Biblical commentary the Old Testament/Volume III. Early Prophets/Job Second Part.

by Franz Delitzsch

THE BOOK OF JOB

SECOND PART. - THE ENTANGLEMENT.

Chap. 23

Verses 1-5

Job 23:1-5 1 Then began Job, and said: 2 Even to-day my complaint still biddeth defiance,
My hand lieth heavy upon my groaning. 3 Oh that I knew where I might find Him,
That I might come even to His dwelling-place! 4 I would lay the cause before Him,
And fill my mouth with arguments: 5 I should like to know the words He would answer me,
And attend to what He would say to me.
Since מרי (for which the lxx reads ἐκ τοῦ χειρός μου, מידי; Ew. מידו, from his hand) usually elsewhere signifies obstinacy, it appears that Job 23:2 ought to be explained: My complaint is always accounted as rebellion (against God); but by this rendering Job 23:2 requires some sort of expletive, in order to furnish a connected thought: although the hand which is upon me stifles my groaning (Hirz.); or, according to another rendering of the על: et pourtant mes gémissements n'égalent pas mes souffrances (Renan. Schlottm.). These interpretations are objectionable on account of the artificial restoration of the connection between the two members of the verse, which they require; they lead one to expect וידי (as a circumstantial clause: lxx, Cod. Vat. καὶ ἡ χεὶρ αὐτοῦ). As the words stand, it is to be supposed that the definition of time, גּם־היּום (even to-day still, as Zec 9:12), belongs to both divisions of the verse. How, then, is מרי to be understood? If we compare Job 7:11; Job 10:1, where מר, which is combined with שׂיח, signifies amarum = amartiduo, it is natural to take מרי also in the signification amaritudo, acerbitas (Targ., Syr., Jer.); and this is also possible, since, as is evident from Exo 23:21, comp. Zec 12:10, the verbal forms מרר and מרה run into one another, as they are really cognates.^[1]
But it is more satisfactory, and more in accordance with the relation of the two divisions of the verse, if we keep to the usual signification of מרי; not, however, understanding it of obstinacy, revolt, rebellion (viz., in the sense of the friends), but, like moreh, 2Ki 14:26) which describes the affliction as stiff-necked, obstinate), of stubbornness, defiance, continuance in opposition, and explain with Raschi: My complaint is still always defiance, i.e., still maintains itself in opposition, viz., against God, without yielding (Hahn, Olsh.: unsubmitting); or rather: against such exhortations to penitence as those which Eliphaz has just addressed to him. In reply to these, Job considers his complain to be well justified even to-day, i.e., even now (for it is not, with Ewald, to be imagined that, in the mind of the poet, the controversy extends over several days, - an idea which would only be indicated by this one word).
In Job 23:2 he continues the same thought under a different form of expression. My hand lies heavy on my groaning, i.e., I hold it immoveably fast (as Fleischer proposes to take the words); or better: I am driven to a continued utterance of it.^[2]
By this interpretation ydy retains its most natural meaning, manus mea, and the connection of the two members of the verse without any particle is best explained. On the other hand, all modern expositors, who do not, as Olsh., at once correct ידי into ידו, explain the suffix as objective: the hand, i.e., the destiny to which I have to submit, weighs upon my sighing, irresistibly forcing it out from me. Then Job 23:2 is related to Job 23:2 as a confirmation; and if, therefore, a particle is to be supplied, it is כּי (Olsh.) and no other. Thus, even the Targ. renders it machatiy, plaga mea. Job's affliction is frequently traced back to the hand of God, Job 19:21, comp. Job 1:11; Job 2:5; Job 13:21; and on the suffix used objectively (pass.) we may compare Job 23:14, חקּי; Job 20:29, אמרו; and especially Job 34:6, חצּי. The interpretation: the hand upon me is heavy above my sighing, i.e., heavier than it (Ramban, Rosenm., Ges., Schlottm., Renan), also accords with the connection. על can indeed be used in this comparative meaning, Exo 16:5; Ecc 1:16; but כבדה יד על is an established phrase, and commonly used of the burden of the hand upon any one, Psa 32:4 (comp. Job 33:7, in the division in which Elihu is introduced; and the connection with אל, 1Sa 5:6, and שׁם, 1Sa 5:11); and this usage of the language renders the comparative rendering very improbable. But it is also improbable that “my hand” is = the hand that is upon me, since it cannot be shown that יד was directly used in the sense of plaga; even the Arabic, among the many turns of meaning which it gives to Arab. yd, does not support this, and least of all would an Arab conceive of Arab. ydâ passively, plaga quam patior. Explain, therefore: his complain now, as before, offers resistance to the exhortation of the friends, which is not able to lessen it, his (Job's) hand presses upon his lamentation so that it is forced to break forth, but - without its justification being recognised by men. This thought urges him on to the wish that he might be able to pour forth his complain directly before God. מי־יתּן is at one time followed by an accusative (Job 14:4; Job 29:2; Job 31:31, Job 31:35, to which belongs also the construction with the inf., Job 11:5), at another by the fut., with or without Waw (as here, Job 23:3, Job 6:8; Job 13:5; Job 14:13; Job 19:23), and at another by the perf., with or without Waw (as here, Job 23:3: utinam noverim, and Deu 5:26). And ידעתּי is, as in Job 32:22, joined with the fut.: scirem (noverim) et invenirem instead of possim invenire eum (למצאו), Ges. §142, 3, c. If he but knew how to reach Him (God), could attain to His throne; תּכוּנה (everywhere from כּוּן, not from תּכן) signifies the setting up, i.e., arrangement (Eze 43:11) or establishment (Nah 2:10) of a dwelling, and the thing itself which is set out and established, here of the place where God's throne is established. Having attained to this, he would lay his cause (instuere causam, as Job 13:18, comp. Job 33:5) before Him, and fill his mouth with arguments to prove that he has right on his side (תּוכחות, as Psa 38:15, of the grounds of defence, or proof that he is in the right and his opponent in the wrong). In Job 23:5 we may translate: I would, or: I should like (to learn); in the Hebrew, as in cognoscerem, both are expressed; the substance of Job 23:5 makes the optative rendering more natural. He would like to know the words with which He would meet him,^[3] and would give heed to what He would say to him. But will He condescend? will He have anything to do with the matter? -

Verses 6-9

Job 23:6-9 6 Will He contend with me with great power?
No, indeed; He will only regard me! 7 Then the upright would be disputing with Him,
And I should for ever escape my judge. 8 Yet I go eastward, He is not there,
And westward, but I perceive Him not; 9 Northwards where He worketh, but I behold Him not;
He turneth aside southwards, and I see Him not.
The question which Job, in Job 23:6, puts forth: will He contend with me in the greatness or fulness of His strength, i.e., (as Job 30:18) with a calling forth of all His strength? he himself answers in Job 23:6, hoping that the contrary may be the case: no, indeed, He will not do that.^[4] לא is here followed not by the כּי, which is otherwise customary after a negation in the signification imo, but by the restrictive exceptive אך, which never signifies sed, sometimes verum tamen (Psa 49:16; comp. supra, Job 13:15), but here, as frequently, tantummodo, and, according to the hyperbaton which has been mentioned so often, is placed at the beginning of the sentence, and belongs not to the member of the sentence immediately following it, but to the whole sentence (as in Arabic also the restrictive force of the Arab. innamâ never falls upon what immediately follows it): He will do nothing but regard me (ישׂים, scil. לב, elsewhere with על of the object of regard or reflection, Job 34:23; Job 37:15; Jdg 19:30, and without an ellipsis, ch. Job 1:8; also with אל, Job 2:3, or ל, 1Sa 9:20; here designedly with בּ, which unites in itself the significations of the Arab. b and fı̂, of seizing, and of plunging into anything). Many expositors (Hirz., Ew., and others) understand Job 23:6 as expressing a wish: “Shall He contend with me with overwhelming power? No, I do not desire that; only that He may be a judge attentive to the cause, not a ruler manifesting His almighty power.” But Job 23:6, taken thus, would be purely rhetorical, since this question (shall He, etc.) certainly cannot be seriously propounded by Job; accordingly, Job 23:6 is not intended as expressing a wish, but a hope. Job certainly wishes the same thing in Job 9:34; Job 13:21; but in the course of the discussion he has gradually acquired new confidence in God, which here once more breaks through. He knows that God, if He would but be found, would also condescend to hear his defence of himself, that He would allow him to speak, and not overwhelm him with His majesty.

Verse 7

The question arises here, whether the שׁם which follows is to be understood locally (Arab. ṯamma) or temporally (Arab. ṯumma); it is evident from Job 35:12; Psa 14:5; Psa 66:6; Hos 2:17; Zep 1:14, that it may be used temporally; in many passages, e.g., Ps. 36:13, the two significations run into one another, so that they cannot be distinguished. We here decide in favour of the temporal signification, against Rosenm., Schlottm., and Hahn; for if שׁם be understood locally, a “then” must be supplied, and it may therefore be concluded that this שׁם is the expression for it. We assume at the same time that נוכח is correctly pointed as part. with Kametz; accordingly it is to be explained: then, if He would thus pay attention to me, an upright man would be contending with Him, i.e., then it would be satisfactorily proved that an upright man may contend with Him. In Job 23:7, פּלּט, like מלּט, Job 20:20 (comp. פּתּח, to have open, to stand open), is intensive of Kal: I should for ever escape my judge, i.e., come off most completely free from unmerited punishment. Thus it ought to be if God could be found, but He cannot be found. The הן, which according to the sense may be translated by “yet” (comp. Job 21:16), introduces this antithetical relation: Yet I go towards the east (הן with Mahpach, קדם with Munach), and He is not there; and towards the west (אחור, comp. אחרנים, occidentales, Job 18:20), and perceive Him not (expressed as in Job 9:11; בּין ל elsewhere: to attend to anything, Job 14:21; Deu 32:29; Psa 73:17; here, as there, to perceive anything, so that לו is equivalent to אתו). In Job 23:9 the left (שׂמאול, Arab. shemâl, or even without the substantival termination, on which comp. Jesurun, pp. 222-227, sham, shâm) is undoubtedly an appellation of the north, and the right (ימין, Arab. jem̌̂n) an appellation of the south; both words are locatives which outwardly are undefined. And if the usual signification of עשׂה and עטף are retained, it is to be explained thus: northwards or in the north, if He should be active - I behold not; if He veil himself southwards or in the south - I see not. This explanation is also satisfactory so far as Job 23:9 is concerned, so that it is unnecessary to understand בּעשׂתו other than in Job 28:26, and with Blumenfeld to translate according to the phrase עשׂה דרכּו, Jdg 17:8 : if He makes His way northwards; or even with Umbr. to call in the assistance of the Arab. gšâ (to cover), which neither here nor Job 9:9; Job 15:27, is admissible, since even then שׂמאול בעשׂתו cannot signify: if He hath concealed himself on the left hand (in the north). Ewald's combination of עשׂה with עטה, in the assumed signification “to incline to” of the latter, is to be passed over as useless. On the other hand, much can be said in favour of Ewald's translation of Job 23:9: "if He turn to the right hand - I see Him not;” for (1) the Arab. gṭf, by virtue of the radical notion,^[5] which is also traceable in the Heb. עטף, signifies both trans. and intrans. to turn up, bend aside; (2) Saadia translates: “and if He turns southwards (‛atafa gunûban);” (3) Schultens correctly observes: עטף significatione operiendi commodum non efficit sensum, nam quid mirum is quem occultantem se non conspiciamus. We therefore give the preference to this Arabic rendering of יעטף. If יעטף, in the sense of obvelat se, does not call to mind the חדרי תּמן,penetralia austri, Job 9:9 (comp. Arab. chidr, velamen, adytum), neither will בעשׂתו point to the north as the limit of the divine dominion. Such conceptions of the extreme north and south are nowhere found among the Arabs as among the Arian races (vid., Isa 14:13);^[6] and, moreover, the conception of the north as the abode of God cannot be shown to be biblical, either from Job 37:22; Eze 1:4, or still less from Psa 48:3. With regard to the syntax, יעטף is a hypothetical fut., as Job 20:24; Job 22:27. The use of the fut. apoc. אחז, like אט, Job 23:11, without a voluntative or aoristic signification, is poetic. Towards all quarters of the heavens he turns, i.e., with his eyes and the longing of his whole nature, if he may by any means find God. But He evades him, does not reveal Himself in any place whatever.
The כּי which now follows does not give the reason of Job's earnest search after God, but the reason of His not being found by him. He does not allow Himself to be seen anywhere; He conceals Himself from him, lest He should be compelled to acknowledge the right of the sufferer, and to withdraw His chastening hand from him.

Verses 10-13

Job 23:10-13 10 For He knoweth the way that is with me:
If He should prove me, I should come forth as gold. 11 My foot held firm to His steps;
His way I kept, and turned not aside. 12 The command of His lips - I departed not from it;
More than my own determination I kept the words of His mouth. 13 Yet He remaineth by one thing, and who can turn Him?
And He accomplisheth what His soul desireth.
That which is not merely outwardly, but inwardly with (אם) any one, is that which he thinks and knows (his consciousness), Job 9:35; Job 15:9, or his willing and acting, Job 10:13; Job 27:11 : he is conscious of it, he intends to do it; here, Job 23:10, עם is intended in the former sense, in Job 23:14 in the latter. The “way with me” is that which his conscience (συνείδησις) approves (συμμαρτυρεῖ); comp. Psychol. S. 134. This is known to God, so that he who is now set down as a criminal would come forth as tried gold, in the event of God allowing him to appear before Him, and subjecting him to judicial trial. בּחנני is the praet. hypotheticum so often mentioned, which is based upon the paratactic character of the Hebrew style, as Gen 44:22; Rth 2:9; Zec 13:6; Ges. §155, 4, a. His foot has held firmly^[7] to the steps of God (אשׁוּר, together with אשּׁוּר, Job 31:7, from אשׁר Piel, to go on), so that he was always close behind Him as his predecessor (אחז( ro synon. תּמך, Psa 17:5; Pro 5:5). He guarded, i.e., observed His way, and turned not aside (אט fut. apoc. Hiph. in the intransitive sense of deflectere, as e.g., Psa 125:5).
In Job 23:12, מצות שׂפתיו precedes as cas. absolutus (as respects the command of His lips); and what is said in this respect follows with Waw apod. (= Arab. f) without the retrospective pronoun ממּנּה (which is omitted for poetic brevity). On this prominence of a separate notion after the manner of an antecedent. The Hiph. המישׁ, like הטּה, Job 23:11, and הלּיז, Pro 4:21, is not causative, but simply active in signification. In Job 23:12 the question arises, whether צפן מן is one expression, as in Job 17:4, in the sense of “hiding from another,” or whether מן is comparative. In the former sense Hirz. explains: I removed the divine will from the possible ascendancy of my own. But since צפן is familiar to the poet in the sense of preserving and laying by (צפוּנים( y, treasures, Job 20:26), it is more natural to explain, according to Psa 119:11 : I kept the words (commands) of Thy mouth, i.e., esteemed them high and precious, more than my statute, i.e., more than what my own will prescribed for me.^[8]
The meaning is substantially the same; the lxx, which translates ἐν δὲ κόλπῳ μου (בּחקי), which Olsh. considers to be “perhaps correct,” destroys the significance of the confession. Hirz. rightly refers to the “law in the members,” Rom 7:23 : חקּי is the expression Job uses for the law of the sinful nature which strives against the law of God, the wilful impulse of selfishness and evil passion, the law which the apostle describes as ἕτερος νόμος, in distinction from the νόμος τοῦ Θεοῦ (Psychol. S. 379). Job's conscience can give him this testimony, but He, the God who so studiously avoids him, remains in one mind, viz., to treat him as a criminal; and who can turn Him from His purpose? (the same question as Job 9:12; Job 11:10); His soul wills it (stat pro ratione voluntas), and He accomplishes it. Most expositors explain permanet in uno in this sense; the Beth is the usual ב with verbs of entering upon and persisting in anything. Others, however, take the ב as Beth essentiae: He remains one and the same, viz., in His conduct towards me (Umbr., Vaih.), or: He is one, is alone, viz., in absolute majesty (Targ. Jer.; Schult., Ew., Hlgst., Schlottm.), which is admissible, since this Beth occurs not only in the complements of a sentence (Psa 39:7, like a shadow; Isa 48:10, after the manner of silver; Psa 55:19, in great number; Psa 35:2, as my help), but also with the predicate of a simple sentence, be it verbal (Job 24:13; Pro 3:26) or substantival (Exo 18:4; Psa 118:7). The same construction is found also in Arabic, where, however, it is more frequent in simple negative clauses than in affirmative (vid., Psalter, i. 272). The assertion: He is one (as in the primary monotheistic confession, Deu 6:4), is, however, an expression for the absoluteness of God, which is not suited to this connection; and if הוא באחד is intended to be understood of the unchangeable uniformity of His purpose concerning Job, the explanation: versatur (perstat) in uno, Arab. hua fi wâhidin, is not only equally, but more natural, and we therefore prefer it.
Here again God appears to Job to be his enemy. His confidence towards God is again overrun by all kinds of evil, suspicious thoughts. He seems to him to be a God of absolute caprice, who punishes where there is no ground for punishment. There is indeed a phrase of the abiding fact which he considers superior to God and himself, both being conceived of as contending parties; and this phase God avoids, He will not hear it. Into this vortex of thoughts, as terrible as they are puerile, Job is hurried forward by the persuasion that his affliction is a decree of divine justice. The friends have greatly confirmed him in this persuasion; so that his consciousness of innocence, and the idea of God as inflicting punishment, are become widely opposite extremes, between which his faith is hardly able to maintain itself. It is not his affliction in itself, but this persuasion, which precipitates him into such a depth of conflict, as the following strophe shows.

