panthers were used in the Roman amphitheatres, whilst at the present time it would be impossible to procure so large a number.} שׁחל, which the old expositors often understood as the panther, is perhaps the maneless lion, which is still found on the lower Euphrates and Tigris. נתע = נתץ, Psa 58:7, evellere, elidere, by zeugma, applies to the voice also. All recent expositors translate Job 4:11 init. wrongly: the lion perishes. The participle אבד is a stereotype expression for wandering about viewless and helpless (Deu 26:5; Isa 27:13; Psa 119:176, and freq.). The part., otherwise remarkable here, has its origin in this usage of the language. The parallelism is like Psa 92:10. Job 4:12-16 12 And a word reached me stealthily,

And my ear heard a whisper thereof. 13 In the play of thought, in visions of the night,

When deep sleep falleth on men, 14 Fear came upon me, and trembling;

And it caused the multitude of my bones to quake with fear. 15 And a breathing passed over my face; 16 It stood there, and I discerned not its appearance:

An image was before my eyes;

A gentle murmur, and I heard a voice.

The fut. יגגּב, like Jdg 2:1; Psa 80:9, is ruled by the following fut. consec.: ad me furtim delatum est (not deferebatur). Eliphaz does not say אלי ויגנּב (although he means a single occurrence), because he desires, with pathos, to put himself prominent. That the word came to him so secretly, and that he heard only as it were a whisper (שׁמץ, according to Arnheim, in distinction from שׁמע, denotes a faint, indistinct impression on the ear), is designed to show the value of such a solemn communication, and to arouse curiosity. Instead of the prosaic ממּנוּ, we find here the poetic pausal-form מנהוּ expanded from מנּוּ, after the form מנּי, Job 21:16; Psa 18:23. מן is partitive: I heard only a whisper, murmur; the word was too sacred and holy to come loudly and directly to his ear. It happened, as he lay in the deep sleep of night, in the midst of the confusion of thought resulting from nightly dreams. שׂעפּים (from שׂעיף, branched) are thoughts proceeding like branches from the heart as their root, and intertwining themselves; the מן which follows refers to the cause: there were all manner of dreams which occasioned the thoughts, and to which they referred (comp. Job 33:15); תּרדּמה, in distinction from שׁנה, sleep, and תּנוּמה, slumber, is the deep sleep related to death and ecstasy, in which man sinks back from outward life into the remotest ground of his inner life. In Job 4:14, קראני, from קרא = קרה, to meet (Ges. §75, 22), is equivalent to קרני (not קרני, as Hirz., first edition, wrongly points it; comp. Gen 44:29). The subject of הפחיד is the undiscerned ghostlike something. Eliphaz was stretched upon his bed when רוּח, a breath of wind, passed (חלף( dessap, similar to Isa 21:1) over his face. The wind is the element by means of which the spirit-existence is made manifest; comp. 1Ki 19:12, where Jehovah appears in a gentle whispering of the wind, and Act 2:2, where the descent of the Holy Spirit is made known by a mighty rushing. רוּח, πνεῦμα, Sanscrit âtma, signifies both the immaterial spirit and the air, which is proportionately the most immaterial of material things. ^{▼▼On wind and spirit, vid., Windischmann, Die Philosophie im Fortgang der Weltgesch. S. 1331ff.}

His hair bristled up, even every hair of his body; סמּר, not causative, but intensive of Kal. יעמד has also the ghostlike appearance as subject. Eliphaz could not discern its outline, only a תמוּנה, imago quaedam (the most ethereal word for form, Num 12:8; Psa 17:15, of μορφή or δόξα of God), was before his eyes, and he heard, as it were proceeding from it, רקל דּממה, i.e., per hendiadyn: a voice, which spoke to him in a gentle, whispering tone, as follows: Job 4:17-21 17 Is a mortal just before Eloah,

Or a man pure before his Maker? 18 Behold, He trusteth not His servants!

And His angels He chargeth with imperfection. 19 How much more those who dwell in houses of clay,

They are crushed as though they were moths. 20 From morning until evening, - so are they broken in pieces:

Unobserved they perish for ever. 21 Is it not so: the cord of their tent in them is torn away,

So they die, and not in wisdom?

The question arises whether מן is comparative: prae Deo, on which Mercier with penetration remarks: justior sit oportet qui immerito affligitur quam qui immerito affligit; or causal: a Deo, h.e., ita ut a Deo justificetur. All modern expositors rightly decide on the latter. Hahn justly maintains that עם and בּעיני are found in a similar connection in other places; and Job 32:2 is perhaps not to be explained in any other way, at least that does not restrict the present passage. By the servants of God, none but the angels, mentioned in the following line of the verse, are intended. שׂים with בּ signifies imputare (1Sa 22:15); in Job 24:12 (comp. Job 1:22) we read תּפלה, absurditatem (which Hupf. wishes to restore even here), joined with the verb in this signification. The form תּהלה is certainly not to be taken as stultitia from the verb הלל; the half vowel, and still less the absence of the Dagesh, will not allow this. תּרן (Olsh. §213, c), itself uncertain in its etymology, presents no available analogy. The form points to a Lamedh-He verb, as תּרמה from רמה, so perhaps from הלה, Niph. נהלא, remotus, Mic 4:7 : being distant, being behind the perfect, difference; or even from הלה (Targ. הלא, Pa. הלּי) = לאה, weakness, want of strength. ^{▼▼Schnurrer compares the Arabic wahila, which signifies to be relaxed, forgetful, to err, to neglect. Ewald, considering the ת as radical, compares the Arabic dll, to err, and tâl, med. wau, to be dizzy, unconscious; but neither from והל nor from תּהל can the substantival form be sustained.}

Both significations will do, for it is not meant that the good spirits positively sin, as if sin were a natural necessary consequence of their creatureship and finite existence, but that even the holiness of the good spirits is never equal to the absolute holiness of God, and that this deficiency is still greater in spirit-corporeal man, who has earthiness as the basis of his original nature. At the same time, it is presupposed that the distance between God and created earth is disproportionately greater than between God and created spirit, since matter is destined to be exalted to the nature of the spirit, but also brings the spirit into the danger of being degraded to its own level.