Verses 14-17

Job 23:14-17 14 For He accomplisheth that which is appointed for me,
And much of a like kind is with Him. 15 Therefore I am troubled at His presence;
If I consider it, I am afraid of Him. 16 And God hath caused my heart to be dejected,
And the Almighty hath put me to confusion; 17 For I have not been destroyed before darkness,
And before my countenance, which thick darkness covereth.
Now it is the will of God, the absolute, which has all at once turned against him, the innocent (Job 23:13); for what He has decreed against him (חקּי) He also brings to a complete fulfilment (השׁלים, as e.g., Isa 44:26); and the same troubles as those which he already suffers, God has still more abundantly decreed for him, in order to torture him gradually, but surely, to death. Job intends Job 23:14 in reference to himself, not as a general assertion: it is, in general, God's way of acting. Hahn's objection to the other explanation, that Job's affliction, according to his own previous assertions, has already attained its highest degree, does not refute it; for Job certainly has a term of life before him, though it be but short, in which the wondrously inventive (Job 10:16) hostility of God can heap up ever new troubles for him. On the other hand, the interpretation of the expression in a general sense is opposed by the form of the expression itself, which is not that God delights to do this, but that He purposes (עמּו) to do it. It is a conclusion from the present concerning the future, such as Job is able to make with reference to himself; while he, moreover, abides by the reality in respect to the mysterious distribution of the fortunes of men. Therefore, because he is a mark for the enmity of God, without having merited it, he is confounded before His countenance, which is so angrily turned upon him (comp. פנים, Psa 21:10; Lam 4:16); if he considers it (according to the sense fut. hypothet., as Job 23:9), he trembles before Him, who recompenses faithful attachment by such torturing pain. The following connection with ל and the mention of God twice at the beginning of the affirmations, is intended to mean: (I tremble before Him), and He it is who has made me faint-hearted (הרך Hiph. from the Kal, Deu 20:3, and freq., to be tender, soft, disconcerted), and has troubled me; which is then supported in Job 23:17.
His suffering which draws him on to ruin he perceives, but it is not the proper ground of his inward destruction; it is not the encircling darkness of affliction, not the mysterious form of his suffering which disconcerts him, but God's hostile conduct towards him, His angry countenance as he seems to see it, and which he is nevertheless unable to explain. Thus also Ew., Hirz., Vaih., Hlgst., and Schlottm. explain the passage. The only other explanation worthy of mention is that which finds in Job 23:17 the thought already expressed in Job 3:10 : For I was not then destroyed, in order that I might experience such mysterious suffering; and interpretation with which most of the old expositors were satisfied, and which has been revived by Rosenm., Stick., and Hahn. We translate: for I have not been destroyed before darkness (in order to be taken away from it before it came upon me), and He has not hidden darkness before my face; or as an exclamation: that I have not been destroyed! which is to be equivalent to: Had I but been ... ! Apart from this rendering of the quod non = utinam, which cannot be supported, (1) It is doubly hazardous thus to carry the לא forward to the second line in connection with verbs of different persons. (2) The darkness in Job 23:17 appears (at least according to the usual interpret. caliginem) as that which is being covered, whereas it is naturally that which covers something else; wherefore Blumenfeld explains: and darkness has not hidden, viz., such pain as I must now endure, from my face. (3) The whole thought which is thus gained is without point, and meaningless, in this connection. On the other hand, the antithesis between מפּניו and מפּני, ממּנוּ and מפּני־חשׁך, is at once obvious; and this antithesis, which forces itself upon the attention, also furnishes the thought which might be expected from the context. It is unnecessary to take נצמת in a different signification from Job 6:17; in Arabic ṣmt signifies conticescere; the idea of the root, however, is in general a constraining depriving of free movement. חשׁך is intended as in the question of Eliphaz, Job 22:11 : “Or seest thou not the darkness?” to which it perhaps refers. It is impossible, with Schlottm., to translate Job 23:17: and before that darkness covers my face; מן is never other than a praep., not a conjunction with power over a whole clause. It must be translated: et a facie mea quam obtegit caligo. As the absolute פנים, Job 9:27, signifies the appearance of the countenance under pain, so here by it Job means his countenance distorted by pain, his deformed appearance, which, as the attributive clause affirms, is thoroughly darkened by suffering (comp. Job 30:30). But it is not this darkness which stares him in the face, and threatens to swallow him up (comp. מפני־חשׁך, Job 17:12); not this his miserable form, which the extremest darkness covers (on אפל, vid., Job 10:22), that destroys his inmost nature; but the thought that God stands forth in hostility against him, which makes his affliction so terrific, and doubly so in connection with the inalienable consciousness of his innocence. From the incomprehensible punishment which, without reason, is passing over him, he now again comes to speak of the incomprehensible connivance of God, which permits the godlessness of the world to go on unpunished.

Chap. 24

Verses 1-4

Job 24:1-4 1 Wherefore are not bounds reserved by the Almighty,
And they who honour Him see not His days? 2 They remove the landmarks,
They steal flocks and shepherd them. 3 They carry away the ass of the orphan,
And distrain the ox of the widow. 4 They thrust the needy out of the way,
The poor of the land are obliged to slink away together.
The supposition that the text originally stood מדּוּע לרשׁעים משּׁדּי is natural; but it is at once destroyed by the fact that Job 24:1 becomes thereby disproportionately long, and yet cannot be divided into two lines of comparatively independent contents. In fact, לרשׁעים is by no means absolutely necessary. The usage of the language assumes it, according to which את followed by the genitive signifies the point of time at which any one's fate is decided. Isa 13:22; Jer 27:7; Eze 22:3; Eze 30:3; the period when reckoning is made, or even the terminus ad quem, Ecc 9:12; and ywm followed by the gen. of a man, the day of his end, Job 15:32; Job 18:20; Eze 21:30, and freq.; or with יהוה, the day when God's judgment is revealed, Joe 1:15, and freq. The boldness of poetic language goes beyond this usage, by using עתּים directly of the period of punishment, as is almost universally acknowledged since Schultens' day, and ימיו dna ,y of God's days of judgment or of vengeance;^[9] and it is the less ambiguous, since צפן, in the sense of the divine predetermination of what is future, Job 15:20, especially of God's storing up merited punishment, Job 21:19, is an acknowledged word of our poet. On מן with the passive, vid., Ew. §295, c (where, however, Job 28:4 is erroneously cited in its favour); it is never more than equivalent to ἀπό, for to use מן directly as ὑπό with the passive is admissible neither in Hebrew nor in Arabic. ידעו (Keri ידעיו, for which the Targ. unsuitably reads ידעי) are, as in Psa 36:11; Psa 87:4, comp. supra, Job 18:21, those who know God, not merely superficially, but from experience of His ways, consequently those who are in fellowship with Him. לא חזוּ is to be written with Zinnorith over the לא, and Mercha by the first syllable of חזו. The Zinnorith necessitates the retreat of the tone of חזו to its first syllable, as in כי־חרה, Psa 18:8 (Bär's Pslaterium, p. xiii.); for if חזו remained Milra, לא ought to be connected with it by Makkeph, and consequently remain toneless (Psalter, ii. 507).
Next follows the description of the moral, abhorrence which, while the friends (Job 22:19) maintain a divine retribution everywhere manifest, is painfully conscious of the absence of any determination of the periods and days of judicial punishment. Fearlessly and unpunished, the oppression of the helpless and defenceless, though deserving of a curse, rages in every form. They remove the landmarks; comp. Deu 27:17, “Cursed is he who removeth his neighbour's landmark” (מסּיג, here once written with שׂ, while otherwise השּׂיג from נשׂג signifies assequi, on the other hand הסּיג from סוּג signifies dimovere). They steal flocks, ויּרעוּ, i.e., they are so barefaced, that after they have stolen them they pasture them openly. The ass of the orphans, the one that is their whole possession, and their only beast for labour, they carry away as prey (נהג, as e.g., Isa 20:4); they distrain, i.e., take away with them as a pledge (on חבל, to bind by a pledge, obstringere, and also to take as a pledge, vid., on Job 22:6, and Köhler on Zec 11:7), the yoke-ox of the widow (this is the exact meaning of שׁור, as of the Arab. thôr). They turn the needy aside from the way which they are going, so that they are obliged to wander hither and thither without home or right: the poor of the land are obliged to hide themselves altogether. The Hiph. הטּה, with אביונים as its obj., is used as in Amo 5:12; there it is used of turning away from a right that belongs to them, here of turning out of the way into trackless regions. אביון (vid., on Job 29:16) here, as frequently, is the parallel word with ענו, the humble one, the patient sufferer; instead of which the Keri is עני, the humbled, bowed down with suffering (vid., on Psa 9:13). ענוי־ארץ without any Keri in Psa 76:10; Zep 2:3, and might less suitably appear here, where it is not so much the moral attribute as the outward condition that is intended to be described. The Pual חכּאוּ describes that which they are forced to do.
The description of these unfortunate ones is now continued; and by a comparison with Job 30:1-8, it is probable that aborigines who are turned out of their original possessions and dwellings are intended (comp. Job 15:19, according to which the poet takes his stand in an age in which the original relations of the races had been already disturbed by the calamities of war and the incursions of aliens). If the central point of the narrative lies in Haurân, or, more exactly, in the Nukra, it is natural, with Wetzstein, to think of the Arab. ‘hl 'l-wukror ‛rb 'l-ḥujr, i.e., the (perhaps Ituraean) “races of the caves” in Trachonitis.

Verses 5-8

Job 24:5-8 5 Behold, as wild asses in the desert,
They go forth in their work seeking for prey,
The steppe is food to them for the children. 6 In the field they reap the fodder for his cattle,
And they glean the vineyard of the evil-doer. 7 They pass the night in nakedness without a garment,
And have no covering in the cold. 8 They are wet with the torrents of rain upon the mountains,
And they hug the rocks for want of shelter.
The poet could only draw such a picture as this, after having himself seen the home of his hero, and the calamitous fate of such as were driven forth from their original abodes to live a vagrant, poverty-stricken gipsy life. By Job 24:5, one is reminded of Psa 104:21-23, especially since in Job 24:11 of this Psalm the פּראים, onagri (Kulans), are mentioned, - those beautiful animals^[10] which, while young, as difficult to be broken in, and when grown up are difficult to be caught; which in their love of freedom are an image of the Beduin, Gen 16:12; their untractableness an image of that which cannot be bound, Job 11:12; and from their roaming about in herds in waste regions, are here an image of a gregarious, vagrant, and freebooter kind of life. The old expositors, as also Rosenm., Umbr., Arnh., and Vaih., are mistaken in thinking that aliud hominum sceleratorum genus is described in Job 24:5. Ewald and Hirz. were the first to perceive that Job 24:5 is the further development of Job 24:4, and that here, as in Job 30:1, those who are driven back into the wastes and caves, and a remnant of the ejected and oppressed aborigines who drag out a miserable existence, are described.
The accentuation rightly connects פראים במדבר; by the omission of the Caph similit., as e.g., Isa 51:12, the comparison (like a wild ass) becomes an equalization (as a wild ass). The perf. יצאוּ is a general uncoloured expression of that which is usual: they go forth בפעלם, in their work (not: to their work, as the Psalmist, in Psa 104:23, expresses himself, exchanging ב for ל). משׁחרי לטּרף, searching after prey, i.e., to satisfy their hunger (Psa 104:21), from טרף, in the primary signification decerpere (vid., Hupfeld on Psa 7:3), describes that which in general forms their daily occupation as they roam about; the constructivus is used here, without any proper genitive relation, as a form of connection, according to Ges. §116, 1. The idea of waylaying is not to be connected with the expression. Job describes those who are perishing in want and misery, not so much as those who themselves are guilty of evil practices, as those who have been brought down to poverty by the wrongdoing of others. As is implied in משׁחרי (comp. the morning Psa 63:2; Isa 26:9), Job describes their going forth in the early morning; the children (נערים, as Job 1:19; Job 29:5) are those who first feel the pangs of hunger. לו refers individually to the father in the company: the steppe (with its scant supply of roots and herbs) is to him food for the children; he snatches it from it, it must furnish it for him. The idea is not: for himself and his family (Hirz., Hahn, and others); for v. 6, which has been much misunderstood, describes how they, particularly the adults, obtain their necessary subsistence. There is no MS authority for reading בּלי־לו instead of בּלילו; the translation “what is not to him” (lxx, Targ., and partially also the Syriac version) is therefore to be rejected. Raschi correctly interprets יבולו as a general explanation, and Ralbag תבואתו: it is, as in Job 6:5, mixed fodder for cattle, farrago, consisting of oats or barley sown among vetches and beans, that is intended. The meaning is not, however, as most expositors explain it, that they seek to satisfy their hunger with food for cattle grown in the fields of the rich evil-doer; for קצר does not signify to sweep together, but to reap in an orderly manner; and if they meant to steal, why did they not seize the better portion of the produce? It is correct to take the suff. as referring to the רשׁע which is mentioned in the next clause, but it is not to be understood that they plunder his fields per nefas; on the contrary, that he hires them to cut the fodder for his cattle, but does not like to entrust the reaping of the better kinds of corn to them. It is impracticable to press the Hiph. יקצירו of the Chethib to favour this rendering; on the contrary, הקציר stands to קצר in like (not causative) signification as הנחה to נחה (vid., on Job 31:18). In like manner, Job 24:6 is to be understood of hired labour. The rich man prudently hesitates to employ these poor people as vintagers; but he makes use of their labour (whilst his own men are fully employed at the wine-vats) to gather the straggling grapes which ripen late, and were therefore left at the vintage season. the older expositors are reminded of לקשׁ, late hay, and explain ילקּשׁוּ as denom. by יכרתו לקשׁו (Aben-Ezra, Immanuel, and others) or יאכלו לקשׁו (Parchon); but how unnatural to think of the second mowing, or even of eating the after-growth of grass, where the vineyard is the subject referred to! On the contrary, לקּשׁ signifies, as it were, serotinare, i.e., serotinos fructus colligere (Rosenm.):^[11] this is the work which the rich man assigns to them, because he gains by it, and even in the worst case can lose but little.
Job 30:7 tell how miserably they are obliged to shift for themselves during this autumnal season of labour, and also at other times. Naked (ערום, whether an adverbial form or not, is conceived of after the manner of an accusative: in a naked, stripped condition, Arabic ‛urjânan) they pass the night, without having anything on the body (on לבוּשׁ, vid., on Psa 22:19), and they have no (אין supply להם) covering or veil (corresponding to the notion of בּגד) in the cold.^[12]
They become thoroughly drenched by the frequent and continuous storms that visit the mountains, and for want of other shelter are obliged to shelter themselves under the overhanging rocks, lying close up to them, and clinging to them, - an idea which is expressed here by חבּקוּ, as in Lam 4:5, where, of those who were luxuriously brought up on purple cushions, it is said that they “embrace dunghills;” for in Palestine and Syria, the forlorn one, who, being afflicted with some loathsome disease, is not allowed to enter the habitations of men, lies on the dunghill (mezâbil), asking alms by day of the passers-by, and at night hiding himself among the ashes which the sun has warmed.^[13]
The usual accentuation, מזרם with Dechî, הרים with Munach, after which it should be translated ab inundatione montes humectantur, is false; in correct Codd. זרם has also Munach; the other Munach is, as in Job 23:5, Job 23:9, Job 24:6, and freq., a substitute for Dechî. Having sketched this special class of the oppressed, and those who are abandoned to the bitterest want, Job proceeds with his description of the many forms of wrong which prevail unpunished on the earth:

Verses 9-12

Job 24:9-12 9 They tear the fatherless from the breast,
And defraud the poor. 10 Naked, they slink away without clothes,
And hungering they bear the sheaves. 11 Between their walls they squeeze out the oil;
They tread the wine-presses, and suffer thirst. 12 In the city vassals groan, And the soul of the oppressed crieth out -
And Eloah heedeth not the anomaly.
The accentuation of Job 24:9 (יגזלו with Dechî, משׁד with Munach) makes the relation of שׁד יתום genitival. Heidenheim (in a MS annotation to Kimchi's Lex.) accordingly badly interprets: they plunder from the spoil of the orphan; Ramban better: from the ruin, i.e., the shattered patrimony; both appeal to the Targum, which translates מביזת יתום, like the Syriac version, men bezto de-jatme (comp. Jerome: vim fecerunt depraedantes pupillos). The original reading, however, is perhaps (vid., Buxtorf, Lex. col. 295) מבּיזא, ἀπὸ βυζίου, from the mother's breast, as it is also, the lxx (ἀπὸ μαστοῦ), to be translated contrary to the accentuation. Inhuman creditors take the fatherless and still tender orphan away from its mother, in order to bring it up as a slave, and so to obtain payment. If this is the meaning of the passage, it is natural to understand יחבּלוּ, Job 24:9, of distraining; but (1) the poet would then repeat himself tautologically, vid., Job 24:3, where the same thing is far more evidently said; (2) חבל, to distrain, would be construed with על, contrary to the logic of the word. Certainly the phrase חבל על may be in some degree explained by the interpretation, “to impose a fine” (Ew., Hahn), or “to distrain” (Hirz., Welte), or “to oppress with fines” (Schlottm.); but violence is thus done to the usage of the language, which is better satisfied by the explanation of Ralbag (among modern expositors, Ges., Arnh., Vaih., Stick., Hlgst.): and what the unfortunate one possesses they seize; but this על = אשׁר על directly as object is impossible. The passage, Deu 7:25, cited by Schultens in its favour, is of a totally different kind.
But throughout the Semitic dialects the verb חבל also signifies "to destroy, to treat injuriously” (e.g., Arab. el-châbil, a by-name of Satan); it occurs in this signification in Job 34:31, and according to the analogy of הרע על, 1Ki 17:20, can be construed with על as well as with ל. The poet, therefore, by this construction will have intended to distinguish the one חבל from the other, Job 22:6; Job 24:3; and it is with Umbreit to be translated: they bring destruction upon the poor; or better: they take undue advantage of those who otherwise are placed in trying circumstances.
The subjects of Job 24:10 are these עניים, who are made serfs, and become objects of merciless oppression, and the poet here in Job 24:10 indeed repeats what he has already said almost word for word in Job 24:7 (comp. Job 31:19); but there the nakedness was the general calamity of a race oppressed by subjugation, here it is the consequence of the sin of merces retenta laborum, which cries aloud to heaven, practised on those of their own race: they slink away (הלּך, as Job 30:28) naked (nude), without (בּלי = מבּלי, as perhaps sine = absque) clothing, and while suffering hunger they carry the sheaves (since their masters deny them what, according to Deu 25:4, shall not be withheld even from the beasts). Between their walls (שׁוּרת like שׁרות, Jer 5:10, Chaldee שׁוּריּא), i.e., the walls of their masters who have made them slaves, therefore under strict oversight, they press out the oil (יצהירוּ, ἅπ. γεγρ.), they tread the wine-vats (יקבים, lacus), and suffer thirst withal (fut. consec. according to Ew. §342, a), without being allowed to quench their thirst from the must which runs out of the presses (נּתּות, torcularia, from which the verb דּרך is here transferred to the vats). Böttch. translates: between their rows of trees, without being able to reach out right or left; but that is least of all suitable with the olives. Carey correctly explains: “the factories or the garden enclosures of these cruel slaveholders.” This reference of the word to the wall of the enclosure is more suitable than to walls of the press-house in particular. From tyrannical oppression in the country,^[14]
Job now passes over to the abominations of discord and was in the cities.