‏ Job 5

Job 5:1-5 1 Call now, - is there any one who will answer thee?

And to whom of the holy ones wilt thou turn? 2 For he is a fool who is destroyed by complaining,

And envy slays the simple one. 3 I, even I, have seen a fool taking root:

Then I had to curse his habitation suddenly. 4 His children were far from help,

And were crushed in the gate, without a rescuer; 5 While the hungry ate his harvest,

And even from among thorns they took it away,

And the intriguer snatched after his wealth.

The chief thought of the oracle was that God is the absolutely just One, and infinitely exalted above men and angels. Resuming his speech from this point, Eliphaz tells Job that no cry for help can avail him unless he submits to the all-just One as being himself unrighteous; nor can any cry addressed to the angels avail. This thought, although it is rejected, certainly shows that the writer of the book, as of the prologue, is impressed with the fundamental intuition, that good, like evil, spirits are implicated in the affairs of men; for the “holy ones,” as in Ps 89, are the angels. כּי supports the negation implied in Job 5:1 : If God does not help thee, no creature can help thee; for he who complains and chafes at his lot brings down upon himself the extremest destruction, since he excites the anger of God still more. Such a surly murmurer against God is here called אויל. ל is the Aramaic sign of the object, having the force of quod attinet ad, quoad (Ew. §310, a).

Eliphaz justifies what he has said (Job 5:2) by an example. He had seen such a complainer in increasing prosperity; then he cursed his habitation suddenly, i.e., not: he uttered forthwith a prophetic curse over it, which, though פּתאם might have this meaning (not subito, but illico; cf. Num 12:4), the following futt., equivalent to imperff., do not allow, but: I had then, since his discontent had brought on his destruction, suddenly to mark and abhor his habitation as one overtaken by a curse: the cursing is a recognition of the divine curse, as the echo of which it is intended. This curse of God manifests itself also on his children and his property (Job 5:4.). שׁער is the gate of the city as a court of justice: the phrase, to oppress in the gate, is like Pro 22:22; and the form Hithpa. is according to the rule given in Ges. §54, 2, b. The relative אשׁר, Job 5:5, is here conj. relativa, according to Ges. §155, 1, c. In the connection אל־מצּנּים, אל is equivalent to עד, adeo e spinis, the hungry fall so eagerly upon what the father of those now orphans has reaped, that even the thorny fence does not hold them back. צנּים, as Pro 22:5 : the double praepos. אל־מן is also found elsewhere, but with another meaning. עמּים has only the appearance of being plur.: it is sing. after the form צדּיק, from the verb צמם, nectere, and signifies, Job 18:9, a snare; here, however, not judicii laqueus (Böttch.), but what, besides the form, comes still nearer - the snaremaker, intriguer. The Targ. translates לסטיסין, i.e., λησταί. Most modern critics (Rosenm. to Ebr.) translate: the thirsty (needy), as do all the old translations, except the Targ.; this, however, is not possible without changing the form. The meaning is, that intriguing persons catch up (שׁאף, as Amo 2:7) their wealth.

Eliphaz now tells why it thus befell this fool in his own person and his children. Job 5:6-11 6 For evil cometh not forth from the dust,

And sorrow sprouteth not from the earth; 7 For man is born to sorrow,

As the sparks fly upward. 8 On the contrary, I would earnestly approach unto God,

And commit my cause to the Godhead; 9 To Him who doeth great things and unsearchable;

Marvellous things till there is no number: 10 Who giveth rain over the earth,

And causeth water to flow over the fields: 11 To set the low in high places;

And those that mourn are exalted to prosperity.

As the oracle above, so Eliphaz says here, that a sorrowful life is allotted to man, ^{▼▼Fries explains יוּלּד as part., and refers to Geiger’s Lehrb. zur Sprache der Mischna, S. 41f., according to which מקטּל signifies killed, and קטּל (= Rabb. מתקטּל) being killed (which, however, rests purely on imagination): not the matter from which mankind originates brings evil with it, but it is man who inclines towards the evil. Böttch. would read יולד: man is the parent of misery, though he may rise high in anger.} so that his wisdom consequently consists in accommodating himself to his lot: if he does not do that, he is an אויל, and thereby perishes. Misfortune does not grow out of the ground like weeds; it is rather established in the divine order of the world, as it is established in the order of nature that sparks of fire should ascend. The old critics understood by רשׁף בני birds of prey, as being swift as lightning (with which the appellation of beasts of prey may be compared, Job 28:8; Job 41:26); but רשׁף signifies also a flame or blaze (Sol 8:6). Children of the flame is an appropriate name for sparks, and flying upwards is naturally peculiar to sparks as to birds of prey; wherefore among modern expositors, Hirz., Ew., Hahn, von Gerl., Ebr., rightly decide in favour of sparks. Schlottmann understands “angels” by children of flame; but the wings, which are given to angels in Scripture, are only a symbol of their freedom of motion. This remarkable interpretation is altogether opposed to the sententious character of Job 5:7, which symbolizes a moral truth by an ordinary thing. The waw in וּבני, which we have translated ”as,” is the so-called waw adaequationis proper to the Proverbs, and also to emblems, e.g., Pro 25:25.