Verse 12

It is natural, with Umbr., Ew., Hirz., and others, to read מתים like the Peschito; but as mı̂te in Syriac, so also מתים in Hebrew as a noun everywhere signifies the dead (Arab. mauta), not the dying, mortals (Arab. maïtûna); wherefore Ephrem interprets the praes. “they groan” by the perf. “they have groaned.” The pointing מתים, therefore, is quite correct; but the accentuation which, by giving Mehupach Zinnorith to מעיר, and Asla legarmeh to מתים, places the two words in a genitival relation, is hardly correct: in the city of men, i.e., the inhabited, thickly-populated city, they groan; not: men (as Rosenm. explains, according to Gen 9:6; Pro 11:6) groan; for just because מתים appeared to be too inexpressive as a subject, this accentuation seems to have been preferred. It is also possible that the signification fierce anger (Hos 11:9), or anguish (Jer 15:8), was combined with עיר, comp. Arab. gayrt, jealousy, fury (= קנאה), of which, however, no trace is anywhere visible.^[15]
With Jer., Symm., and Theod., we take מתים as the sighing ones themselves; the feebleness of the subject disappears if we explain the passage according to such passages as Deu 2:34; Deu 3:6, comp. Jdg 20:48 : it is the male inhabitants that are intended, whom any conqueror would put to the sword; we have therefore translated men (men of war), although "people” (Job 11:3) also would not have been unsuitable according to the ancient use of the word. נאק is intended of the groans of the dying, as Jer 51:52; Eze 30:24, as Job 24:12 also shows: the soul of those that are mortally wounded cries out. חללים signifies not merely the slain and already dead, but, according to its etymon, those who are pierced through those who have received their death-blow; their soul cries out, since it does not leave the body without a struggle. Such things happen without God preventing them. לא־ישׂים תּפלה, He observeth not the abomination, either = לא ישׂים בלבו, Job 22:22 (He layeth it not to heart), or, since the phrase occurs nowhere elliptically, = לא ישׂים לבו על, Job 1:8; Job 34:23) He does not direct His heart, His attention to it), here as elliptical, as in Job 4:20; Isa 41:20. True, the latter phrase is never joined with the acc. of the object; but if we translate after שׂים בּ, Job 4:18 : non imputat, He does not reckon such תפלה, i.e., does not punish it, בּם (בּהם) ought to be supplied, which is still somewhat liable to misconstruction, since the preceding subject is not the oppressors, but those who suffer oppression. תּפלה is properly insipidity (comp. Arab. tafila, to stink), absurdity, self-contradiction, here the immorality which sets at nought the moral order of the world, and remains nevertheless unpunished. The Syriac version reads תּפלּה, and translates, like Louis Bridel (1818): et Dieu ne fait aucune attention à leur prière.

Verses 13-15

Job 24:13-15 13 Others are those that rebel against the light,
They will know nothing of its ways,
And abide not in its paths. 14 The murderer riseth up at dawn,
He slayeth the sufferer and the poor,
And in the night he acteth like a thief. 15 And the eye of the adulterer watcheth for the twilight;
He thinks: “no eye shall recognise me,”
And he putteth a veil before his face.
With המּה begins a new turn in the description of the moral confusion which has escaped God's observation; it is to be translated neither as retrospective, “since they” (Ewald), nor as distinctive, “they even” (Böttch.), i.e., the powerful in distinction from the oppressed, but ”those” (for המה corresponds to our use of “those,” אלּה to "these”), by which Job passes on to another class of evil-disposed and wicked men. Their general characteristic is, that they shun the light. Those who are described in Job 24:14 are described according to their general characteristic in Job 24:13; accordingly it is not to be interpreted: those belong to the enemies of the light, but: those are, according to their very nature, enemies of the light. The Beth is the so-called Beth essent.; היוּ (comp. Pro 3:26) affirms what they are become by their own inclination, or as what they are fashioned, viz., as ἀποστάται φωτός (Symm.); מרד (on the root מר, vid., on Job 23:2) signifies properly to push one's self against anything, to lean upon, to rebel; מרד therefore signifies one who strives against another, one who is obstinate (like the Arabic mârid, merı̂d, comp. mumâri, not conformable to the will of another). The improvement מרדי אור (not with Makkeph, but with Mahpach of mercha mahpach. placed between the two words, vid., Bär's Psalterium, p. x.) assumes the possibility of the construction with the acc., which occurs at least once, Jos 22:19. They are hostile to the light, they have no familiarity with its ways (הכּיר, as Jos 22:17, Psa 142:5; Rth 2:19, to take knowledge of anything, to interest one's self in its favour), and do not dwell (ישׁבוּ, Jer. reversi sunt, according to the false reading ישׁבוּ) in its paths, i.e., they neither make nor feel themselves at home there, they have no peace therein. The light is the light of day, which, however, stands in deeper, closer relation to the higher light, for the vicious man hateth τὸ φῶς, Joh 3:20, in every sense; and the works which are concealed in the darkness of the night are also ἔργα τοῦ σκότους, Rom 13:12 (comp. Isa 29:15), in the sense in which light and darkness are two opposite principles of the spiritual world. It need not seem strange that the more minute description of the conduct of these enemies of the light now begins with לאור. It is impossible that this should mean: still in the darkness of the night (Stick.), prop. towards the light, when it is not yet light. Moreover, in biblical Hebrew, אור does not signify evening, in which sense it occurs in Talmudic Hebrew (Pesachim 1a, Seder olam rabba, c. 5, אור שׁביעי, vespera septima), like אורתּא (= נשׁף) in Talmudic Aramaic. The meaning, on the contrary, is that towards daybreak (comp. הבקר אור, Gen 44:3), therefore with early morning, the murderer rises up, to go about his work, which veils itself in darkness (Psa 10:8-10) by day, viz., to slay (comp. on יקטל...יקוּם, Ges. §142, 3, c) the unfortunate and the poor, who pass by defenceless and alone. One has to supply the idea of the ambush in which the waylayer lies in wait; and it is certainly inconvenient that it is not expressed.
The antithesis וּבלּילה, Job 24:14, shows that nothing but primo mane is meant by לאור. He who in the day-time goes forth to murder and plunder, at night commits petty thefts, where no one whom he could attack passes by. Stickel translates: to slay the poor and wretched, and in the night to play the thief; but then the subjunctivus ויהי ought to precede (vid., e.g., Job 13:5), and in general it cannot be proved without straining it, that the voluntative form of the future everywhere has a modal signification. Moreover, here יהי does not differ from Job 18:12; Job 20:23, but is only a poetic shorter form for יהיה: in the night he is like a thief, i.e., plays the part of the thief. And the adulterer's eye observes the darkness of evening (vid., Pro 7:9), i.e., watches closely for its coming on (שׁמר, in the usual signification observare, to be on the watch, to take care, observe anxiously), since he hopes to render himself invisible; and that he may not be recognised even if seen, he puts on a mask. סתר פּנים is something by which his countenance is rendered unrecognisable (lxx ἀποκρυβὴ προσώπου), like the Arab. sitr, sitâreh, a curtain, veil, therefore a veil for the face, or, as we say in one word borrowed from the Arabic mascharat, a farce (masquerade): the mask, but not in the proper sense.^[16]

Verses 16-17

Job 24:16-17 16 In the dark they dig through houses,
By day they shut themselves up,
They will know nothing of the light. 17 For the depth of night is to them even as the dawn of the morning,
For they know the terrors of the depth of night.
The handiwork of the thief, which is but slightly referred to in Job 24:14, is here more particularly described. The indefinite subj. of חתר, as is manifest from what follows, is the band of thieves. The בּ, which is elsewhere joined with chtr (to break into anything), is here followed by the acc. בּתּים (to be pronounced bâttim, not bottim),^[17] as in the Talmudic, חתר שׁנּו, to pick one's teeth (and thereby to make them loose), b. Kidduschin, 24 b. According to the Talmud, Ralbag, and the ancient Jewish interpretation in general, Job 24:16 is closely connected to btym: houses which they have marked by day for breaking into, and the mode of its accomplishment; but חתם nowhere signifies designare, always obsignare, to seal up, to put under lock and key, Job 14:17; Job 9:7; Job 37:7; according to which the Piel, which occurs only here, is to be explained: by day they seal up, i.e., shut themselves up for their safety (למו is not to be accented with Athnach, but with Rebia mugrasch): they know not the light, i.e., as Schlottm. well explains: they have no fellowship with it; for the biblical ידע, γινώσκειν, mostly signifies a knowledge which enters into the subject, and intimately unites itself with it. In Job 24:17 one confirmation follows another. Umbr. and Hirz. explain: for the morning is to them at once the shadow of death; but יחדּו, in the signification at the same time, as we have taken יחד in Job 17:16 (nevertheless of simultaneousness of time), is unsupportable: it signifies together, Job 2:11; Job 9:32; and the arrangement of the words למו...יחדּו (to them together) is like Isa 9:20; Isa 31:3; Jer 46:12. Also, apart from the erroneous translation of the יחדו, which is easily set aside, Hirzel's rendering of Job 24:17 is forced: the morning, i.e., the bright day, is to them all as the shadow of death, for each and every one of them knows the terrors of the daylight, which is to them as the shadow of death, viz., the danger of being discovered and condemned. The interpretation, which is also preferred by Olshausen, is far more natural: the depth of night is to them as the dawn of the morning (on the precedence of the predicate, comp. Amo 4:13 and Amo 5:8 : walking in the darkness of the early morning), for they are acquainted with the terrors of the depth of night, i.e., they are not surprised by them, but know how to anticipate and to escape them. Job 38:15 also, where the night, which vanishes before the rising of the sun, is called the “light” of the evil-doer, favours this interpretation (not the other, as Olsh. thinks). The accentuation also favours it; for is בקר had been the subj., and were to be translated: the morning is to them the shadow of death, it ought to have been accented בקר למו צלמות, Dechî, Mercha, Athnach. It is, however, accented Munach, Munach, Athnach, and the second Munach stands as the deputy of Dechî, whose value in the interpunction it represents; therefore בקר למו is the predicate: the shadow of death is morning to them. From the plur. the description now, with יכּיר, passes into the sing., as individualizing it. בּלהות constr. of בּלּהות, is without a Dagesh in the second consonant. Mercier admirably remarks here: sunt ei familiares et noti nocturni terrores, neque eos timet aut curat, quasi sibi cum illis necessitudo et familiaritas intercederet et cum illis ne noceant foedus aut pactum inierit. Thus by their skill and contrivance they escape danger, and divine justice allows them to remain undiscovered and unpunished, - a fact which is most incomprehensible.
It is now time that this thought was once again definitely expressed, that one may not forget what these accumulated illustrations are designed to prove. But what now follows in Job 24:18 seems to express not Job's opinion, but that of his opponents. Ew., Hirz., and Hlgst. regard Job 24:18, Job 24:22, as thesis and antithesis. To the question, What is the lot that befalls all these evil-doers? Job is thought to give a twofold answer: first, to Job 24:21, an ironical answer in the sense of the friends, that those men are overtaken by the merited punishment; then from Job 24:22 is his own serious answer, which stands in direct contrast to the former. But (1) in Job 24:18 there is not the slightest trace observable that Job does not express his own view: a consideration which is also against Schlottman, who regards Job 24:18 as expressive of the view of an opponent. (2) There is no such decided contrast between Job 24:18 and Job 24:22, for Job 24:19 and Job 24:24 both affirm substantially the same thing concerning the end of the evil-doer. In like manner, it is also not to be supposed, with Stick., Löwenth., Böttch., Welte, and Hahn, that Job, outstripping the friends, as far as Job 24:21, describes how the evil-doer certainly often comes to a terrible end, and in Job 24:22 how the very opposite of this, however, is often witnessed; so that this consequently furnishes no evidence in support of the exclusive assertion of the friends. Moreover, Job 24:24 compared with Job 24:19, where there is nothing to indicate a direct contrast, is opposed to it; and Job 24:22, which has no appearance of referring to a direct contrast with what has been previously said, is opposed to such an antithetical rendering of the two final strophes. Job 24:22 might more readily be regarded as a transition to the antithesis, if Job 24:18 could, with Eichh., Schnurr., Dathe, Umbr., and Vaih., after the lxx, Syriac, and Jerome, be understood as optative: “Let such an one be light on the surface of the water, let ... be cursed, let him not turn towards,” etc., but Job 24:18 is not of the optative form; and Job 24:18, where in that case אל־יפנה would be expected, instead of אל־יפנה, shows that Job 24:18, where, according to the syntax, the optative rendering is natural, is nevertheless not to be so rendered. The right interpretation is that which regards both Job 24:18 and Job 24:22 as Job's own view, without allowing him absolutely to contradict himself. Thus it is interpreted, e.g., by Rosenmüller, who, however, as also Renan, errs in connecting Job 24:18 with the description of the thieves, and understands Job 24:18 of their slipping away, Job 24:18 of their dwelling in horrible places, and Job 24:18 of their avoidance of the vicinity of towns.

Verses 18-21

Job 24:18-21 18 For he is light upon the surface of the water;
Their heritage is cursed upon the earth;
He turneth no more in the way of the vineyard. 19 Drought, also heat, snatch away snow water -
So doth Sheôl those who have sinned. 20 The womb forgetteth him, worms shall feast on him,
He is no more remembered;
So the desire of the wicked is broken as a tree - 21 He who hath plundered the barren that bare not,
And did no good to the widow.
The point of comparison in Job 24:18 is the swiftness of the disappearing: he is carried swiftly past, as any light substance on the surface of the water is hurried along by the swiftness of the current, and can scarcely be seen; comp. Job 9:26 : “My days shoot by as ships of reeds, as an eagle which dasheth upon its prey,” and Hos 10:7, “Samaria's king is destroyed like a bundle of brushwood (lxx, Theod., φρύγανον) on the face of the water,” which is quickly drawn into the whirlpool, or buried by the approaching wave.^[18]
But here the idea is not that of being swallowed up by the waters, as in the passage in Hosea, but, on the contrary, of vanishing from sight, by being carried rapidly past by the rush of the waters. If, then, the evil-doer dies a quick, easy death, his heritage (חלקה, from חלק, to divide) is cursed by men, since no one will dwell in it or use it, because it is appointed by God to desolation on account of the sin which is connected with it (vid., on Job 15:28); even he, the evil-doer, no more turns the way of the vineyard (פּנה, with דּרך, not an acc. of the obj., but as indicating the direction = אל־דּרך; comp. 1Sa 13:18 with 1Sa 13:17 of the same chapter), proudly to inspect his wide extended domain, and overlook the labourers. The curse therefore does not come upon him, nor can one any longer lie in wait for him to take vengeance on him; it is useless to think of venting upon him the rage which his conduct during life provoked; he is long since out of reach in Sheôl.
That which Job says figuratively in Job 24:18, and in Job 21:13 without a figure: “in a moment they go down to Sheôl,” he expresses in Job 24:19 under a new figure, and, moreover, in the form of an emblematic proverb (vid., Herzog's Real-Encyklopädie, xiv. 696), according to the peculiarity of which, not כּן, but either only the copulative Waw (Pro 25:25) or nothing whatever (Pro 11:22), is to be supplied before שׁאול חטאו. חטאוּ is virtually an object: eos qui peccarunt. Job 24:19 is a model-example of extreme brevity of expression, Ges. §155, 4, b. Sandy ground (ציּה, arid land, without natural moisture), added to it (גּם, not: likewise) the heat of the sun - these two, working simultaneously from beneath and above, snatch away (גּזלוּ, cogn. גּזר, root גז, to cut, cut away, tear away; Arab. jzr, fut. i, used of sinking, decreasing water) מימי שׁלג, water of (melted) snow (which is fed from no fountain, and therefore is quickly absorbed), and Sheôl snatches away those who have sinned (= גּזלה את־אשׁר חטאוּ). The two incidents are alike: the death of those whose life has been a life of sin, follows as a consequence easily and unobserved, without any painful and protracted struggle. The sinner disappears suddenly; the womb, i.e., the mother that bare him, forgets him (רחם, matrix = mater; according to Ralbag: friendship, from רחם, to love tenderly; others: relationship, in which sense Arab. raḥimun = רחם is used), worms suck at him (מתקו for מתקתּוּ, according to Ges. §147, a, sugit eum, from which primary notion of sucking comes the signification to be sweet, Job 21:33 : Syriac, metkatennun remto; Ar. imtasahum, from the synonymous Arab. maṣṣa= מצץ, מצה, מזה), he is no more thought of, and thus then is mischief (abstr. pro concr. as Job 5:16) broken like a tree (not: a staff, which עץ never, not even in Hos 4:12, directly, like the Arabic ‛asa, ‛asât, signifies). Since עולה is used personally, רעה וגו, Job 24:21, can be connected with it as an appositional permutative. His want of compassion (as is still too often seen in the present day in connection with the tyrannical conduct of the executive in Syria and Palestine, especially on the part of those who collected the taxes) goes the length of eating up, i.e., entirely plundering, the barren, childless (Gen 11:30; Isa 54:1), and therefore helpless woman, who has no sons to protect and defend her, and never showing favour to the widow, but, on the contrary, thrusting her away from him. There is as little need for regarding the verb רעה here, with Rosenm. after the Targ., in the signification confringere, as cognate with רעע, רצץ, as conversely to change תּרעם, Psa 2:9, into תּרעם; it signifies depascere, as in Job 20:26, here in the sense of depopulari. On the form ייטיב for יימיב, vid., Ges. §70, 2, rem.; and on the transition from the part. to the v. fin., vid., Ges. §134, rem. 2. Certainly the memory of such an one is not affectionately cherished; this is equally true with what Job maintains in Job 21:32, that the memory of the evil-doer is immortalized by monuments. Here the allusion is to the remembrance of a mother's love and sympathetic feeling. The fundamental thought of the strophe is this, that neither in life nor in death had he suffered the punishment of his evil-doing. The figure of the broken tree (broken in its full vigour) also corresponds to this thought; comp. on the other hand what Bildad says, Job 18:16 : “his roots dry up beneath, and above his branch is lopped off” (or: withered). The severity of his oppression is not manifest till after his death.
In the next strophe Job goes somewhat further. But after having, in Job 24:22, Job 24:23, said that the life of the ungodly passes away as if they were the favoured of God, he returns to their death, which the friends, contrary to experience, have so fearfully described, whilst it is only now and then distinguished from the death of other men by coming on late and painlessly.

Verses 22-25

Job 24:22-25 22 And He preserveth the mighty by His strength;
Such an one riseth again, though he despaired of life. 23 He giveth him rest, and he is sustained,
And His eyes are over their ways. 24 They are exalted - a little while, - then they are no more,
And they are sunken away, snatched away like all others,
And as the top of the stalk they are cut off. - 25 And if it is not so, who will charge me with lying,
And make my assertion worthless?
Though it becomes manifest after their death how little the ungodly, who were only feared by men, were beloved, the form of their death itself is by no means such as to reveal the retributive justice of God. And does it become at all manifest during their life? The Waw, with which the strophe begins, is, according to our rendering, not adversative, but progressive. God is the subject. משׁך, to extend in length, used elsewhere of love, Psa 36:11; Psa 109:12, and anger, Psa 85:6, is here transferred to persons: to prolong, preserve long in life. אבּירים are the strong, who bid defiance not only to every danger (Psa 76:6), but also to all divine influences and noble impulses (Isa 46:12). These, whose trust in their own strength God might smite down by His almighty power, He preserves alive even in critical positions by that very power: he (the אבּיר) stands up (again), whilst he does not trust to life, i.e., whilst he believes that he must succumb to death (האמין as Psa 27:13, comp. Genesis, S. 368; חיּין, Aramaic form, like מלּין, Job 4:2; Job 12:11; the whole is a contracted circumstantial clause for והוא לא וגו). He (God) grants him לבטח, in security, viz., to live, or even directly: a secure peaceful existence, since לבטח is virtually an object, and the ל is that of condition (comp. לרב, Job 26:3). Thus Hahn, who, however, here is only to be followed in this one particular, takes it correctly: and that he can support himself, which would only be possible if an inf. with ל had preceded. Therefore: and he is supported or he can support himself, i.e., be comforted, though this absolute use of נשׁען cannot be supported; in this instance we miss על־טוּבו, or some such expression (Job 8:15). God sustains him and raises him up again: His eyes (עיניחוּ = עיניו) are (rest) on the ways of these men, they stand as it were beneath His special protection, or, as it is expressed in Job 10:3 : He causes light to shine from above upon the doings of the wicked. “They are risen up, and are conscious of the height (of prosperity) - a little while, and they are no more.” Thus Job 24:24 is to be explained. The accentuation רומו with Mahpach, מעט with Asla legarmeh (according to which it would have to be translated: they stand on high a short time), is erroneous. The verb רוּם signifies not merely to be high, but also to rise up, raise one's self, e.g., Pro 11:11, and to show one's self exalted, here extulerunt se in altum or exaltati sunt; according to the form of writing רומּוּ, רוּם is treated as an Ayin Waw verb med. O, and the Dagesh is a so-called Dag. affecuosum (Olsh. §83, b), while רמּוּ (like רבּוּ, Gen 49:23) appears to assume the form of a double Ayin verb med. O, consequently רמם (Ges. §67, rem. 1). מעט, followed by Waw of the conclusion, forms a clause of itself, as more frequently עוד מעט ו (yet a little while, then ... ), as, e.g., in an exactly similar connection in Psa 37:10; here, however, not expressive of the sudden judgment of the ungodly, but of their easy death without a struggle (εὐθανασία): a little, then he is not (again a transition from the plur. to the distributive or individualizing sing.). They are, viz., as Job 24:24 further describes, bowed down all at once (an idea which is expressed by the perf.), are snatched off like all other men. המּכוּ is an Aramaizing Hophal-form, approaching the Hoph. of strong verbs, for הוּמכּוּ (Ges. §67, rem. 8), from מכך, to bow one's self (Psa 106:43), to be brought low (Ecc 10:18); comp. Arab. mkk, to cause to vanish, to annul. יקּפצוּן (for which it is unnecessary with Olsh. to read יקּבצוּן, after Eze 29:5) signifies, according to the primary signification of קפץ, comprehendere, constringere, contrahere (cogn. קבץ, קמץ, קמט, comp. supra, p. 481): they are hurried together, or snatched off, i.e., deprived of life, like the Arabic qbḍh allâh (קפצו אלהים) and passive qubiḍa, equivalent to, he has died. There is no reference in the phrase to the componere artus, Gen 49:33; it is rather the figure of housing (gathering into the barn) that underlies it; the word, however, only implies seizing and drawing in. Thus the figure which follows is also naturally (comp. קמץ, Arab. qabḍat, manipulus) connected with what precedes, and, like the head of an ear of corn, i.e., the corn-bearing head of the wheat-stalk, they are cut off (by which one must bear in mind that the ears are reaped higher up than with us, and the standing stalk is usually burnt to make dressing for the field; vid., Ges. Thes. s.v. קשׁ).^[19].
On ימּלוּ (fut. Niph. = ימּלּוּ), vid., on Job 14:2; Job 18:16; the signification praedicuntur, as observed above, is more suitable here than marcescunt (in connection with which signification Job 5:26 ought to be compared, and the form regarded as fut. Kal). Assured of the truth, in conformity with experience, of that which has been said, he appeals finally to the friends: if it be not so (on אפו = אפוא in conditional clauses, vid., Job 9:24), who (by proving the opposite) is able to charge me with lying and bring to nought (לאל = לאין, Ew. §321, b, perhaps by אל being conceived of as originally infin. from אלל (comp. אליל), in the sense of non-existence, Arab. ‘l-‛adam) my assertion?
The bold accusations in the speech of Eliphaz, in which the uncharitableness of the friends attains its height, must penetrate most deeply into Job's spirit. But Job does not answer like by like. Even in this speech in opposition to the friends, he maintains the passionless repose which has once been gained. Although the misjudgment of his character has attained its height in the speech of Eliphaz, his answer does not contain a single bitter personal word. In general, he does not address them, not as though he did not wish to show respect to them, but because he has nothing to say concerning their unjust and wrong conduct that he would not already have said, and because he has lost all hope of his reproof taking effect, all hope of sympathy with his entreaty that they would spare him, all hope of understanding and information on their part.
In the first part of the speech (Job 23) he occupies himself with the mystery of his own suffering lot, and in the second part (Job 24) with the reverse of this mystery, the evil-doers' prosperity and immunity from punishment. How is he to vindicate himself against Eliphaz, since his lament over his sufferings as unmerited as accounted by the friends more and more as defiant obstinacy (מרי), and consequently tends to bring him still deeper into that suspicion which he is trying to remove? His testimony concerning himself is of no avail; for it appears to the friends more self-delusive, hypocritical, and sinful, the more decidedly he maintains it; consequently the judgment of God can alone decide between him and his accusers. But while the friends accuse him by word of mouth, God himself is pronouncing sentence against him by His acts, - his affliction is a de facto accusation of God against him. Therefore, before the judgment of God can become a vindication of his affliction against the friends, he must first of all himself have defended and proved his innocence in opposition to the Author of his affliction. Hence the accusation of the friends, which in the speech of Eliphaz is become more direct and cutting than heretofore, must urge on anew with all its power the desire in Job of being able to bring his cause before God.
At the outset he is confident of victory, for his consciousness does not deceive him; and God, although He is both one party in the cause and judge, is influenced by the irresistible force of the truth. Herein the want of harmony in Job's conception of God, the elevation of which into a higher unity is the goal of the development of the drama, again shows itself. He is not able to think of the God who pursues him, the innocent one, at the present time with suffering, as the just God; on the other hand, the justice of the God who will permit him to approach His judgment throne, is to him indisputably sure: He will attend to him, and for ever acquit him. Now Job yields to the arbitrary power of God, but then he will rise by virtue of the justice and truth of God. His longing is, therefore, that the God who now afflicts him may condescend to hear him: this seems to him the only way of convincing God, and indirectly the friends, of his innocence, and himself of God's justice. The basis of this longing is the desire of being free from the painful conception of God which he is obliged to give way to. For it is not the darkness of affliction that enshrouds him which causes Job the intensest suffering, but the darkness in which it has enshrouded God to him, - the angry countenance of God which is turned to him. But if this is sin, that he is engaged in a conflict concerning the justice of the Author of his affliction, it is still greater that he indulges evil thoughts respecting the Judge towards whose throne of judgment he presses forward. He thinks that God designedly avoids him, because He is well aware of his innocence; now, however, he will admit no other thought but that of suffering him to endure to the end the affliction decreed. Job's suspicion against God is as dreadful as it is childish. This is a profoundly tragic stroke. It is not to be understood as the sarcasm of defiance; on the contrary, as one of the childish thoughts into which melancholy bordering on madness falls. From the bright height of faith to which Job soars in Job 19:25. he is here again drawn down into the most terrible depth of conflict, in which, like a blind man, he gropes after God, and because he cannot find Him thinks that He flees before him lest He should be overcome by him. The God of the present, Job accounts his enemy; and the God of the future, to whom his faith clings, who will and must vindicate him so soon as He only allows himself to be found and seen - this God is not to be found! He cannot get free either from his suffering or from his ignominy. The future for him is again veiled in a twofold darkness.
Thus Job does not so much answer Eliphaz as himself, concerning the cutting rebukes he has brought against him. He is not able to put them aside, for his consciousness does not help him; and God, whose judgment he desires to have, leaves him still in difficulty. But the mystery of his lot of affliction, which thereby becomes constantly more torturing, becomes still more mysterious from a consideration of the reverse side, which he is urged by Eliphaz more closely to consider, terrible as it may be to him. He, the innocent one, is being tortured to death by an angry God, while for the ungodly there come no times of punishment, no days of vengeance: greedy conquerors, merciless rulers, oppress the poor to the last drop of blood, who are obliged to yield to them, and must serve them without wrong being helped by the right; murderers, who shun the light, thieves, and adulterers, carry on their evil courses unpunished; and swiftly and easily, without punishment overtaking them, or being able to overtake them, Sheôl snatches them away, as heat does the melted snow; even God himself preserves the oppressors long in the midst of extreme danger, and after a long life, free from care and laden with honour, permits them to die a natural death, as a ripe ear of corn is cut off. Bold in the certainty of the truth of his assertion, Job meets the friends: if it is not so, who will convict me as a liar?! What answer will they give? They cannot long disown the mystery, for experience outstrips them. Will they therefore solve it? They might, had they but the key of the future state to do it with! But neither they nor Job were in possession of that, and we shall therefore see how the mystery, without a knowledge of the future state, struggled through towards solution; or even if this were impossible, how the doubts which it excites are changed to faith, and so are conquered.

Chap. 25

Verses 1-6

Job 25:1-6 1 Then began Bildad the Shuhite, and said: 2 Dominion and terror are with Him,
He maketh peace in His high places. 3 Is there any number to His armies,
And whom doth not His light surpass? 4 How could a mortal be just with God,
And how could one born of woman be pure? 5 Behold, even the moon, it shineth not brightly,
And the stars are not pure in His eyes. 6 How much less mortal man, a worm,
And the son of man, a worm!Ultimum hocce classicum, observes Schultens, quod a parte triumvirorum sonuit, magis receptui canentis videtur, quam praelium renovantis. Bildad only repeats the two commonplaces, that man cannot possibly maintain his supposedly perverted right before God, the all-just and all-controlling One, to whom, even in heaven above, all things cheerfully submit, and that man cannot possibly be accounted spotlessly pure, and consequently exalted above all punishment before Him, the most holy One, before whom even the brightest stars do not appear absolutely pure. המשׁל is an inf. abs. made into a substantive, like השׁקט; the Hiph. (to cause to rule), which is otherwise causative, can also, like Kal, signify to rule, or properly, without destroying the Hiphil-signification, to exercise authority (vid., on Job 31:18); המשׁל therefore signifies sovereign rule. עשׂה, with הוּא to be supplied, which is not unfrequently omitted both in participial principal clauses (Job 12:17., Psa 22:29; Isa 26:3; Isa 29:8; Isa 40:19, comp. Zec 9:12, where אני is to be supplied) and in partic. subordinate clauses (Psa 7:10; Psa 55:20; Hab 2:10), is an expression of the simple praes., which is represented by the partic. used thus absolutely (including the personal pronoun) as a proper tense-form (Ew. §168, c, 306, d). Schlottman refers עשׂה to המשׁל ופהד; but the analogy of such attributive descriptions of God is against it. Umbreit and Hahn connect בּמרומיו with the subject: He in His heights, i.e., down from His throne in the heavens. But most expositors rightly take it as descriptive of the place and object of the action expressed: He establishes peace in His heights, i.e., among the celestial beings immediately surrounding Him. This, only assuming the abstract possibility of discord, might mean: facit magestate sua ut in summa pace et promptissima obedientia ipsi ministrent angeli ipsius in excelsis (Schmid). But although from Job 4:18; Job 15:15, nothing more than that even the holy ones above are neither removed from the possibility of sin nor the necessity of a judicial authority which is high above them, can be inferred; yet, on the other hand, from Job 3:8; Job 9:13 (comp. Job 26:12.), it is clear that the poet, in whose conception, as in scripture generally, the angels and the stars stand in the closest relation, knows of actual, and not merely past, but possibly recurring, instances of hostile dissension and titanic rebellion among the celestial powers; so that עשׂה שׁלום, therefore, is intended not merely of a harmonizing reconciliation among creatures which have been contending one against another, but of an actual restoration of the equilibrium that had been disturbed through self-will, by an act of mediation and the exercise of judicial authority on the part of God.

Verse 3

Instead of the appellation מרומיו, which reminds one of Isa 24:21, - where a like peacemaking act of judgment on the part of God is promised in reference to the spirit-host of the heights that have been working seductively among the nations on earth, - גּדוּדיו, of similar meaning to צבאיו, used elsewhere, occurs in this verse. The stars, according to biblical representation, are like an army arrayed for battle, but not as after the Persian representation - as an army divided into troops of the Ahuramazdâ and Angramainyus (Ahriman), but a standing army of the children of light, clad in the armour of light, under the guidance of the one God the Creator (Isa 40:26, comp. the anti-dualistic assertion in Isa 45:7). The one God is the Lord among these numberless legions, who commands their reverence, and maintains unity among them; and over whom does not His light arise? Umbr. explains: who does not His light, which He communicates to the hosts of heaven, vanquish (קוּם על in the usual warlike meaning: to rise against any one); but this is a thought that is devoid of purpose in this connection. אורהו with the emphatic suff. êhu (as Job 24:23, עיניהוּ) at any rate refers directly to God: His light in distinction from the derived light of the hosts of heaven. This distinction is better brought out if we interpret (Merc., Hirz., Hahn, Schlottm., and others): over whom does (would) not His light arise? i.e., all receive their light from His, and do but reflect it back. But יקוּם = יזרח cannot be justified by Job 11:17. Therefore we interpret with Ew. and Hlgst. thus: whom does not His light surpass, or, literally, over whom (i.e., which of these beings of light) does it not rise, leaving it behind and exceeding it in brightness (יקוּם as synon. of ירוּם)? How then could a mortal be just with God, i.e., at His side or standing up before Him; and how could one of woman born be spotless! How could he (which is hereby indirectly said) enter into a controversy with God, who is infinitely exalted above him, and maintain before Him a moral character faultless, and therefore absolutely free from condemnation! In the heights of heaven God's decision is revered; and should man, the feeble one, and born flesh of flesh (vid., Job 14:1), dare to contend with God? Behold, עד־ירח (עד, as usually when preceded by a negation, adeo, ne ... quidem, e.g., Exo 14:28, comp. Nah 1:10, where J. H. Michaelis correctly renders: adeo up spinas perplexitate aequent, and אל used in the same way, Job 5:5, Ew. §219, c), even as to the moon, it does not (ולא with Waw apod., Ges. §145, 2, although there is a reading לא without ו) shine bright, יאחיל = יהל, from אהל = הלל.^[20]
Thus lxx, Targ. Jer., and Gecatilia translate; whereas Saadia translates: it turns not in (Arab. lâ ydchl), or properly, it does not pitch its tent, fix its habitation. But to pitch one's tent is אהל or אהל, whence יהל, Isa 13:20, = יאהל; and what is still more decisive, one would naturally expect יאהיל שׁם in connection with this thought. We therefore render אהל as a form for once boldly used in the scriptural language for הלל, as in Isa 28:28 אדשׁ once occurs for דּוּשׁ. Even the moon is only a feeble light before God, and the stars are not clean in His eyes; there is a vast distance between Him and His highest and most glorious creatures - how much more between Him and man, the worm of the dust!
The friends, as was to be expected, are unable to furnish any solution of the mystery, why the ungodly often live and die happily; and yet they ought to be able to give this solution, if the language which they employ against Job were authorized. Bildad alone speaks in the above speech, Zophar is silent. But Bildad does not utter a word that affects the question. This designed omission shows the inability of the friends to solve it, as much as the tenacity with which they firmly maintain their dogma; and the breach that has been made in it, either they will not perceive or yet not acknowledge, because they think that thereby they are approaching too near to the honour of God. Moreover, it must be observed with what delicate tact, and how directly to the purpose in the structure of the whole, this short speech of Bildad's closes the opposition of the friends. Two things are manifest from this last speech of the friends: First, that they know nothing new to bring forward against Job, and nothing just to Job's advantage; that all their darts bound back from Job; and that, though not according to their judgment, yet in reality, they are beaten. This is evident from the fact that Bildad is unable to give any answer to Job's questions, but can only take up the one idea in Job's speech, that he confidently and boldly thinks of being able to approach God's throne of judgment; he repeats with slight variation what Eliphaz has said twice already, concerning the infinite distance between man and God, Job 4:17-21; Job 15:14-16, and is not even denied by Job himself, Job 9:2; Job 14:4. But, secondly, the poet cannot allow us to part from the friends with too great repugnance; for they are Job's friends notwithstanding, and at the close we see them willingly obedient to God's instruction, to go to Job that he may pray for them and make sacrifice on their behalf. For this reason he does not make Bildad at last repeat those unjust incriminations which were put prominently forward in the speech of Eliphaz, Job 22:5-11. Bildad only reminds Job of the universal sinfulness of the human race once again, without direct accusation, in order that Job may himself derive from it the admonition to humble himself; and this admonition Job really needs, for his speeches are in many ways contrary to that humility which is still the duty of sinful man, even in connection with the best justified consciousness of right thoughts and actions towards the holy God.