Eliphaz now says what he would do in Job’s place. Ew. and Ebr. translate incorrectly, or at least unnecessarily: Nevertheless I will. We translate, according to Ges. §127, 5: Nevertheless I would; and indeed with an emphatic I: Nevertheless I for my part. דּרשׁ with אל is constr. praegnans, like Deu 12:5, sedulo adire. דּברה is not speech, like אמרה but cause, causa, in a judicial sense. אל is God as the Mighty One; אלהים is God in the totality of His variously manifested nature. The fecundity of the earth by rain, and of the fields (חוּצות = rura) by water-springs (cf. Psa 104:10), as the works of God, are intentionally made prominent. He who makes the barren places fruitful, can also change suffering into joy. To His power in nature corresponds His power among men (Job 5:11). לשׂוּם is here only as a variation for השּׂם, as Heiligst. rightly observes: it is equivalent to collacaturus, or qui in eo est ut collocet, according to the mode of expression discussed in Ges. §132, rem. 1, and more fully on Hab 1:17. The construction of Hab 1:11 is still bolder. שׂגב signifies to be high and steep, inaccessible. It is here construed with the acc. of motion: those who go in dirty, black clothes because they mourn, shall be high in prosperity, i.e., come to stand on an unapproachable height of prosperity. Job 5:12-16 12 Who bringeth to nought the devices of the crafty,

So that their hands cannot accomplish anything; 13 Who catcheth the wise in their craftiness;

And the counsel of the cunning is thrown down. 14 By day they run into darkness,

And grope in the noon-day as in the night. 15 He rescueth from the sword, that from their mouth,

And from the hand of the strong, the needy. 16 Hope ariseth for the weak,

And folly shall close its mouth.

All these attributes are chosen designedly: God brings down all haughtiness, and takes compassion on those who need it. The noun תּוּשׁיּה, coined by the Chokma, and out of Job and Proverbs found only in Mic 6:9; Isa 28:29, and even there in gnomical connection, is formed from ישׁ, essentia, and signifies as it were essentialitas, realitas: it denotes, in relation to all visible things, the truly existing, the real, the objective; true wisdom (i.e., knowledge resting on an objective actual basis), true prosperity, real profiting and accomplishing. It is meant that they accomplish nothing that has actual duration and advantage. Job 5:13 cannot be better translated than by Paul, 1Co 3:19, who here deviates from the lxx. With נמהרה, God’s seizure, which prevents the contemplated achievement, is to be thought of. He pours forth over the worldly wise what the prophets call the spirit of deep sleep (תּרדּמה) and of dizziness (עועים). On the other hand, He helps the poor. In מפיהם מחרב the second מן is local: from the sword which proceeds from their mouth (comp. Psa 64:4; Psa 57:5, and other passages). Böttch. translates: without sword, i.e., instrument of power (comp. Job 9:15; Job 21:9); but מן with חרב leads one to expect that that from which one is rescued is to be described (comp. Job 5:20). Ewald corrects מחרב, which Olsh. thinks acute: it is, however, unhebraic, according to our present knowledge of the usage of the language; for the passives of חרב are used of cities, countries, and peoples, but not of individual men. Olsh., in his hesitancy, arrives at no opinion. But the text is sound and beautiful. עלתה with pathetic unaccented ah (Ges. §80, rem. 2, f), from עולה = עולה, as Ps. 92:16 Chethib. Job 5:17-21 17 Behold, happy is the man whom Eloah correcteth;

So despise not the chastening of the Almighty! 18 For He woundeth, and He also bindeth up;

He bruiseth, and His hands make whole. 19 In six troubles He will rescue thee,

And in seven no evil shall touch thee. 20 In famine He will redeem thee from death,

And in war from the stroke of the sword. 21 When the tongue scourgeth, thou shalt be hidden;

And thou shalt not fear destruction when it cometh.

The speech of Eliphaz now becomes persuasive as it turns towards the conclusion. Since God humbles him who exalts himself, and since He humbles in order to exalt, it is a happy thing when He corrects (הוכיח) us by afflictive dispensations; and His chastisement (מוּסר) is to be received not with a turbulent spirit, but resignedly, yea joyously: the same thought as Pro 3:11-13; Psa 94:12, in both passages borrowed from this; whereas Job 5:18 here, like Hos 6:1; Lam 3:31., refers to Deu 32:39. רפא, to heal, is here conjugated like a הל verb (Ges. §75, rem. 21). Job 5:19 is formed after the manner of the so-called number-proverbs (Pro 6:16; Pro 30:15, Pro 30:18), as also the roll of the judgment of the nations in Amos 1-2: in six troubles, yea in still more than six. רע is the extremity that is perhaps to be feared. In Job 5:20, the praet. is a kind of prophetic praet. The scourge of the tongue recalls the similar promise, Psa 31:21, where, instead of scourge, it is: the disputes of the tongue. שׁוד, from שׁדד violence, disaster, is allied in sound with שׁוט. Isaiah has this passage of the book of Job in his memory when he writes Job 28:15. The promises of Eliphaz now continue to rise higher, and sound more delightful and more glorious. Job 5:22-27 22 At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh,

And from the beasts of the earth thou hast nothing to fear. 23 For thou art in league with the stones of the field,

And the beasts of the field are at peace with thee. 24 And thou knowest that peace is thy pavilion;

And thou searchest thy household, and findest nothing wanting. 25 Thou knowest also that thy seed shall be numerous,

And thy offspring as the herb of the ground. 26 Thou shalt come to thy grave in a ripe age,

As shocks of corn are brought in in their season. 27 Lo! this we have searched out, so it is:

Hear it, and give thou heed to it.

The verb שׂחק is construed (Job 5:22) with ל of that which is despised, as Job 39:7, Job 39:18; Job 41:21 [Hebr.]. על־תּירא is the form of subjective negation [vid. Ges. §152, 1: Tr.]: only fear thou not = thou hast no occasion. In Job 5:23, בּריתך is the shortest substantive form for לך בּרית. The whole of nature will be at peace with thee: the stones of the field, that they do not injure the fertility of thy fields; the wild beasts of the field, that they do not hurt thee and thy herds. The same promise that Hosea (Hos 2:20) utters in reference to the last days is here used individually. From this we see how deeply the Chokma had searched into the history of Paradise and the Fall. Since man, the appointed lord of the earth, has been tempted by a reptile, and has fallen by a tree, his relation to nature, and its relation to him, has been reversed: it is an incongruity, which is again as a whole put right (שׁלום), as the false relation of man to God is put right. In Job 5:24, שׁלום (which might also be adj.) is predicate: thou wilt learn (וידעתּ, praet. consec. with accented ultima, as e.g., Deu 4:39, here with Tiphcha initiale s. anterius, which does not indicate the grammatical tone-syllable) that thy tent is peace, i.e., in a condition of contentment and peace on all sides. Job 5:24 is to be arranged: And when thou examinest thy household, then thou lackest nothing, goest not astray, i.e., thou findest everything, without missing anything, in the place where thou seekest it.