Chap. 26

Verses 1-4

Job 26:1-4 1 Then Job began, and said: 2 How has thou helped him that is without power,
Raised the arm that hath no strength! 3 How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom,
And fully declared the essence of the matter! 4 To whom hast thou uttered words,
And whose breath proceeded from thee?
Bildad is the person addressed, and the exclamations in Job 26:2, Job 26:3 are ironical: how thy speech contains nothing whatever that might help me, the supposedly feeble one, in conquering my affliction and my temptation; me, the supposedly ignorant one, in comprehending man's mysterious lot, and mine! ללא־כח, according to the idea, is only equivalent to כח לו (אין) לאשׁר לא, and זרוע לא־עז equivalent to זרוע בלא־עז (לא עז לו); the former is the abstr. pro concreto, the latter the genitival connection - the arm of the no-power, i.e., powerless (Ges. §152, 1). The powerless one is Job himself, not God (Merc., Schlottm.), as even the choice of the verbs, Job 26:2, Job 26:3, shows. Respecting תּוּשׁיּה, which we have translated essentiality, duration, completion, we said, on Job 5:12, that it is formed from ישׁ (vid., Pro 8:21), not directly indeed, but by means of a verb ושׁי brev a fo (ושׁה), in the signification subsistere (comp. Arab. kân, and Syriac קום);^[21] it is a Hophal-formation (like תּוּגה), and signifies, so to speak, durability, subsistentia, substantia, ὑπόστασις, so that the comparison of ושׁי with אשׁשׁ, Arab. ‘ss (whence אשׁישׁ, Arab. ası̂s, asâs, etc., fundamentum) is forced upon one, and the relationship to the Sanskrit as (asmi = εἰμὶ) can remain undecided. The observation of J. D. Michaelis^[22] to the contrary, Supplem. p. 1167: non placent in linguis ejusmodi etyma metaphysica nimis a vulgari sensu remota; philosophi in scholis ejusmodi vocabula condunt, non plebs, is removed by the consideration that תושׁיה, which out of Prov. and Job occurs only in Isa 28:29, Mich. Job 6:9, is a Chokma-word: it signifies here, as frequently, vera et realis sapientia (J. H. Michaelis). The speech of Bildad is a proof of poverty of thought, of which he himself gives the evidence. His words - such is the thought of Job 26:4 - are altogether inappropriate, inasmuch as they have no reference whatever to the chief point of Job's speech; and they are, moreover, not his own, but the suggestion of another, and that not God, but Eliphaz, from whom Bildad has borrowed the substance of his brief declamation. Since this is the meaning of Job 26:4, it might seem as though את־מי were intended to signify by whose assistance (Arnh., Hahn); but as the poet also, in Job 31:37, comp. Eze 43:10, uses הגּיד seq. acc., in the sense of explaining anything to any one, to instruct him concerning anything, it is to be interpreted: to whom hast thou divulged the words (lxx, τίνι ἀνήγγειλας ῥήματα), i.e., thinking and designing thereby to affect him?
In what follows, Job now continues the description of God's exalted rule, which Bildad had attempted, by tracing it through every department of creation; and thus proves by fact, that he is wanting neither in a recognition nor reverence of God the almighty Ruler.

Verses 5-7

Job 26:5-7 5 - The shades are put to pain
Deep under the waters and their inhabitants. 6 Sheôl is naked before him,
And the abyss hath no covering. 7 He stretched the northern sky over the emptiness;
He hung the earth upon nothing.
Bildad has extolled God's majestic, awe-inspiring rule in the heights of heaven, His immediate surrounding; Job continues the strain, and celebrates the extension of this rule, even to the depths of the lower world. The operation of the majesty of the heavenly Ruler extends even to the realm of shades; the sea with the multitude of its inhabitants forms no barrier between God and the realm of shades; the marrowless, bloodless phantoms or shades below writhe like a woman in travail as often as this majesty is felt by them, as, perhaps, by the raging of the sea or the quaking of the earth. On רפאים, which also occurs in Phoenician inscriptions, vid., Psychol. S. 409; the book of Job corresponds with Psa 88:11 in the use of this appellation. The sing. is not רפאי (whence רפאים, as the name of a people), but רפא (רפה), which signifies both giants or heroes of colossal stature (from רפה = Arab. rafu‛a, to be high), and the relaxed (from רפה, to be loose, like Arab. rafa'a, to soften, to soothe), i.e., those who are bodiless in the state after death (comp. חלּה, Isa 14:10, to be weakened, i.e., placed in the condition of a rapha). It is a question whether יחוללוּ be Pilel (Ges.) or Pulal (Olsh.); the Pul., indeed, signifies elsewhere to be brought forth with writing (Job 15:7); it can, however, just as well signify to be put in pain. On account of the reference implied in it to a higher causation here at the commencement of the speech, the Pul. is more appropriate than the Pil.; and the pausal â, which is often found elsewhere with Hithpael (Hithpal.), Psa 88:14; Job 33:5, but never with Piel (Pil.), proves that the form is intended to be regarded as passive.

Verse 6

Job 26:6 שׁאול is seemingly used as fem., as in Isa 14:9; but in reality the adj. precedes in the primitive form, without being changed by the gender of שׁאול. אבדּון alternates with שׁאול, like קבר in Psa 88:12. As Psa 139:8 testifies to the presence of God in Sheôl, so here Job (comp. Job 38:17, and especially Pro 15:11) that Sheôl is present to God, that He possesses a knowledge which extends into the depths of the realm of the dead, before whom all things are γυμνὰ καὶ τετραχηλισμένα (Heb 4:13). The following partt., Job 26:7, depending logically upon the chief subject which precedes, are to be determined according to Job 25:2; they are conceived as present, and indeed of God's primeval act of creation, but intended of the acts which continue by virtue of His creative power.

Verse 7

By צפון many modern expositors understand the northern part of the earth, where the highest mountains and rocks rise aloft (accordingly, in Isa 14:13, ירכתי צפון are mentioned parallel with the starry heights), and consequently the earth is the heaviest (Hirz., Ew., Hlgst., Welte, Schlottm., and others). But (1) it is not probable that the poet would first have mentioned the northern part of the earth, and then in Job 26:7 the earth itself - first the part, and then the whole; (2) נטה is never said of the earth, always of the heavens, for the expansion of which it is the stereotype word (נטה, Job 9:8; Isa 40:22; Isa 44:24; Isa 51:13; Zec 14:1; Psa 104:2; נוטיהם, Isa 42:5; נטה, Jer 10:12; Jer 51:15; ידי נטו, Isa 45:12); (3) one expects some mention of the sky in connection with the mention of the earth; and thus is צפון,^[23] with Rosenm., Ges., Umbr., Vaih., Hahn, and Olsh., to be understood of the northern sky, which is prominently mentioned, because there is the pole of the vault of heaven, which is marked by the Pole-star, there the constellation of the greater Bear (עשׁ, Job 9:9) formed by the seven bright stars, there (in the back of the bull, one of the northern constellations of the ecliptic) the group of the Pleiades (כּימה), there also, below the bull and the twins, Orion (כּסיל). On the derivation, notion, and synonyms of תּהוּ, vid., Genesis, S. 93; here (where it may be compared with the Arab. theı̂j-un, empty, and tı̂h, desert) it signifies nothing more than the unmeasurable vacuum of space, parall. בּלימה, not anything = nothing (comp. modern Arabic lâsh, or even mâsh, compounded of Arab. lâ or mâ and šâ, a thing, e.g., bilâs, for nothing, ragul mâsh, useless men). The sky which vaults the earth from the arctic pole, and the earth itself, hang free without support in space. That which is elsewhere (e.g., Job 9:6) said of the pillars and foundations of the earth, is intended of the internal support of the body of the earth, which is, as it were, fastened together by the mountains, with their roots extending into the innermost part of the earth; for the idea that the earth rests upon the bases of the mountains would be, indeed, as Löwenthal correctly observes, an absurd inversion. On the other side, we are also not justified in inferring from Job's expression the laws of the mechanism of the heavens, which were unknown to the ancients, especially the law of attraction or gravitation. The knowledge of nature on the part of the Israelitish Chokma, expressed in Job 26:7, however, remains still worthy of respect. On the ground of similar passages of the book of Job, Keppler says of the yet unsolved problems of astronomy: Haec et cetera hujusmodi latent in Pandectis aevi sequentis, non antea discenda, quam librum hunc Deus arbiter seculorum recluserit mortalibus. From the starry heavens and the earth Job turns to the celestial and sub-celestial waters.

Verses 8-10

Job 26:8-10 8 He bindeth up the waters in His clouds,
Without the clouds being rent under their burden. 9 He enshroudeth the face of His throne,
Spreading His clouds upon it. 10 He compasseth the face of the waters with bounds,
To the boundary between light and darkness.
The clouds consist of masses of water rolled together, which, if they were suddenly set free, would deluge the ground; but the omnipotence of God holds the waters together in the hollow of the clouds (צרר, Milel, according to a recognised law, although it is also found in Codd. accented as Milra, but contrary to the Masora), so that they do not burst asunder under the burden of the waters (תּחתּם); by which nothing more nor less is meant, than that the physical and meteorological laws of rain are of God's appointment. Job 26:9 describes the dark and thickly-clouded sky that showers down the rain in the appointed rainy season. אחז signifies to take hold of, in architecture to hold together by means of beams, or to fasten together (vid., Thenius on 1Ki 6:10, comp. 2Ch 9:18, מאחזים, coagmentata), then also, as usually in Chald. and Syr., to shut (by means of cross-bars, Neh 7:3), here to shut off by surrounding with clouds: He shuts off פּני־כסּה, the front of God's throne, which is turned towards the earth, so that it is hidden by storm-clouds as by a סכּה, Job 36:29; Psa 18:12. God's throne, which is here, as in 1Ki 10:19, written כּסּה instead of כּסּא (comp. Arab. cursi, of the throne of God the Judge, in distinction from Arab. ‘l-‛arš, the throne of God who rules over the world),^[24] is indeed in other respects invisible, but the cloudless blue of heaven is His reflected splendour (Exo 24:10) which is cast over the earth. God veils this His radiance which shines forth towards the earth, פּרשׁז אליו עננו, by spreading over it the clouds which are led forth by Him. פּרשׁו is commonly regarded as a Chaldaism for פּרשׁז (Ges. §56, Olsh. §276), but without any similar instance in favour of this vocalizaton of the 3 pr. Piel (Pil.). Although רענן and שׁאנן, Job 15:32; Job 3:18, have given up the i of the Pil., it has been under the influence of the following guttural; and although, moreover, i before Resh sometimes passes into a, e.g., ויּרא, it is more reliable to regard פרשז as inf. absol. (Ew. §141, c): expandendo. Ges. and others regard this פרשז as a mixed form, composed from פרשׁ and פרז; but the verb פרשׁ (with Shin) has not the signification to expand, which is assumed in connection with this derivation; it signifies to separate (also Eze 34:12, vid., Hitzig on that passage), whereas פרשׂ certainly signifies to expand (Job 36:29-30); wherefore the reading פּרשׂז (with Sin), which some Codd. give, is preferred by Bär, and in agreement with him by Luzzatto (vid., Bär's Leket zebi, p. 244), and it seems to underlie the interpretation where פרשז עליו is translated by עליו (פּרשׂ) פרש, He spreadeth over it (e.g., by Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, Ralbag). But the Talmud, b. Sabbath, 88 b (פירש שדי מזיו שכינתו ועננו עליו, the Almighty separated part of the splendour of His Shechina and His cloud, and laid it upon him, i.e., Moses, as the passage is applied in the Haggada), follows the reading פּרשׁז (with Shin), which is to be retained on account of the want of naturalness in the consonantal combination שׂז; but the word is not to be regarded as a mixed formation (although we do not deny the possibility of such forms in themselves, vid., supra, p. 468), but as an intensive form of פרשׂ formed by Prosthesis and an Arabic change of Sin into Shin, like Arab. fršḥ,fršd, fršṭ, which, being formed from Arab. frš = פּרשׂ (פּרשׂ), to expand, signifies to spread out (the legs).
Job 26:10 passes from the waters above to the lower waters. תּכלית signifies, as in Job 11:7; Job 28:3; Neh 3:21, the extremity, the extreme boundary; and the connection of תּכלית אור is genitival, as the Tarcha by the first word correctly indicates, whereas אור with Munach, the substitute for Rebia mugrasch In this instance (according to Psalter, ii. 503, §2), is a mistake. God has marked out (חן, lxx ἐγύρωσεν) a law, i.e., here according to the sense: a fixed bound (comp. Pro 8:29 with Psa 104:9), over the surface of the waters (i.e., describing a circle over them which defines their circuit) unto the extreme point of light by darkness, i.e., where the light is touched by the darkness. Most expositors (Rosenm., Hirz., Hahn, Schlottm., and others) take עד־תכלית adverbially: most accurately, and refer חג to אור as a second object, which is contrary to the usage of the language, and doubtful and unnecessary. Pareau has correctly interpreted: ad lucis usque tenebrarumque confinia; עם in the local sense, not aeque ac, although it might also have this meaning, as e.g., Ecc 2:16. The idea is, that God has appointed a fixed limit to the waters, as far as to the point at which they wash the terra firma of the extreme horizon, and where the boundary line of the realms of light and darkness is; and the basis of the expression, as Bouillier, by reference to Virgil's Georg. i. 240f., has shown, is the conception of the ancients, that the earth is surrounded by the ocean, on the other side of which the region of darkness begins.

Verses 11-13

Job 26:11-13 11 The pillars of heaven tremble
And are astonished at His threatening. 12 By His power He rouseth up the sea,
And by His understanding He breaketh Rahab in pieces. 13 By His breath the heavens become cheerful;
His hand hath formed the fugitive dragon.
The mountains towering up to the sky, which seem to support the vault of the sky, are called poetically “the pillars of heaven.” ירופפוּ is Pulal, like יחוללוּ, Job 26:5; the signification of violent and quick motion backwards and forwards is secured to the verb רוּף by the Targ. אתרופף = התפּלּץ, Job 9:6, and the Talm. רפרף of churned milk, blinding eyes (comp. הרף עין, the twinkling of the eye, and Arab. rff, fut. i. o. nictare), flapping wings (comp. Arab. rff and rfrf, movere, motitare alas), of wavering thinking. גּערה is the divine command which looses or binds the powers of nature; the astonishment of the supports of heaven is, according to the radical signification of תּמהּ (cogn. שׁמם), to be conceived of as a torpidity which follows the divine impulse, without offering any resistance whatever. That רגע, Job 26:12, is to be understood transitively, not like Job 7:5, intransitively, is proved by the dependent (borrowed) passages, Isa 51:15; Jer 31:35, from which it is also evident that רגע cannot with the lxx be translated κατέπαυσεν. The verb combines in itself the opposite significations of starting up, i.e., entering into an excited state, and of being startled, from which the significations of stilling (Niph., Hiph.), and of standing back or retreat (Arab. rj‛), branch off. The conjecture גּער after the Syriac version (which translates, go‛ar bejamo) is superfluous. רהב, which here also is translated by the lxx τὸ κῆτος, has been discussed already on Job 9:13. It is not meant of the turbulence of the sea, to which מחץ is not appropriate, but of a sea monster, which, like the crocodile and the dragon, are become an emblem of Pharaoh and his power, as Isa 51:9. has applied this primary passage: the writer of the book of Job purposely abstains from such references to the history of Israel. Without doubt, רהב denotes a demoniacal monster, like the demons that shall be destroyed at the end of the world, one of which is called by the Persians akomano, evil thought, another taromaiti, pride. This view is supported by Job 26:13, where one is not at liberty to determine the meaning by Isa 51:9, and to understand נחשׁ בּרח, like תּנּין in that passage, of Egypt. But this dependent passage is an important indication for the correct rendering of חללה. One thing is certain at the outset, that שׁפרה is not perf. Piel = שׁפרה, and for this reason, that the Dagesh which characterizes Piel cannot be omitted from any of the six mutae; the translation of Jerome, spiritus ejus ornavit coelos, and all similar ones, are therefore false. But it is possible to translate: “by His spirit (creative spirit) the heavens are beauty, His hand has formed the flying dragon.” Thus, in the signification to bring forth (as Pro 25:23; Pro 8:24.), חללה is rendered by Rosenm., Arnh., Vaih., Welte, Renan, and others, of whom Vaih. and Renan, however, do not understand Job 26:13 of the creation of the heavens, but of their illumination. By this rendering Job 26:13 and Job 26:13 are severed, as being without connection; in general, however, the course of thought in the description does not favour the reference of the whole of half of Job 26:13 to the creation. Accordingly, חללה is not to be taken as Pilel from חול (ליל), but after Isa 57:9, as Poel from חלל, according to which the idea of Job 26:13 is determined, since both lines of the verse are most closely connected. (בּריח) נחשׁ בּרח is, to wit, the constellation of the Dragon,^[25] one of the most straggling constellations, which winds itself between the Greater and Lesser Bears almost half through the polar circle.
“Maximus hic plexu sinuoso elabitur AnguisCircum perque duas in morem fluminis Arctos.” (Virgil, Georg. i. 244f.)
Aratus in Cicero, de nat. Deorum, ii. 42, describes it more graphically, both in general, and in regard to the many stars of different magnitudes which form its body from head to tail. Among the Arabs it is called el-hajje, the serpent, e.g., in Firuzabâdi: the hajje is a constellation between the Lesser Bear (farqadân, the two calves) and the Greater Bear (benât en-na‛sch, the daughters of the bier), “or et-tanı̂n, the dragon, e.g., in one of the authors quoted by Hyde on Ulugh Beigh's Tables of the Stars, p. 18: the tanîn lies round about the north pole in the form of a long serpent, with many bends and windings.” Thus far the testimony of the old expositors is found in Rosenmüller. The Hebrew name תּלי (the quiver) is perhaps to be distinguished from טלי and דּלי, the Zodiac constellations Aries and Aquarius.^[26]
It is questionable how בּרח is to be understood. The lxx translates δράκοντα ἀποστάτην in this passage, which is certainly incorrect, since בריח beside נחשׁ may naturally be assumed to be an attributive word referring to the motion or form of the serpent. Accordingly, Isa 27:1, ὄφιν φείγοντα is more correct, where the Syr. version is חויא חרמנא, the fierce serpent, which is devoid of support in the language; in the passage before us the Syr. also has חויא דערק, the fleeing serpent, but this translation does not satisfy the more neuter signification of the adjective. Aquila in Isaiah translates ὄφιν μόχλον, as Jerome translates the same passage serpentem vectem (whereas he translates coluber tortuosus in our passage), as though it were בּריח; Symm. is better, and without doubt a substantially similar thought, ὄφιν συγκλείοντα, the serpent that joins by a bolt, which agrees with the traditional Jewish explanation, for the dragon in Aben-Ezra and Kimchi (in Lex.) - after the example of the learned Babylonian teacher of astronomy, Mar-Samuel (died 257), who says of himself that the paths of the heavens are as familiar to him as the places of Nehardea^[27] - is called נחשׁ עקלתון, because it is as though it were wounded, and בריח, because it forms a bar (מבריח) from one end of the sky to the other; or as Sabbatai Donolo (about 94), the Italian astronomer,^[28] expresses it: “When God created the two lights (the sun and moon) and the five stars (planets) and the twelve מזלור (the constellations of the Zodiac), He also created the תלי (dragon), to unite these heavenly bodies as by a weaver's beam (מנור אורגים), and made it stretch itself on the firmament from one end to another as a bar (כבריח), like a wounded serpent furnished with the head and tail.” By this explanation בּריח is either taken directly as בּריח, vectis, in which signification it does not, however, occur elsewhere, or the signification transversus (transversarius) is assigned to the בּריח (= barrı̂ah) with an unchangeable Kametz, - a signification which it might have, for brch Arab. brḥ signifies properly to go through, to go slanting across, of which the meanings to unite slanting and to slip away are only variations. בּריח, notwithstanding, has in the language, so far as it is preserved to us, everywhere the signification fugitivus, and we will also keep to this: the dragon in the heavens is so called, as having the appearance of fleeing and hastening away. But in what sense is it said of God, that He pierces or slays it? In Isa 51:9, where the תנין is the emblem of Egypt (Pharaoh), and Isa 27:1, where נחשׁ בריח is the emblem of Assyria, the empire of the Tigris, the idea of destruction by the sword of Jehovah is clear. The present passage is to be explained according to Job 3:8, where לויתן is only another name for נחש בריח (comp. Isa 27:1). It is the dragon in the heavens which produces the eclipse of the sun, by winding itself round about the sun; and God must continually wound it anew, and thus weaken it, if the sun is to be set free again. That it is God who disperses the clouds of heaven by the breath of His spirit, the representative of which in the elements is the wind, so that the azure becomes visible again; and that it is He who causes the darkening of the sun to cease, so that the earth can again rejoice in the full brightness of that great light, - these two contemplations of the almighty working of God in nature are so expressed by the poet, that he clothes the second in the mythological garb of the popular conception.
In the closing words which now follow, Job concludes his illustrative description: it must indeed, notwithstanding, come infinitely short of the reality.

Verse 14

Job 26:14 14 Behold, these are the edges of His ways,
And how do we hear only a whisper thereof!
But the thunder of His might - who comprehendeth it?
These (אלּה retrospective, as in Job 18:21) are only קצות, the extremest end-points or outlines of the ways of God, which Job has depicted; the wondrous fulness of His might, which extends through the whole creation, transcends human comprehension; it is only שׁמץ דּבר therefrom that becomes audible to us men. שׁמץ (שׁמץ) is translated by Symm. here ψιθύρισμα, Job 4:12, ψιτηυρισμός; the Arab. šamiṣa (to speak very quickly, mutter) confirms this idea of the word; Jerome's translation, vix. parvam stillam sermonis ejus (comp. Job 4:12, venas, tropical for parts), is doubly erroneous: the rendering of the שׁמץ has the antithesis of רעם against it, and דּבר is not to be understood here otherwise than in ערות דּבר, Deu 23:15; Deu 24:1 : shame of something = something that excites a feeling of shame, a whisper of something = some whisper. The notion “somewhat,” which the old expositors attribute to שׁמץ, lies therefore in דבר. מה is exclamatory in a similar manner as in Psa 89:48 : how we hear (נשׁמע, not נשׁמע) only some whisper thereof (בּו partitive, as e.g., Isa 10:22), i.e., how little therefrom is audible to us, only as the murmur of a word, not loud and distinct, which reaches us!
As in the speech of Bildad the poet makes the opposition of the friends to fade away and cease altogether, as incapable of any further counsel, and hence as conquered, so in Job's closing speech, which consists of three parts, Job 26:1, Job 27:1, Job 29:1, he shows how Job in every respect, as victor, maintains the field against the friends. The friends have neither been able to loose the knot of Job's lot of suffering, nor the universal distribution of prosperity and misfortune. Instead of loosing the knot of Job's lot of suffering, they have cut it, by adding to Job's heavy affliction the invention of heinous guilt as its ground of explanation; and the knot of the contradictions of human life in general with divine justice they have ignored, in order that they may not be compelled to abandon their dogma, that suffering everywhere necessarily presupposes sin, and sin is everywhere necessarily followed by suffering. Even Job, indeed, is not at present able to solve either one or other of the mysteries; but while the friends' treatment of these mysteries is untrue, he honours the truth, and keenly perceives that which is mysterious. Then he proves by testimony and an appeal to facts, that the mystery may be acknowledged without therefore being compelled to abandon the fear of God. Job firmly holds to the objective reality and the testimony of his consciousness; in the fear of God he places himself above all those contradictions which are unsolvable by and perplexing to human reason; his faith triumphs over the rationalism of the friends, which is devoid of truth, of justice, and of love.
Job first answers Bildad, Job 26:1. He characterizes his poor reply as what it is: as useless, and not pertinent in regard to the questions before them: it is of no service to him, it does not affect him, and is, moreover, a borrowed weapon. For he also is conscious of and can praise God's exalted and awe-inspiring majesty. He has already shown this twice, Job 9:4-10; Job 12:13-25, and shows here for the third time: its operation is not confined merely to those creatures that immediately surround God in the heavens; it extends, without being restrained by the sea, even down to the lower world; and as it makes the angels above to tremble, so there it sets the shades in consternation. From the lower world, Job's contemplation rises to the earth, as a body suspended in space without support; to the clouds above, which contain the upper waters without bursting, and veil the divine throne, of which the sapphire blue of heaven is the reflection; and then he speaks of the sea lying between Sheôl and heaven, which is confined within fixed bounds, at the extreme boundaries of which light passes over into darkness; he celebrates all this as proof of the creative might of God. Then he describes the sovereign power of God in the realm of His creation, how He shakes the pillars of heaven, rouses the sea, breaks the monster in pieces, lights up the heavens by chasing away the clouds and piercing the serpent, and thus setting free the sun. But all these - thus he closes - are only meagre outlines of the divine rule, only a faint whisper, which is heard by us as coming from the far distance. Who has the comprehension necessary to take in and speak exhaustively of all the wonders of His infinite nature, which extends throughout the whole creation? From such a profound recognition and so glorious a description of the exaltation of God, the infinite distance between God and man is most clearly proved. Job has adequately shown that his whole soul is full of that which Bildad is anxious to teach him; a soul that only requires a slight impulse to make it overflow with such praise of God, as is not wanting in an universal perception of God, nor is it full of wicked devices. When therefore Bildad maintains against Job that no man is righteous before such an exalted God, Job ought indeed to take it as a warning against such unbecoming utterances concerning God as those which have escaped him; but the universal sinfulness of man is no ground of explanation for his sufferings, for there is a righteousness which avails before God; and of this, job, the suffering servant of God, has a consciousness that cannot be shaken.

Chap. 27

Verses 1-7

Job 27:1-7 1 Then Job continued to take up his proverb, and said: 2 As God liveth, who hath deprived me of my right,
And the Almighty, who hath sorely saddened my soul - 3 For still all my breath is in me,
And the breath of Eloah in my nostrils - 4 My lips do not speak what is false,
And my tongue uttereth not deceit! 5 Far be it from me, to grant that you are in the right:
Till I die I will not remove my innocence from me. 6 My righteousness I hold fast, and let it not go:
My heart reproacheth not any of my days. 7 Mine enemy must appear as an evil-doer,
And he who riseth up against me as unrighteous.
The friends are silent, Job remains master of the discourse, and his continued speech is introduced as a continued שׂאת משׁלו (after the analogy of the phrase נשׂא קול), as in Num 23:7 and further on, the oracles of Balaam. משׁל is speech of a more elevated tone and more figurative character; here, as frequently, the unaffected outgrowth of an elevated solemn mood. The introduction of the ultimatum, as משׁל, reminds one of “the proverb (el-methel) seals it” in the mouth of the Arab, since in common life it is customary to use a pithy saying as the final proof at the conclusion of a speech.
Job begins with an asseveration of his truthfulness (i.e., the agreement of his confession with his consciousness) by the life of God. From this oath, which in the form bi-hajât allâh has become later on a common formula of assurance, R. Joshua, in his tractate Sota, infers that Job served God from love to Him, for we only swear by the life of that which we honour and love; it is more natural to conclude that the God by whom on the one hand, he believes himself to be so unjustly treated, still appears to him, on the other hand, to be the highest manifestation of truth. The interjectional clause: living is God! is equivalent to, as true as God liveth. That which is affirmed is not what immediately follows: He has set aside my right, and the Almighty has sorely grieved my soul (Raschi); but הסיר משׁפטי and המר נפשׁי are attributive clauses, by which what is denied in the form of an oath introduced by אם (as Gen 42:15; 1Sa 14:45; 2Sa 11:11, Ges. §155, 2, f) is contained in Job 27:4; his special reference to the false semblance of an evil-doer shows that semblance which suffering casts upon him, but which he constantly repudiates as surely not lying, as that God liveth. Among moderns, Schlottm. (comp. Ges. §150, 3), like most of the old expositors, translates: so long as my breath is in me,...my lips shall speak no wrong, so that Job 27:3 and Job 27:4 together contain what is affirmed. By (1) כּי indeed sometimes introduces that which shall happen as affirmed by oath, Jer 22:5; Jer 49:13; but here that which shall not take place is affirmed, which would be introduced first in a general form by כּי explic. s. recitativum, then according to its special negative contents by אם, - a construction which is perhaps possible according to syntax, but it is nevertheless perplexing; (2) it may perhaps be thought that “the whole continuance of my breath in me” is conceived as accusative and adverbial, and is equivalent to, so long as my breath may remain in me (כל עוד, as long as ever, like the Arab. cullama, as often as ever); but the usage of the language does not favour this explanation, for 2Sa 1:9, נפשׁי בי כל־עוד, signifies my whole soul (my full life) is still in me; and we have a third instance of this prominently placed כל per hypallagen in Hos 14:3, עון כל־תשׂא, omnem auferas iniquitatem, Ew. §289, a (comp. Ges. §114, rem. 1). Accordingly, with Ew., Hirz., Hahn, and most modern expositors, we take Job 27:3 as a parenthetical confirmatory clause, by which Job gives the ground of his solemn affirmation that he is still in possession of his full consciousness, and cannot help feeling and expressing the contradiction between his lot of suffering, which brand shim as an evil-doer, and his moral integrity. The נשׁמתי which precedes the רוח signifies, according to the prevailing usage of the language, the intellectual, and therefore self-conscious, soul of man (Psychol. S. 76f.). This is in man and in his nostrils, inasmuch as the breath which passes in and out by these is the outward and visible form of its being, which is in every respect the condition of life (ib. S. 82f.). The suff. of נשׁמתי is unaccented; on account of the word which follows being a monosyllable, the tone has retreated (נסוג אחור, to use a technical grammatical expression), as e.g., also in Job 19:25; Job 20:2; Psa 22:20. Because he lives, and, living, cannot deny his own existence, he swears that his own testimony, which is suspected by the friends, and on account of which they charge him with falsehood, is perfect truth.
Job 27:4 is not to be translated: “my lips shall never speak what is false;” for it is not a resolve which Job thus strongly makes, after the manner of a vow, but the agreement of his confession, which he has now so frequently made, and which remains unalterable, with the abiding fact. Far be from me - he continues in Job 27:5 - to admit that you are right (חלילה לּי with unaccented ah, not of the fem., comp. Job 34:10, but of direction: for a profanation to me, i.e., let it be profane to me, Ew. §329, a, Arab. hâshâ li, in the like sense); until I expire (prop.: sink together), I will not put my innocence (תּמּה, perfection, in the sense of purity of character) away from me, i.e., I will not cease from asserting it. I will hold fast (as ever) my righteousness, and leave it not, i.e., let it not go or fall away; my heart does not reproach even one of my days. מיּמי is virtually an obj. in a partitive sense: mon coeur ne me reproche pas un seul de mes jours (Renan). The heart is used here as the seat of the conscience, which is the knowledge possessed by the heart, by which it excuses or accuses a man (Psychol. S. 134); חרף (whence חרף, the season in which the fruits are gathered) signifies carpere, to pluck = to pinch, lash, inveigh against. Jos. Kimchi and Ralbag explain: my heart draws not back) from the confession of my innocence) my whole life long (as Maimonides explains נחרפת, Lev 19:20, of the female slave who is inclined to, i.e., stands near to, the position of a free woman), by comparison with the Arabic inḥarafa, deflectere; it is not, however, Arab. ḥrf, but chrf, decerpere, that is to be compared in the tropical sense of the prevailing usage of the Hebrew specified. The old expositors were all misled by the misunderstood partitive מימי, which they translated ex (= inde a) diebus meis. There is in Job 27:7 no ground for taking יהי, with Hahn, as a strong affirmative, as supposed in Job 18:12, and not as expressive of desire; but the meaning is not: let my opponents be evil-doers, I at least am not one (Hirz.). The voluntative expresses far more emotion: the relation must be reversed; he who will brand me as an evil-doer, must by that very act brand himself as such, inasmuch as the מרשׁיע of a צדיק really shows himself to be a רשׁע, and by recklessly judging the righteous, is bringing down upon himself a like well-merited judgment. The כּ is the so-called Caph veritatis, since כּ, instar, signifies not only similarity, but also quality. Instead of קימי, the less manageable, primitive form, which the poet used in Job 22:20 (comp. p. 483), and beside which קם (קום, 2Ki 16:7) does not occur in the book, we here find the more usual form מתקוממי (comp. Job 20:27).^[29]
The description of the misfortune of the ungodly which now follows, beginning with כי, requires no connecting thought, as for instance: My enemy must be accounted as ungodly, on account of his hostility; I abhor ungodliness, for, etc.; but that he who regards him as a רשׁע is himself a רשׁע, Job shows from the fact of the רשׁע having no hope in death, whilst, when dying, he can give no confident hope of a divine vindication of his innocence.

Verses 8-12

Job 27:8-12 8 For what is the hope of the godless, when He cutteth off,
When Eloah taketh away his soul? 9 Will God hear his cry
When distress cometh upon him? 10 Or can he delight himself in the Almighty,
Can he call upon Eloah at all times? 11 I will teach you concerning the hand of God,
I will not conceal the dealings of the Almighty. 12 Behold, ye have all seen it,
Why then do ye cherish foolish notions?
In comparing himself with the רשׁע, Job is conscious that he has a God who does not leave him unheard, in whom he delights himself, and to whom he can at all times draw near; as, in fact, Job's fellowship with God rests upon the freedom of the most intimate confidence. He is not one of the godless; for what is the hope of one who is estranged from God, when he comes to die? He has no God on whom his hope might establish itself, to whom it could cling. The old expositors err in many ways respecting Job 27:8, by taking בצע, abscindere (root בץ), in the sense of (opes) corradere (thus also more recently Rosenm. after the Targ., Syr., and Jer.), and referring ישׁל to שׁלה in the signification tranquillum esse (thus even Blumenfeld after Ralbag and others). נפשׁו is the object to both verbs, and בצע נפשׁ, abscindere animam, to cut off the thread of life, is to be explained according to Job 6:9; Isa 38:12. שׁלח נפשׁ, extrahere animam (from שׁלה, whence שׁליח Arab. salan, the after-birth, cogn. שׁלל . Arab. sll, נשׁל Arab. nsl, nṯl, nšl), is of similar signification, according to another figure, wince the body is conceived of as the sheath (נדנה, Dan 7:15) of the soul^[30] (comp. Arab. sll in the universal signification evaginare ensem). The fut. apoc. Kal ישׁל (= ישׁל) is therefore in meaning equivalent to the intrans. ישּׁל, Deu 28:40 (according to Ew. §235, c, obtained from this by change of vowel), decidere; and Schnurrer's supposition that ישׁל, like the Arab. ysl, is equivalent to ישׁאל (when God demands it), or such a violent correction as De Lagarde's^[31] (when he is in distress יצק, when one demeans his soul with a curse ישּׁאל בּאלה), is unnecessary.
The ungodly man, Job goes on to say, has no God to hear his cry when distress comes upon him; he cannot delight himself (יתענּג, pausal form of יתענג, the primary form of יתענג) in the Almighty; he cannot call upon Eloah at any time (i.e., in the manifold circumstances of life under which we are called to feel the dependence of our nature). Torn away from God, he cannot be heard, he cannot indeed pray and find any consolation in God. It is most clearly manifest here, since Job compares his condition of suffering with that of a חנף, what comfort, what power of endurance, yea, what spiritual joy in the midst of suffering (התענג, as Job 22:26; Psa 37:4, Psa 37:11; Isa 55:2; Isa 58:13), which must all remain unknown to the ungodly, he can draw from his fellowship with God; and seizing the very root of the distinction between the man who fears God and one who is utterly godless, his view of the outward appearance of the misfortune of both becomes changed; and after having allowed himself hitherto to be driven from one extreme to another by the friends, as the heat of the controversy gradually cools down, and as, regaining his independence, he stands before them as their teacher, he now experiences the truth of docendo discimus in rich abundance. I will instruct you, says he, in the hand, i.e., the mode of action, of God (בּ just as in Psa 25:8, Psa 25:12; Psa 32:8; Pro 4:11, of the province and subject of instruction); I will not conceal עם־שׁדּי אשׁר, i.e., according to the sense of the passage: what are the principles upon which He acts; for that which is with (אם) any one is the matter of his consciousness and volition (vid., on Job 23:10).Job 27:12 is of the greatest importance in the right interpretation of what follows from Job 27:13 onwards. The instruction which Job desires to impart to the friends has reference to the lot of the evil-doer; and when he says: Behold, ye yourselves have beheld (learnt) it all, - in connection with which it is to be observed that אתּם כּלּכם does not signify merely vos omnes, but vosmet ipsi omnes, - he grants to them what he appeared hitherto to deny, that the lot of the evil-doer, certainly in the rule, although not without exceptions, is such as they have said. The application, however, which they have made of this abiding fact of experience, as and remains all the more false: Wherefore then (זה makes the question sharper) are ye vain (blinded) in vanity (self-delusion), viz., in reference to me, who do not so completely bear about the characteristic marks of a רשׁע? The verb הבל signifies to think and act vainly (without ground or connection), 2Ki 17:15 (comp. ἐματαιώθησαν, Rom 1:21); the combination הבל הבל is not to be judged of according to Ges. §138, rem. 1, as it is also by Ew. §281, a, but הבל may also be taken as the representative of the gerund, as e.g., עריה, Hab 3:9.
In the following strophe (Job 27:13) Job now begins as Zophar (Job 20:29) concluded. He gives back to the friends the doctrine they have fully imparted to him. They have held the lot of the evil-doer before him as a mirror, that he may behold himself in it and be astounded; he holds it before them, that they may perceive how not only his bearing under suffering, but also the form of his affliction, is of a totally different kind.