Job 5:25 reminds one of the Salomonic Psa 72:16. צאצאים in the Old Testament is found only in Isaiah and the book of Job. The meaning of the noun כּלח, which occurs only here and Job 30:2, is clear. Referring to the verb כּלח, Arabic qahila (qalhama), to be shrivelled up, very aged, it signifies the maturity of old age, - an idea which may be gained more easily if we connect כּלח with כּלה (to be completed), like קשׁח with קשׁה (to be hard). ^{▼▼We may also compare the Arabic khl (from which comes cuhulije, mature manhood, opp. tufulije, tender childhood).}

In the parallel there is the time of the sheaves, when they are brought up to the high threshing-floor, the latest period of harvest. עלה, of the raising of the sheaves to the threshing-floor, as elsewhere of the raising, i.e., the bringing up of the animals to the altar. גּדישׁ is here a heap of sheaves, Arab. kuds, as Job 21:32 a sepulchral heap, Arab. jadat, distinct from אלמּה, a bundle, a single sheaf.

The speech of Eliphaz, which we have broken up into nine strophes, is now ended. Eliphaz concludes it by an epimythionic distich, Job 5:27, with an emphatic nota bene. He speaks at the same time in the name of his companions. These are principles well proved by experience with which he confronts Job. Job needs to lay them to heart: tu scito tibi.

All that Eliphaz says, considered in itself, is blameless. He censures Job’s vehemence, which was certainly not to be approved. He says that the destroying judgment of God never touches the innocent, but certainly the wicked; and at the same time expresses the same truth as that placed as a motto to the Psalter in Psa 1:1-6, and which is even brilliantly confirmed in the issue of the history of Job. When we find Isa 57:1, comp. Psa 12:2, in apparent opposition to this, אבד הצּדּיק, it is not meant that the judgment of destruction comes upon the righteous, but that his generation experiences the judgment of his loss (aetati suae perit). And these are eternal truths, that between the Creator and creature, even an angel, there remains an infinite distance, and that no creature possesses a righteousness which it can maintain before God. Not less true is it, that with God murmuring is death, and that it is appointed to sinful man to pass through sorrow. Moreover, the counsel of Eliphaz is the right counsel: I would turn to God, etc. His beautiful concluding exhortation, so rich in promises, crowns his speech.

It has been observed (e.g., by Löwenthal), that if it is allowed that Eliphaz (Job 5:17.) expresses a salutary spiritual design of affliction, all coherence in the book is from the first destroyed. But in reality it is an effect producing not only outward happiness, but also an inward holiness, which Eliphaz ascribes to sorrow. It is therefore to be asked, how it consists with the plan of the book. There is no doctrinal error to be discovered in the speech of Eliphaz, and yet he cannot be considered as a representative of the complete truth of Scripture. Job ought to humble himself under this; but since he does not, we must side with Eliphaz.

He does not represent the complete truth of Scripture: for there are, according to Scripture, three kinds of sufferings, which must be carefully distinguished. ^{▼▼Our old dogmatists (vid., e.g., Baier, Compendium Theologiae positivae, ii. 1, §15) and pastoral theologians (e.g., Danhauer) consider them as separate. Among the oldest expositors of the book of Job with which I am acquainted, Olympiodorus is comparatively the best.}

The godless one, who has fallen away from God, is visited with suffering from God; for sin and the punishment of sin (comprehended even in the language in עון and חטּאת) are necessarily connected as cause and effect. This suffering of the godless is the effect of the divine justice in punishment; it is chastisement (מוּסר) under the disposition of wrath (Psa 6:2; Psa 38:2; Jer 10:24.), though not yet final wrath; it is punitive suffering (נקם, נגע, τιμωρία, poena). On the other hand, the sufferings of the righteous flow from the divine love, to which even all that has the appearance of wrath in this suffering must be subservient, as the means only by which it operates: for although the righteous man is not excepted from the weakness and sinfulness of the human race, he can never become an object of the divine wrath, so long as his inner life is directed towards God, and his outward life is governed by the most earnest striving after sanctification. According to the Old and New Testaments, he stands towards God in the relation of a child to his father (only the New Testament idea includes the mystery of the new birth not revealed in the Old Testament); and consequently all sufferings are fatherly chastisements, Deu 8:5; Pro 3:12; Heb 12:6, Rev 3:19, comp. Tob. 12:13 (Vulg.). But this general distinction between the sufferings of the righteous and of the ungodly is not sufficient for the book of Job. The sufferings of the righteous even are themselves manifold. God sends affliction to them more and more to purge away the sin which still has power over them, and rouse them up from the danger of carnal security; to maintain in them the consciousness of sin as well as of grace, and with it the lowliness of penitence; to render the world and its pleasures bitter as gall to them; to draw them from the creature, and bind them to himself by prayer and devotion. This suffering, which has the sin of the godly as its cause, has, however, not God’s wrath, but God’s love directed towards the preservation and advancement of the godly, as its motive: it is the proper disciplinary suffering (מוּסר or תּוכחת, Pro 3:11; παιδεία, Heb 12). It is this of which Paul speaks, 1Co 11:32. This disciplinary suffering may attain such a high degree as entirely to overwhelm the consciousness of the relation to God by grace; and the sufferer, as frequently in the Psalms, considers himself as one rejected of God, over whom the wrath of God is passing. The deeper the sufferer’s consciousness of sin, the more dejected is his mood of sorrow; and still God’s thoughts concerning him are thoughts of peace, and not of evil (Jer 29:11). He chastens, not however in wrath, but בּמשׁפּט, with moderation (Jer 10:24).