Verses 13-18

Job 27:13-18 13 This is the lot of the wicked man with God,
And the heritage of the violent which they receive from the Almighty: 14 If his children multiply, it is for the sword,
And his offspring have not bread enough. 15 His survivors shall be buried by the pestilence,
And his widows shall not weep. 16 If he heapeth silver together as dust,
And prepareth garments for himself as mire: 17 He prepareth it, and the righteous clothe themselves,
And the innocent divide the silver among themselves. 18 He hath built as a moth his house,
And as a hut that a watchman setteth up.
We have already had the combination אדם רשׁע for אישׁ רשׁע in Job 20:29; it is a favourite expression in Proverbs, and reminds one of ἄνθρωπος ὁδίτης in Homer, and ἄνθρωπος σπείρωϚ, ἐχθρός, ἔμπορος, in the parables Matt 13. Psik (Pasek) stands under רשׁע, to separate the wicked man and God, as in Pro 15:29 (Norzi). למו, exclusively peculiar to the book of Job in the Old Testament (here and Job 29:21; Job 38:40; Job 40:4), is ל rendered capable of an independent position by means of מו = מה, Arab. mâ. The sword, famine, and pestilence are the three punishing powers by which the evil-doer's posterity, however numerous it may be, is blotted out; these three, חרב, רעב, and מות, appear also side by side in Jer 15:2; מות, instead of ממותי, diris mortibus, is (as also Jer 18:21) equivalent to דּבר in the same trio, Jer 14:12; the plague is personified (as when it is called by an Arabian poet umm el-farit, the mother of death), and Vavassor correctly observes: Mors illos sua sepeliet, nihil praeterea honoris supremi consecuturos. Böttcher (de inferis, §72) asserts that במות can only signify pestilentiae tempore, or better, ipso mortis momento; but since בּ occurs by the passive elsewhere in the sense of ab or per, e.g., Num 36:2; Hos 14:4, it can also by נקבר denote the efficient cause. Olshausen's correction במות לא יקברו, they will not be buried when dead (Jer 16:4), is still less required; “to be buried by the pestilence” is equivalent to, not to be interred with the usual solemnities, but to be buried as hastily as possible.Job 27:15 (common to our poet and the psalm of Asaph, 78:64, which likewise belongs to the Salomonic age) is also to be correspondingly interpreted: the women that he leaves behind do not celebrate the usual mourning rites (comp. Gen 23:2), because the decreed punishment which, stroke after stroke, deprives them of husbands and children, prevents all observance of the customs of mourning, and because the shock stifles the feeling of pity. The treasure in gold which his avarice has heaped up, and in garments which his love of display has gathered together, come into the possession of the righteous and the innocent, who are spared when these three powers of judgment sweep away the evil-doer and his family. Dust and dirt (i.e., of the streets, חוצות) are, as in Zec 9:3, the emblem of a great abundance that depreciates even that which is valuable. The house of the ungodly man, though a palace, is, as the fate of the fabric shows, as brittle and perishable a thing, and can be as easily destroyed, as the fine spinning of a moth, עשׁ (according to the Jewish proverb, the brother of the סס), or even the small case which it makes from remnants of gnawed articles, and drags about with it; it is like a light hut, perhaps for the watchman of a vineyard (Isa 1:8), which is put together only for the season during which the grapes are ripening.^[32]