Nearly allied to this suffering, but yet, as to its cause and purpose, distinct, is another kind of the suffering of the godly. God ordains suffering for them, in order to prove their fidelity to himself, and their earnestness after sanctification, especially their trust in God, and their patience. He also permits Satan, who impeaches them, to tempt them, to sift them as wheat, in order that he may be confounded, and the divine choice justified, - in order that it may be manifest that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, are able to separate them from the love of God, and to tear away their faith (אמונה) from God, which has remained stedfast on Him, notwithstanding every apparent manifestation of wrath. The godly will recognise his affliction as such suffering when it comes upon him in the very midst of his fellowship with God, his prayer and watching, and his struggling after sanctification. For this kind of suffering - trial - Scripture employs the expressions נסּה (Deu 8:2, Deu 8:16) and בּחן (Pro 17:3), πειρασμός (Jam 1:12; 1Pe 1:6., Job 4:19; comp. Sir. 2:1ff.). Such suffering, according to a common figure, is for the godly what the smelting-furnace or the fining-pot is to precious metals. A rich reward awaits him who is found proof against the trial, temptation, and conflict, and comes forth from it as pure, refined gold. Suffering for trial is nearly allied to that for chastisement, in so far as the chastisement is at the same time trial; but distinct from it, in so far as every trial is not also chastisement (i.e., having as its purpose the purging away of still existing sin).

A third kind of the suffering of the righteous is testimony borne by suffering, - reproach, persecution, and perhaps even martyrdom, which are endured for the sake of fidelity to God and His word. While he is blessed who is found proof against trial, he is blessed in himself who endures this suffering (Mat 5:11., and other passages); for every other suffering comes upon man for his own sake, this for God's. In this case there is not even the remotest connection between the suffering and the sinfulness of the sufferer. Ps 44 is a prayer of Israel in the midst of this form of suffering. Σταυρός is the name expressly used for it in the New Testament - suffering for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.

Without a knowledge of these different kinds of human suffering, the book of Job cannot be understood. “Whoever sees with spiritual eyes,” says Brentius, “does not judge the moral character of a man by his suffering, but his suffering by his moral character.” Just the want of this spiritual discernment and inability to distinguish the different kinds of suffering is the mistake of the friends, and likewise, from the very first, the mistake of Eliphaz. Convinced of the sincere piety of his friend, he came to Job believing that his suffering was a salutary chastisement of God, which would at last turn out for his good. Proceeding upon this assumption, he blames Job for his murmuring, and bids him receive his affliction with a recognition of human sinfulness and the divine purpose for good. Thus the controversy begins. The causal connection with sin, in which Eliphaz places Job’s suffering, is after all the mildest. He does not go further than to remind Job that he is a sinner, because he is a man.

But even this causal connection, in which Eliphaz connects Job’s sufferings, though in the most moderate way, with previous sin deserving of punishment, is his πρώτον ψεῦδος. In the next place, Job’s suffering is indeed not chastisement, but trial. Jehovah has decreed it for His servant, not to chasten him, but to prove him. This it is that Eliphaz mistakes; and we also should not know it but for the prologue and the corresponding epilogue. Accordingly, the prologue and epilogue are organic parts of the form of the book. If these are removed, its spirit is destroyed.

But the speech of Eliphaz, moreover, beautiful and true as it is, when considered in itself, is nevertheless heartless, haughty, stiff, and cold. For (1.) it does not contain a word of sympathy, and yet the suffering which he beholds is so terribly great: his first word to his friend after the seven days of painful silence is not one of comfort, but of moralizing. (2.) He must know that Job’s disease is not the first and only suffering which has come upon him, and that he has endured his previous afflictions with heroic submission; but he ignores this, and acts as though sorrow were now first come upon Job. (3.) Instead of recognising therein the reason of Job’s despondency, that he thinks that he has fallen from the love of God, and become an object of wrath, he treats him as self-righteous; ^{▼▼Oetinger: “Eliphaz mentioned the oracle to affect seriously the hidden hypocrisy of Job’s heart.”} and to excite his feelings, presents an oracle to him, which contains nothing but what Job might sincerely admit as true. (4.) Instead of considering that Job’s despair and murmuring against God is really of a different kind from that of the godless, he classes them together, and instead of gently correcting him, present to Job the accursed end of the fool, who also murmurs against God, as he has himself seen it. Thus, in consequence of the false application which Eliphaz makes of it, the truth contained in his speech is totally reversed. Thus delicately and profoundly commences the dramatical entanglement. The skill of the poet is proved by the difficulty which the expositor has in detecting that which is false in the speech of Eliphaz. The idea of the book does not float on the surface. It is clothed with flesh and blood. It is submerged in the very action and history.

‏ Job 6

Job 6:1-4 1 Then began Job, and said: 2 Oh that my vexation were but weighed,

And they would put my suffering in the balance against it! 3 Then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea:

Therefore my words are rash. 4 The arrows of the Almighty are in me,

The burning poison whereof drinketh up my spirit;

The terrors of Eloah set themselves in array against me.

Vexation (כּעשׂ) is what Eliphaz has reproached him with (Job 5:2). Job wishes that his vexation were placed in one scale and his היּה (Keri הוּה) in the other, and weighed together (יחד). The noun היּה (הוּה), from הוה (היה), flare, hiare, signifies properly hiatus, then vorago, a yawning gulf, χάσμα, then some dreadful calamity (vid., Hupfeld on Psa 5:10). נשׂא, like נטל, Isa 11:15, to raise the balance, as pendere, to let it hang down; attollant instead of the passive. This is his desire; and if they but understood the matter, it would then be manifest (כּי־עתּה, as Job 3:13, which see), or: indeed then would it be manifest (כּי certainly in this inferential position has an affirmative signification: vid., Gen 26:22; Gen 29:32, and comp. 1Sa 25:34; 2Sa 2:27) that his suffering is heavier than the unmeasurable weight of the sand of the sea. יכבּד is neuter with reference to והיּתי. לעוּ, with the tone on the penult., which is not to be accounted for by the rhythm as in Psa 37:20; Psa 137:7, cannot be derived from לעה, but only from לוּע, not however in the signification to suck down, but from לוּע = לעה, Arab. lagiya or also lagâ , temere loqui, inania effutire, - a signification which suits excellently here. ^{▼▼ילע, Pro 20:25, which is doubly accented, and must be pronounced as oxytone, has also this meaning: the snare of a man who has thoughtlessly uttered what is holy (an interjectional clause = such an one has implicated himself), and after (having made) vows will harbour care (i.e., whether he will be able to fulfil them).}

His words are like those of one in delirium. עמּדי is to be explained according to Psa 38:3; חמתם, according to Psa 7:15. יערכוּני is short for עלי מלחמה יערכי, they make war against me, set themselves in battle array against me. Böttcher, without brachylogy: they cause me to arm myself, put one of necessity on the defensive, which does not suit the subject. The terrors of God strike down all defence. The wrath of God is irresistible. The sting of his suffering, however, is the wrath of God which his spirit drinks as a draught of poison (comp. Job 21:20), and consequently wrings from him, even from his deepest soul, the thought that God is become his enemy: therefore his is an endless suffering, and therefore is it that he speaks so despondingly. Job 6:5-7 5 Doth the wild ass bray at fresh grass?

Or loweth an ox over good fodder? 6 Is that which is tasteless eaten unsalted?

Or is there flavour in the white of an egg? 7 That which my soul refused to touch,

The same is as my loathsome food.

The meaning of the first two figures is: He would not complain, if there were really no cause for it; of the two others: It is not to be expected that he should smile at his suffering, and enjoy it as delicate food. על־בּלילו I have translated “over good fodder,” for בּליל is mixed fodder of different kinds of grain, farrago. “Without salt” is virtually adjective to תּפל, insipid, tasteless. What is without salt one does not relish, and there is no flavour in the slime of the yolk of an egg, i.e., the white of an egg (Targ.), ^{▼▼Saadia compares b. Aboda zara, 40, a, where it is given as a mark of the purity of the eggs in the roe of fish: מבפנים וחלמון מב מבחוץ חלבון, when the white is outside and the yellow within.} or in the slime of purslain (according to Chalmetho in the Peschito, Arab. ḥamqâ ), fatua = purslain), which is less probable on account of ריר (slime, not: broth): there is no flavour so that it can be enjoyed. Thus is it with his sufferings. Those things which he before inwardly detested (dirt and dust of leprosy) are now sicut fastidiosa cibi mei, i.e., as loathsome food which he must eat. The first clause, Job 6:7, must be taken as an elliptic relative clause forming the subject: vid., Ges. §123, 3, c. Such disagreeable counsel is now like his unclean, disgusting diet. Eliphaz desires him to take them as agreeable. דּוי in כּדרי is taken by Ges. Ew., Hahn, Schlottm., Olsh. (§165, b), as constr. from דּוי, sickness, filth; but דּוי, as plur. from דּוה, sick, unclean (especially of female menstruation, Isa 30:22), as Heiligst. among modern commentators explains it, is far more suitable. Hitz. (as anonym. reviewer of Ewald’s Job in the liter. Centralblatt) translates: they (my sufferings) are the morsels of my food; but the explanation of המּה is not correct, nor is it necessary to go to the Arabic for an explanation of כּדרי. It is also unnecessary, with Böttcher, to read כּדוי (such is my food in accordance with my disease); Job does not here speak of his diet as an invalid. Job 6:8-10 8 Would that my request were fulfilled,

And that Eloah would grant my expectation, 9 That Eloah were willing and would crush me,

Let loose His hand and cut me off: 10 Then I should still have comfort - (I should exult in unsparing pain) -

That I have not disowned the words of the Holy One.

His wish refers to the ending of his suffering by death. Hupfeld prefers to read ותאותי instead of ותקותי (Job 6:8); but death, which he desires, he even indeed expects. This is just the paradox, that not life, but death, is his expectation. “Cut me off,” i.e., my soul or my life, my thread of life (Job 27:8; Isa 38:12). The optative יתּן מי (Ges. §§136, 1) is followed by optative futt., partly of the so-called jussive form, as יאל, velit (Hiph. from ואל, velle), and יתּר, solvat (Hiph. from נתר). In the phrase יד התּיר, the stretching out of the hand is regarded as the loosening of what was hitherto bound. The conclusion begins with וּתהי, just like Job 13:5. But it is to be asked whether by consolation speedy death is to be understood, and the clause with כּי gives the ground of his claim for the granting of the wish, - or whether he means that just this: not having disowned the words of the Holy One (comp. Job 23:11., and אמרי־אל in the mouth of Balaam, the non-Israelitish prophet, Num 24:4, Num 24:16), would be his consolation in the midst of death. With Hupfeld we decide in favour of the latter, with Psa 119:50 in view: this consciousness of innocence is indeed throughout the whole book Job’s shield and defence. If, however, נחמתי (with Kametz impurum) points towards כּי, quod, etc., the clause ואסלּדה is parenthetical. The cohortative is found thus parenthetical with a conjunctive sense also elsewhere (Psa 40:6; Psa 51:18). Accordingly: my comfort - I would exult, etc. - would be that I, etc. The meaning of סלד, tripudiare, is confirmed by the lxx ἡλλόμην, in connection with the Arabic ṣalada (of a galloping horse which stamps hard with its fore-feet), according to which the Targ. also translates ואבוּע (I will rejoice). ^{▼▼The primary meaning of סלד, according to the Arabic, is to be hard, then, to tread hard, firm, as in pulsanda tellus; whereas the poetry of the synagogue (Pijut) uses סלּד in the signification to supplicate, and סלד, litany (not: hymn, as Zunz gives it); and the Mishna-talmudic סלד signifies to singe, burn one’s self, and to draw back affrighted.}

For יחמל לא, comp. Isa 30:14. (break in pieces unsparingly). יחמל לא certainly appears as though it must be referred to God (Ew., Hahn, Schlottm., and others), since חילה sounds feminine; but one can either pronounce חילה = חיל as Milel (Hitz.), or take יחמל לא adverbially, and not as an elliptical dependent clause (as Ges. §147, rem. 1), but as virtually an adjective: in pain unsparing. Job 6:11-13 11 What is my strength, that I should wait,

And my end, that I should be patient? 12 Is my strength like the strength of stones?

Or is my flesh brazen? 13 Or am I then not utterly helpless,

And continuance is driven from me?

The meaning of the question (Job 6:11); is: Is not my strength already so wasted away, and an unfortunate end so certain to me, that a long calm waiting is as impossible as it is useless? נפשׁ האריך, to draw out the soul, is to extend and distribute the intensity of the emotion, to be forbearing, to be patient. The question (Job 6:11) is followed by אם, usual in double questions: or is my strength stone, etc. האם, which is so differently explained by commentators, is after all to be explained best from Num. 17:28, the only other passage in which it occurs. Here it is the same as ה אם, and in Num. הלא אם: or is it not so: we shall perish quickly altogether? Thus we explain the passage before us. The interrogative ה is also sometimes used elsewhere for הלא, Job 20:4; Job 41:1 (Ges. §153, 3); the additional אם stands per inversionem in the second instead of the first place: nonne an = an nonne, annon: or is it not so: is not my help in me = or am I not utterly helpless? Ewald explains differently (§356, a), according to which אם, from the formula of an oath, is equivalent to לא. The meaning is the same. Continuance, תּוּשׁיּה, i.e., power of endurance, reasonable prospect is driven away, frightened away from him, is lost for him. Job 6:14-17 14 To him who is consumed gentleness is due from his friend,

Otherwise he might forsake the fear of the Almighty. 15 My brothers are become false as a torrent,

As the bed of torrents which vanish away - 16 They were blackish from ice,

Snow is hidden in them - 17 In the time, when warmth cometh to them, they are destroyed.

It becometh hot, they are extinguished from their place.

Ewald supplies between Job 6:14 and Job 6:14 two lines which have professedly fallen out (“from a brother sympathy is due to the oppressed of God, in order he may not succumb to excessive grief”). Hitzig strongly characterizes this interpolation as a “pure swindle.” There is really nothing wanting; but we need not even take חסד, with Hitz., in the signification reproach (like Pro 14:34): if reproach cometh to the sufferer from his friend, he forsaketh the fear of God. מס (from מסס, liquefieri) is one who is inwardly melted, the disheartened. Such an one should receive חסד from his friend, i.e., that he should restore him ἐν πνεύματι πραΰ́τητος (Gal 6:1). The waw (Job 6:14) is equivalent to alioqui with the future subjunctive (vid., Ges. §127, 5). Harshness might precipitate him into the abyss from which love will keep him back. So Schnurrer: Afflicto exhibenda est ab amico ipsius humanitas, alioqui hic reverentiam Dei exuit. Such harshness instead of charity meets him from his brothers, i.e., friends beloved as brothers. In vain he has looked to them for reviving consolation. Theirs is no comfort; it is like the dried-up water of a wady. נחל is a mountain or forest brook, which comes down from the height, and in spring is swollen by melting ice and the snow that thaws on the mountain-tops; χειμάῤῥους, i.e., a torrent swollen by winter water. The melting blocks of ice darken the water of such a wady, and the snow falling together is quickly hidden in its bosom (התעלּם). If they begin to be warmed (Pual זרב, cognate to צרב, Eze 21:3, aduri, and שׂרף, comburere), suddenly they are reduced to nothing (נצמת, exstingui); they vanish away בּחמּו, when it becomes hot. The suffix is, with Ew., Olsh., and others, to be taken as neuter; not with Hirz., to be referred to a suppressed את: when the season grows hot. job bewails the disappointment he has experienced, the ”decline” of charity ^{▼▼Oetinger says that Job 6:15-20 describe those who get ”consumption” when they are obliged to extend “the breasts of compassion” to their neighbour.} still further, by keeping to the figure of the mountain torrent. Job 6:18-20 18 The paths of their course are turned about,

They go up in the waste and perish. 19 The travelling bands of Têma looked for them,

The caravans of Saba hoped for them; 20 They were disappointed on account of their trust,

They came thus far, and were red with shame.

As the text is pointed, ארחות, Job 6:18, are the paths of the torrents. Hitz., Ew., and Schlottm., however, correct ארחות, caravans, which Hahn even thinks may be understood without correction, since he translates: the caravans of their way are turned about (which is intended to mean: aside from the way that they are pursuing), march into the desert and perish (i.e., because the streams on which they reckoned are dried up). So, in reality, all modern commentators understand it; but is it likely that the poet would let the caravans perish in Job 6:18, and in Job 6:19. still live? With this explanation, Job 6:19. drag along tautologically, and the feebler figure follows the stronger. Therefore we explain as follows: the mountain streams, נחלים, flow off in shallow serpentine brooks, and the shallow waters completely evaporate by the heat of the sun. בתּהוּ עלה signifies to go up into nothing (comp. Isa 40:23), after the analogy of בעשׁן כּלה, to pass away in smoke. Thus e.g., also Mercier: in auras abeunt, in nihilum rediguntur. What next happens is related as a history, Job 6:19., hence the praett. Job compares his friends to the wady swollen by ice and snow water, and even to the travelling bands themselves languishing for water. He thirsts for friendly solace, but the seeming comfort which his friends utter is only as the scattered meandering waters in which the mountain brook leaks out. The sing. בּטח individualizes; it is unnecessary with Olsh. to read בּטחוּ. Job 6:21-23 21 For now ye are become nothing;

You see misfortune, and are affrighted. 22 Have I then said, Give unto me,

And give a present for me from your substance, 23 And deliver me from the enemy’s hand,

And redeem me from the hand of the tyrant?

In Job 6:21, the reading wavers between לו and לא, with the Keri לו; but לו, which is consequently the lectio recepta, gives no suitable meaning, only in a slight degree appropriate, as this: ye are become it, i.e., such a mountain brook; for הייתם is not to be translated, with Stickel and others, estis, but facti estis. The Targum, however, translates after the Chethib: ye are become as though ye had never been, i.e., nothingness. Now, since לא, Aramaic לה, can (as Dan 4:32 shows) be used as a substantive (a not = a null), and the thought: ye are become nothing, your friendship proves itself equal to null, suits the imagery just used, we decide in favour of the Chethib; then in the figure the בתּהוּ עלה corresponds most to this, and is also, therefore, not to be explained away. The lxx, Syr., Vulg., translate לי instead of לו: ye are become it (such deceitful brooks) to me. Ewald proposes to read לי הייתם עתה כן (comp. the explanation, Ges. §137, rem. 3), - a conjecture which puts aside all difficulty; but the sentence with לא commends itself as being bolder and more expressive. All the rest explains itself. It is remarkable that in Job 6:21 the reading תּירוּ is also found, instead of תּראוּ: ye dreaded misfortune, and ye were then affrighted. הבוּ is here, as an exception, properispomenon, according to Ges. §29, 3. כּח, as Pro 5:10; Lev 26:20, what one has obtained by putting forth one’s strength, syn. חיל, outward strength. Job 6:24-27 24 Teach me, and I will be silent,

And cause me to understand wherein I have failed. 25 How forcible are words in accordance with truth!

But what doth reproof from you reprove? 26 Do you think to reprove words?

The words of one in despair belong to the wind. 27 Ye would even cast lots for the orphan,

And traffic about your friend. נמרצוּ, Job 6:25, in the signification of נמלצוּ (Psa 119:103), would suit very well: how smooth, delicate, sweet, are, etc. (Hirz., Ew., Schlottm.); but this meaning does not suit Job 16:3. Hupfeld, by comparison with mar, bitter, translates: quantumvis acerba; but מה may signify quidquid, though not quantumvis. Hahn compares the Arabic verb to be sick, and translates: in what respect are right words bad; but physical disease and ethical badness are not such nearly related ideas. Ebrard: honest words are not taken amiss; but with an inadmissible application of Job 16:3. Von Gerl. is best: how strong or forcible are, etc. מרץ is taken as related to פּרץ, in the signification to penetrate; Hiph. to goad; Niph. to be furnished with the property of penetrating, - used here of penetrating speech; 1Ki 2:8, of a curse inevitably carried out; Mic 2:10, of unsparing destruction. Words which keep the straight way to truth, go to the heart; on the contrary, what avails the reproving from you, i.e., which proceeds from you? הוכח, inf. absol. as Pro 25:27, and in but a few other passages as subject; מכּם, as Job 5:15, the sword going forth out of their mouth. In Job 6:26 the waw introduces a subordinate adverbial clause: while, however, the words of one in despair belong to the wind, that they may be carried away by it, not to the judgment which retains and analyzes them, without considering the mood of which they are the hasty expression. The futt. express the extent to which their want of feeling would go, if the circumstances for it only existed; they are subjunctive, as Job 3:13, Job 3:16. גּורל, the lot, is to be supplied to תּפּילוּ, as 1Sa 14:42. The verb כּרה, however, does not here signify to dig, so that שׁחת, a pit, should be supplied (Heiligst.), still less: dig out earth, and cast it on any one (Ebrard); but has the signification of buying and selling with על of the object, exactly like Job 39:27. Job 6:28-30 28 And now be pleased to observe me keenly,

I will not indeed deceive you to your face. 29 Try it again, then: let there be no injustice;

Try it again, my righteousness still stands. 30 Is there wrong on my tongue?

Or shall not my palate discern iniquity?

He begs them to observe him more closely; בּ פּנה, as Ecc 2:11, to observe scrutinizingly. אם is the sign of negative asseveration (Ges. §155, 2, f). He will not indeed shamelessly give them the lie, viz., in respect to the greatness and inexplicableness of his suffering. The challenging שׁוּבוּ we do not translate: retrace your steps, but: begin afresh, to which both the following clauses are better suited. So Schlottm. and von Gerlach. Hahn retains the Chethib שׁובי, in the signification: my answer; but that is impossible: to answer is השׁיב, not שׁוּב. The עוד drawn to שׁובו by Rebia mugrasch is more suitably joined with צדקי־בה, in which בּהּ refers neutrally to the matter of which it treats. They are to try from the beginning to find that comfort which will meet the case. Their accusations are עולה; his complaints, on the contrary, are fully justified. He does not grant that the outburst of his feeling of pain (Job 3) is עולה: he has not so completely lost his power against temptation, that he would not restrain himself, if he should fall into הוּות. Thus wickedness, which completely contaminates feeling and utterance, is called (Psa 52:4).

‏ Job 7:1

Job 7:1-3 1 Has not a man warfare upon earth,

And his days are like the days of a hireling? 2 Like a servant who longs for the shade,

And like a hireling who waits for his wages, 3 So am I made to possess months of disappointment,

And nights of weariness are appointed to me.

The conclusion is intended to be: thus I wait for death as refreshing and rest after hard labour. He goes, however, beyond this next point of comparison, or rather he remains on this side of it. צבא is not service of a labourer in the field, but active military service, then fatigue, toil in general (Isa 40:20; Dan 10:1). Job 7:2 Ewald and others translate incorrectly: as a slave longs, etc. כּ can never introduce a comparative clause, except an infinitive, as e.g., Isa 5:24, which can then under the regimen of this כּ be continued by a verb. fin.; but it never stands directly for כּאשׁר, as כּמו does in rare instances. In Isa 5:3, שׁוא retains its primary signification, nothingness, error, disappointment (Job 15:31): months that one after another disappoint the hope of the sick. By this it seems we ought to imagine the friends as not having come at the very commencement of his disease. Elephantiasis is a disease which often lasts for years, and slowly but inevitably destroys the body. On מנּוּ, adnumeraverunt = adnumeratae sunt, vid., Ges. §137, 3*.