Verses 19-23

Job 27:19-23 19 He lieth down rich, and doeth it not again,
He openeth his eyes and-is no more. 20 Terrors take hold of him as a flood;
By night a tempest stealeth him away. 21 The east wind lifteth him up, that he departeth,
And hurleth him forth from his place. 22 God casteth upon him without sparing,
Before His hand he fleeth utterly away. 23 They clap their hands at him,
And hiss him away from his place.
The pointing of the text ולא יאסף is explained by Schnurr., Umbr., and Stick.: He goes rich to bed and nothing is taken as yet, he opens his eyes and nothing more is there; but if this were the thought intended, it ought at least to have been ואין נאסף, since לא signifies non, not nihil; and Stickel's translation, “while nothing is carried away,” makes the fut. instead of the praet., which was to be expected, none the more tolerable; also אסף can indeed signify to gather hastily together, to take away (e.g., Isa 33:4), when the connection favours it, but not here, where the first impression is that רשׁע is the subj. both to ולא יאסף and to ואיננו. Böttcher's translation, “He lieth down rich and cannot be displaced,” gives the words a meaning that is ridiculed by the usage of the language. On the other hand, ולא יאסף can signify: and he is not conveyed away (comp. e.g., Jer 8:2; Eze 29:5; but not Isa 57:1, where it signifies to be swept away, and also not Num 20:26, where it signifies to be gathered to the fathers), and is probably intended to be explained after the pointing that we have, as Rosenm. and even Ralbag explain it: “he is not conveyed away; one opens his eyes and he is not;” or even as Schlottm.: “he is not conveyed away; in one moment he still looks about him, in the next he is no more;” but the relation of the two parts of the verse in this interpretation is unsatisfactory, and the preceding strophe has already referred to his not being buried. Since, therefore, only an unsuitable, and what is more, a badly-expressed thought, is gained by this reading, it may be that the expression should be regarded with Hahn as interrogative: is he not swept away? This, however, is only a makeshift, and therefore we must see whether it may not perhaps be susceptible of another pointing. Jerome transl.: dives cum dormierit, nihil secum auferet; the thought is not bad, but מאוּמה is wanting, and לא alone does not signify nihil. Better lxx (Ital., Syr.): πλούσιος κοιμηθήσεται καὶ ου ̓ προσθήσει. This translation follows the form of reading יאסף = יוסיף, gives a suitable sense, places both parts of the verse in the right relation, and accords with the style of the poet (vid., Job 20:9; Job 40:5); and accordingly, with Ew., Hirz., and Hlgst., we decide in favour of this reading: he lieth down to sleep rich, and he doeth it no more, since in the night he is removed from life and also from riches by sudden death; or also: in the morning he openeth his eyes without imagining it is the last time, for, overwhelmed by sudden death, he closes them for ever. Job 27:20 and Job 27:20 are attached crosswise (chiastisch) to this picture of sudden destruction, be it by night or by day: the terrors of death seize him (sing. fem. with a plur. subj. following it, according to Ges. §146, 3) like a flood (comp. the floods of Belial, Psa 18:5), by night a whirlwind (גּנבתּוּ סוּפה, as Job 21:18) carrieth him away. The Syriac and Arabic versions add, as a sort of interpolation: as a fluttering (large white) night-moth, - an addition which no one can consider beautiful.
Job 27:21 extends the figure of the whirlwind. In Hebrew, even when the narrative has reference to Egyptian matters (Gen 41:23), the קדים which comes from the Arabian desert is the destructive, devastating, and parching wind κατ ̓ εξοχὴν.^[33] sharqı̂ja, “by God, it is an unhealthy day to-day: an east wind blew upon me.” And in a festive dance song of the Merg district, these words occur:wa rudd lı̂ hômet hodênikseb‛ lejâlı̂ bi-‛olı̂ja wa berdwa sherd wa sharqı̂ja... ”And grant me again to slumber on thy bosom,
Seven nights in an upper chamber,
And (I will then endure) cold, drifting snow, and east wind.”
During the harvest, so long as the east wind lasts, the corn that is already threshed and lying on the threshing-floors cannot be winnowed; a gentle, moderate draught is required for this process, such as is only obtained by a west or south wind. The north wind is much too strong, and the east wind is characterized by constant gusts, which, as the Hauranites say, “jôchotû tibn wa-habb, carried away chaff and corn.” When the wind shifts from the west to the east, a whirlwind (zôba‛a, זובעה) not unfrequently arises, which often in summer does much harm to the threshing-floors and to the cut corn that is lying in swaths (unless it is weighted with stones). Storms are rare during an east wind; they come mostly with a west wind (never with a south or north wind). But if an east wind does bring a storm, it is generally very destructive, on account of its strong gusts; and it will even uproot the largest trees. - Wetzst.) וילך signifies peribit (ut pereat), as Job 14:20; Job 19:10. שׂער (comp. סערה, O storm-chased one) is connected with the accus. of the person pursued, as in Psa 58:10. The subj. of וישׁלך, Job 27:22, is God, and the verb stands without an obj.: to cast at any one (shoot), as Num 35:22 (for the figure, comp. Job 16:13); lxx correctly: ἐπιῤῥίψει (whereas Job 18:7, σφάλαι = ותכשׁילהו). The gerundive with יברח lays stress upon the idea of the exertion of flight: whithersoever he may flee before the hand of God, every attempt is in vain. The suff. êmo, Job 27:22, both according to the syntax and the matter, may be taken as the plural suff.; but the fact that כּפּימו can be equivalent to כּפּיו (comp. Psa 11:7), עלימו to עליו (comp. Job 20:23; Job 22:2), as למו is equivalent to לו ot tn (vid., Isa 44:15; Isa 53:8), is established, and there is no reason why the same may not be the case here. The accumulation of the terminations êmo and ômo gives a tone of thunder and a gloomy impress to this conclusion of the description of judgment, as these terminations frequently occur in the book of Psalms, where moral depravity is mourned and divine judgment threatened (e.g., in Psa 17:1-15; 49; 58:1-59:17; 73). The clapping of hands (שׂפק כּפּים = ספק, Lam 2:15, comp. תּקע, Nah 3:19) is a token of malignant joy, and hissing (שׁרק, Zep 2:15; Jer 49:17) a token of scorn. The expression in Job 27:23 is a pregnant one. Clapping of hands and hissing accompany the evil-doer when merited punishment overtakes him, and chases him forth from the place which he hitherto occupied (comp. Job 8:18).
Earlier expositors have thought it exceedingly remarkable that Job, in Job 27:13-23, should agree with the assertions of the three friends concerning the destiny of the ungodly and his descendants, while he has previously opposed them on this point, Job 12:6, Job 12:21, Job 12:24. Kennicott thinks the confusion is cleared away by regarding Job 26:2-27:12 as Job's answer to the third speech of Bildad, Job 27:13. as the third speech of Zophar, and Job 28:1 (to which the superscription Job 27:1 belongs) as Job's reply thereto; but this reply begins with כּי, and is specially appropriate as a striking repartee to the speech of Zophar. Stuhlmann (1804) makes this third speech of Zophar begin with Job 27:11, and imagines a gap between Job 27:10 and Job 27:11; but who then are the persons whom Zophar addresses by “you”? The three everywhere address themselves to Job, while here Zophar, contrary to custom, would address himself not to him, but, according to Stuhlmann's exposition, to the others with reference to Job. Job 28 Stuhlmann removes and places after Job 25:1-6 as a continuation of Bildad's speech; Zophar's speech therefore remains unanswered, and Zophar may thank this critic not only for allowing him another opportunity of speaking, but also for allowing him the last word. Bernstein (Keil-Tzschirner's Analekten, Bd. i. St. 3) removes the contradiction into which Job seems to fall respecting himself in a more thorough manner, by rejecting the division Job 27:7-28:28, which is certainly indissolubly connected as a whole, as a later interpolation; but there is no difference of language and poetic spirit here betraying an interpolator; and had there been one, even he ought indeed to have proceeded on the assumption that such an insertion should be appropriate to Job's mouth, so that the task of proving its relative fitness, from his standpoint at least, remains. Hosse (1849) goes still further: he puts Job 27:10; Job 31:35-37; Job 38:1, etc., together, and leaves out all that comes between these passages. There is then no transition whatever from the entanglement to the unravelment. Job's final reply, Job 27:1, with the monologue Job 29:1, in which even a feeble perception must recognise one of the most essential and most beautiful portions of the dramatic whole, forms this transition.
Eichhorn (in his translation of Job, 1824), who formerly (Allgem. Bibliothek der bibl. Lit. Bd. 2) inclined to Kennicott's view, and Böckel (2nd edition, 1804) seek another explanation of the difficulty, by supposing that in Job 27:13-23 Job reproduces the view of the friends. But in Job 27:11 Job announces the setting forth of his own view; and the supposition that with זה חלק אדם רשׁע he does not begin the enunciation of his own view, but that of his opponents, is refuted by the consideration that there is nothing by which he indicates this, and that he would not enter so earnestly into the description if it were not the feeling of his heart. Feeling the worthlessness of these attempted solutions, De Wette (Einleitung, §288), with his customary spirit of criticism with which he depreciates the sacred writers, turns against the poet himself. Certainly, says he, the division Job 27:11-28:28 is inappropriate and self-contradictory in the mouth of Job; but this wan to clearness, not to say inconsistency, must be brought against the poet, who, despite his utmost endeavour, has not been able to liberate himself altogether from the influence of the common doctrine of retribution.
This judgment is erroneous and unjust. Umbreit (2nd edition, S. 261 [Clark's edition, 1836, ii. 122]) correctly remarks, that “without this apparent contradiction in Job's speeches, the interchange of words would have been endless;” in other words: had Job's standpoint been absolutely immoveable, the controversy could not possibly have come to a well-adjusted decision, which the poet must have planned, and which he also really brings about, by causing his hero still to retain an imperturbable consciousness of his innocence, but also allowing his irritation to subside, and his extreme harshness to become moderated. The latter, in reference to the final destiny of the godless, is already indicated in Job 24, but is still more apparent here in Job 27, and indeed in the following line of thought: ”As truly as God lives, who afflicts me, the innocent one, I will not incur the guilt of lying, by allowing myself to be persuaded against my conscience to regard myself as an evil-doer. I am not an evil-doer, but my enemy who regards me and treats me as such must be accounted wicked; for how unlike the hopelessness and estrangement from God, in which the evil-doer dies, is my hope and entreaty in the midst of the heaviest affliction! Yea, indeed, the fate of the evil-doer is a different one from mine. I will teach it you; ye have all, indeed, observed it for yourselves, and nevertheless ye cherish such vain thoughts concerning me.” What is peculiar in the description that then follows - a description agreeing in its substance with that of the three, and similar in its form - is therefore this, that Job holds up the end of the evil-doer before the friends, that form it they may infer that he is not an evil-doer, whereas the friends held it up before Job that he might infer from it that he is an evil-doer, and only by a penitent acknowledgment of this can he escape the extreme of the punishment he has merited. Thus in Job 27:1 Job turns their own weapon against the friends.
But does he not, by doing so, fall into contradiction with himself? Yes; and yet not so. The Job who has become calmer here comes into contradiction with the impassioned Job who had, without modification, placed the exceptional cases in opposition to the exclusive assertion that the evil-doer comes to a fearful end, which the friends advance, as if it were the rule that the prosperity of the evil-doer continues uninterrupted to the very end of his days. But Job does not come into collision with his true view. For how could he deny that in the rule the retributive justice of God is manifest in the cast of the evil-doer! We can only perceive his true opinion when we compare the views he here expresses with his earlier extreme antitheses: hitherto, in the heat of the controversy, he has opposed that which the friends onesidedly maintained by the direct opposite; now he has got upon the right track of thought, in which the fate of the evil-doer presents itself to him from another and hitherto mistaken side, - a phase which is also but imperfectly appreciated in Job 24; ; so that now at last he involuntarily does justice to what truth there is in the assertion of his opponent. Nevertheless, it is not Job's intention to correct himself here, and to make an admission to the friends which has hitherto been refused. Hirzel's explanation of this part inclines too much to this erroneous standpoint. On the contrary, our rendering accords with that of Ewald, who observes (S. 252f. 2nd edition, 1854) that Job here maintains in his own favour, and against them, what the friends directed against him, since the hope of not experiencing such an evil-doer's fate becomes strong in him: “Job is here on the right track for more confidently anticipating his own rescue, or, what is the same thing, the impossibility of his perishing just as if he were an evil-doer.” Moreover, how well designed is it that the description Job 27:23. is put into Job's mouth! While the poet allows the friends designedly to interweave lines taken from Job's misfortunes into their descriptions of the evil-doer's fate, in Job's description not one single line is found which coincides with his own lot, whether with that which he has already experience, or even with that which his faith presents to him as in prospect. And although the heavy lot which has befallen him looks like the punitive suffering of the evil-doer, he cannot acknowledge it as such, and even denies its bearing the marks of such a character, since even in the midst of affliction he clings to God, and confidently hopes for His vindication. With this rendering of Job 27:13. all doubts of its genuineness, which is indeed admitted by all modern expositors, vanish; and, far from charging the poet with inconsistency, one is led to admire the undiminished skill with which he brings the idea of the drama by concealed ways to its goal.
But the question still comes up, whether Job 28:1, opening with כּי, does not militate against this genuineness. Hirzel and others observe, that this כי introduces the confirmation of Job 27:12: ”But wherefore then do ye cherish such vain imaginations concerning me? For human sagacity and perseverance can accomplish much, but the depths of divine wisdom are impenetrable to man.” But how is it possible that the כי, Job 28:1, should introduce the confirmation of Job 27:12, passing over Job 27:13? If it cannot be explained in any other way, it appears that Job 27:13 must be rejected. There is the same difficulty in comprehending it by supplying some suppressed thought, as e.g., Ewald explains it: For, as there may also be much in the divine dealings that is dark, etc.; and Hahn: Because evil-doers perish according to their desert, it does not necessarily follow that every one who perishes is an evil-doer, and that every prosperous person is godly, for - the wisdom of God is unsearchable. This mode of explanation, which supposes, between the close of Job 27:1 and the beginning of Job 28:1, what is not found there, is manifestly forced; and in comparison with it, it would be preferable, with Stickel, to translate כי “because,” and take Job 28:1-2 as the antecedent to Job 28:3. Then after Job 27:1 a dash might be made; but this dash would indicate an ugly blank, which would be no honour to the poet. Schlottmann explains it more satisfactorily. He takes Job 27:13. as a warning addressed to the friends, lest they bring down upon themselves, by their unjust judgment, the evil-doer's punishment which they have so often proclaimed. If this rendering of Job 27:13. were correct, the description of the fate of the evil-doer would be influenced by an underlying thought, to which the following statement of the exalted nature of the divine wisdom would be suitably connected as a confirmation. We cannot, however, consider this rendering as correct. The picture ought to have been differently drawn, if it had been designed to serve as a warning to the friends.
It has a different design. Job depicts the revelation of the divine justice which is exhibited in the issue of the life of the evil doer, to teach the friends that they judge him and his lot falsely. To this description of punishment, which is intended thus and not otherwise, Job 28:1 with its confirmatory כי must be rightly connected. If this were not feasible, one would be disposed, with Pareau, to alter the position of Job 28:1, as if it were removed from its right place, and put it after Job 26:1. But we are cautioned against such a violent measure, by the consideration that it is not evident from Job 26:1 why the course of thought in Job 28:1, which begins with כי, should assume the exact form in which we find it; whereas, on the other hand, it was said in Job 27:1 that the ungodly heaps up silver, כסף, like dust, but that the innocent who live to see his fall divide this silver, כסף, among themselves; so that when in Job 28:1 it continues: כי ישׁ לכסף מוצא, there is a connection of thought for which the way has been previously prepared.
If we further take into consideration the fact of Job 28:1 being only an amplification of the one closing thought to which everything tends, viz., that the fear of God is man's true wisdom, then Job 28:1, also in reference to this its special point, is suitably attached to the description of the evil-doer's fate, Job 27:13 The miserable end of the ungodly is confirmed by this, that the wisdom of man, which he has despised, consists in the fear of God; and Job thereby at the same time attains the special aim of his teaching, which is announced at Job 27:11 by אורה אתכם ביד־אל: viz., he has at the same time proved that he who retains the fear of God in the midst of his sufferings, though those sufferings are an insoluble mystery, cannot be a רשׁע. This design of the conformation, and that connection of thought, which should be well noted, prove that Job 28:1 stands in its original position. And if we ponder the fact, that Job has depicted the ungodly as a covetous rich man who is snatched away by sudden death from his immense possession of silver and other costly treasures, we see that Job 28:1 confirms the preceding picture of punitive judgment in the following manner: silver and other precious metals come out of the earth, but wisdom, whose value exceeds all these earthly treasures, is to be found nowhere within the province of the creature; God alone possesses it, and from God alone it comes; and so as man can and is to attain to it, it consists in the fear of the Lord, and the forsaking of evil. This is the close connection of Job 28:1 with what immediately precedes, which most expositors since Schultens have missed, by transferring the central point to the unsearchableness of the divine wisdom which rules in the world; whereas Bouiller correctly observes that the whole of Job 28:1 treats not so much of the wisdom of God as of the wisdom of man, which God, the sole possessor of wisdom, imparts to him: omnibus divitiis, fluxis et evanidis illis possessio praeponderat sapientiae, quae in pio Dei cultu et fuga mali est posita. The view of von Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, i. 96, 2nd edit.) accords with this: ”If Job 28:1, where a confirmatory or explanatory כי forms the transition, is taken together with Job 28:12, where another part of the speech is introduced with a Waw, and finally with Job 28:28, where this is rounded off, as forming the unity of one thought: it thus proves that the final destruction of the godless, who is happy and prosperous in worldly things, is explained by the fact that man can obtain every kind of hidden riches by his own exertion and courage, but not the wisdom which is not indigenous to this outward world, but is known to God alone, and is to be learned from Him only; and the teaching concerning it is: behold, the fear of God, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.”
Before we now pass on to the detailed exposition of Job 28:1, we may perhaps here, without anticipating, put the question. Whence has the poet obtained the knowledge of the different modes of mining operations which is displayed in Job 28:1, and which has every appearance of being the result of personal observation? Since, as we have often remarked already, he is well acquainted with Egypt, it is most natural that he derived this his knowledge from Egypt and the Sinaitic peninsula. The ruins of mines found there show that the Sinaitic peninsula has been worked as a mining district from the earliest times. The first of these mining districts is the Wadi Nasb, where Lepsius (Briefe, S. 338) found traces of old smelting-places, and where also Graul and his companions, having their attention drawn to it by Wilkinson's work, searched for the remains of a mine, and found at least traces of copper slag, but could see nothing more (Reise, ii. 202). E. Rüppell explored the spot at the desire of the Viceroy Mehemed Ali, and Russegger with less successful result (vid., the particular sin Ritter's Erdkunde, xiv. 784-788).^[34]
A second mining district is denoted by the ruins of a temple of Hathor, on the steep terrace of the rising ground Sarbut (Serâbît) el-châdim, which stretches out into a spacious valley. This field of ruins, with its many lofty columns within the still recognisable area of a temple, and round about it, gives the impression of a large burying-ground, and it is described and represented as such by Carsten Niebuhr (Reise, 235, Tafel xliv.). In February 1854, Graul (Reise, ii. 203) and Tischendorf spent a short time upon this eminence of the desert, which is hard to climb, and abounds in monuments. It produced a strong impression upon us - says the latter (Aus dem heiligen Lande, S. 35) - as we tarried in the midst of the grotesque forms of these monuments, while the setting sun cast its deep red gleam over the wild terrific-looking copper rocks that lay around in their varied shades, now light, now dark. That these copper rocks were worked in ancient days, is proved by the large black heaps of slag which Lepsius (Briefe, S. 338) discovered to the east and west of the temple. Moreover, in the inscriptions Hathor bears the by-name “Queen of Mafkat,” i.e., the copper country (mafka, copper, with the feminine post-positive article t). It even bears this name on the monuments in the Wadi maghâra, one of the side-gorges of the Wadi mucatteb (i.e., the Written Valley, valley full of inscriptions). These signs of another ancient mining colony belong almost entirely to the earliest Egyptian antiquity, while those on Sarbut el-châdim extend back only to Amenemha III, consequently to the last dynasty of the old kingdom. Even the second king of the fifth dynasty, Snefru, and indeed his predecessor (according to Lepsius, his successor) Chufu - that Che'ops who built the largest pyramid - appear here as conquerors of foreign peoples, and the mountainous district dedicated to Hathor is also called Mafka.t. The remains of a mine, discovered by J. Wilson, at the eastern end of the north side of the Wady mucatteb, also belongs to this copper country: they lie near the road, but in back gorges; there is a very high wall of rock of granite or porphyry, which is penetrated by dark seams of metal, which have been worked out from above downwards, thus forming artificial caverns, pits, and shafts; and it may be inferred that the yield of ore was very abundant, and, from the simplicity of the manner of working, that it is of very great antiquity. This art of mining thus laid open, as Ritter says,^[35] furnishes the most important explanation of Job's remarkable description of mining operations.
As to Egypt itself, it has but few places where iron-ore was obtained, and it was not very plentiful, as iron occurs much more rarely than bronze on the tombs, although Wilkinson has observed important copper mines almost as extensive as the copper country of Sinai: we only, however, possess more exact information concerning the gold mines on the borders of Upper Egypt. Agatharchides mentions them in his Periplus; and Diodorus (iii. 11ff.) gives a minute description of them, from which it is evident that mining in those days was much the same as it was with us about a hundred years ago: we recognise in it the day and night relays, the structure of shafts, the crushing and washing apparatus, and the smelting-place.^[36]
There are the gold mines of Nubia, the name of which signifies the gold country, for NOYB is the old Egyptian name for gold. From the time of Sethoshi I, the father of Sesostris, we still possess the plan of a gold mine, which Birch (Upon a historical tablet of Rameses II of the XIX dynasty, relating to the gold mines of Aethiopia) has first of all correctly determined. Moreover, on monuments of all ages frequent mention is made of other metals (silver, iron, lead), as of precious stones, with which e.g., harps were ornamented; the diamond can also be traced. In the Papyrus Prisse, which Chabas has worked up under the title Le plus ancien livre du monde, Phtha-hotep, the author of this moral tractate, iv. 14, says: ”Esteem my good word more highly than the (green) emerald, which is found by slaves under the pebbles.”^[37]
The emerald-hills near Berenice produced the emerald.
But if the scene of the book of Job is to be sought in Idumaea proper (Gebal) or in Hauran, there were certainly mines that were nearer than the Egyptian. In Phunon (Phinon), between Petra and Zoar, there were pits from which copper (χαλκοῦ μέταλλα, aeris metalla) was obtained even to the time of Moses, as may be inferred from the fact of Moses having erected the brazen serpent there (Num 21:9., comp. 33:42f.), and whither, during the persecutions of the Christians in the time of the emperors, many witnesses for the faith were banished, that they might fall victims to the destructive labour of pit life (Athanasius extravagantly says: ἔνθα καὶ φονεῦς καταδικαζόμενος ὀλίγας ἡμέρας μόγις δύναται ζῆσαι).^[38]
But Edrîsi also knew of gold and silver mines in the mountains of Edom, the ‘Gebel esh-Sherâ (Arab. ‘l-šrât), i.e., חר שׂעיר. According to the Onomasticon, דּי זהב, Deu 1:1 (lxx καταχρύσεα), indicates such gold mines in Arabia Petraea; and Jerome (under Cata ta chrysea)^[39] observes on that passage: sed et metallo aeris Phaeno, quod nostro tempore corruit, montes venarum auri plenos olim fuisse vicinos existimant. Eupolemus' account (in Euseb. praep. ix. 30) of an island Aurfee', rich in gold, in the Red Sea, does not belong here; for by the red sea, ἐρυθρὰ θάλασσα,^[40] it is not the Arabian Gulf that is meant; and the reference of the name of the range of hills Telûl ed-dhahab in ancient Gilead to gold mines rests only on hearsay up to the present time. But it is all the more worthy of mention that traces of former copper mines are still found on the Lebanon (vid., Knobel on Deu 8:9); that Edrîsi (Syria, ed. Rosenm. p. 12) was acquainted with the existence of a rich iron mine near Beirut; and that, even in the present day, the Jews who dwell in Deir el-kamar, on the Lebanon, work the iron on leases, and especially forge horse-shoes from it, which are sent all over Palestine.^[41]
The poet of the book of Job might therefore have learned mining in its diversified modes of operation from his own observation, both in the kingdom of Egypt, which he had doubtless visited, and also in Arabia Petraea and in the Lebanon districts, so as to be able to put a description of them into the mouth of his hero. It is unnecessary, with Stickel, to give the preference to the mining of Arabia proper, where iron and lead are still obtained, and where, according to ancient testimony, even gold is said to have been worked at one time. “Since he places his hero in the country east of Jordan, the poet may in Job 28:2 have thought chiefly of the mines of the Iron mountain (τὸ σιδηροῦν καλοῦμενον ὄρος, Jos. Bell. iv. 8, 2), which is also called the 'cross mountain,' el-mi‛râd, because it runs from west to east, while the Gebel 'Aglûn stretches from north to south. It lies between the gorges of the Wâdî Zerkâ and Wâdî 'Arabûn, begins at the mouths of the two Wâdîs in the Ghôr, and ends in the east with a precipitous descent towards the town of Gerash, which from its height, and being seen from afar, is called the Negde (נגדּח). The ancient worked-out iron mines lie on the south declivity of the mountain south-west of the village of Burmâ, and about six miles from the level bed of the Wâdî Zerkâ. The material is a brittle, red, brown, and violet sandstone, which has a strong addition of iron. It also contains here and there a large number of small shells, where it is then considerably harder. Of these ancient mines, some which were known in Syria under the name of the 'rose mines,' ma‛âdin el-ward, were worked by Ibrahim Pasha from 1835 till 1839; but when, in 1840, Syria reverted to Turkey, this mining, which had been carried on with great success, because there was an abundance of wood for the smelting furnaces, ceased. A large forest, without a proprietor, covers the back and the whole north side of this mountain down to the bed of the Wâdî 'Arabûn; and as no tree has been cut down in it for centuries, the thicket, with the fallen and decaying stems, gives one an idea of a primeval forest. We passed through the forest from Kefrengi to Burmâ in June 1860. Except North Gilead, in which the Iron mountain is situated, no other province of Basan admits of a mine; they are exclusively volcanic, their mountains are slag, lava, and basalt; and probably the last-mentioned kind of stone owes its name to the word Basa'ltis, the secondary form of Basa'ltis (= Basan).” - Wetzst.

Chap. 28

Verses 1-4

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.^[42]
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,^[43] 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.

Verse 2

From the mention of silver and gold, the description passes on to iron and ore (copper, cuprum = aes Cyprium). Iron is called בּרזל, not with the noun-ending el like כּרמל (thus Ges., Olsh., and others), but probably expanded from בּזּל (Fürst), like שׁרבּיט from שׁבּיט = שׁבט, סמפּיר from ספּיר, βάλσαμον from בּשׂם, since, as Pliny testifies, the name of basalt (iron-marble) and iron are related,^[44] and copper is called נחשׁת, for which the book of Job (Job 20:24; Job 28:2; Job 40:18; Job 41:19; comp. even Lev 26:19) always has נחוּשׁה (aereum = aes, Arab. nuhâs). Of the iron it is said that it is procured from the עפר, by which the bowels of the earth are meant here, as the surface of the earth in Job 41:25; and of copper it is said that they pour out the stone into copper (vid., Ges. §139, 2), i.e., smelt copper from it: יצוּק as Job 29:6, fundit, here with a subj. of the most general kind: one pours; on the contrary, Job 41:15. partic. of יצק. Job 28:3 distinctly shows that it is the bowels of the earth from which these metals are obtained: he (man) has made an end of the darkness, since he turns out and lights up the lightless interior of the earth; and לכל־תּכלית, to every extremity, i.e., to the remotest depths, he searches out the stone of deep darkness and of the shadow of death, i.e., hidden in the deepest darkness, far beneath the surface of the earth (vid., on Job 10:22; and comp. Pliny, h. n. xxxiii. proaem. of mining: imus in viscera ejus [terrae] et in sede Manium opes quaerimus). Most expositors (Hirz., Ew., Hahn, Schlottm., and others) take לכל־תלית adverbially, “to the utmost” or “most closely,” but vid., on Job 26:10; לתכלית might be used thus adverbially, but לכל־תכלית is to be explained according to לכל־רוח, Eze 5:10 (to all the winds).

Verse 4

Job now describes the operation of mining more minutely; and it is worthy of observation that the last-mentioned metal, with which the description is closely connected, is copper. נחל, which signifies elsewhere a valley, the bed of a river, and the river itself, like the Arab. wâdin (not from נחל = נהל, to flow on, as Ges. Thes. and Fürst, but from נחל, root חל to hollow, whence נחילה = חליל, a flute, as being a hollowed musical instrument), signifies here the excavation made in the earth, and in fact, as what follows shows, in a perpendicular direction, therefore the shaft. Nasse contends for the signification “valley,” by which one might very well conceive of “the working of a surface vein:” “By this mode of working, a small shaft is made in the vein (consequently in a perpendicular direction), and the ore is worked from both sides at once. At a short distance from the first shaft a second is formed, and worked in the same way. Since thus the work progresses lengthwise, a cutting becomes formed in the mountain which may well be compared to a deep valley, if, as is generally the case where the stone is firm and the ways are almost perpendicular, the space that is hewn out remains open (that is, not broken in or filled in).” But if נחל everywhere else denotes a valley with its watercourse, it has not necessarily a like signification in mining technology. It signifies, perhaps not without reference to its usual signification, the shafts open above and surrounded by walls of rock (in distinction from the more or less horizontal galleries or pit-ways, as they were cut through the excavated rocks in the gold mines of Upper Egypt, often so crooked that, as Diodorus relates, the miners, provided with lights on their forehead, were always obliged to vary the posture of the body (according to the windings of the galleries); and מעם־גּר, away from him who remains above, shows that one is to imagine these shafts as being of considerable depth,; but what follows even more clearly indicates this: there forgotten (הנּשׁכּחים with the demonstrative art. as Job 26:5; Psa 18:31; Psa 19:11, Ges. §109 ad init.) of (every) foot (that walks above), they hang (comp. Rabb. מדלדּל, pendulus)^[45] far from men, hang and swing or are suspended: comp. Pliny, h. n. xxxiii. 4, 21, according to Sillig's text: is qui caedit funibus pendet, ut procul intuenti species no ferarum quidem sed alitum fiat. Pendentes majori ex parte librant et linias itineri praeducunt. דּלל has here the primary signification proper also to the Arab. dll, deorsum pendeere; and נוּע is related to נוּד, as nuere, νεύειν, to nutare. The מני of מנּי־רגל, taken strictly, does not correspond to the Greek ὑπό, neither does it form an adverbial secondary definition standing by itself: far away from the foot; but it is to be understood as מן is also used elsewhere after נשׁכח, Deu 31:21; Psa 31:13 : forgotten out of the mouth, out of the heart; here: forgotten away from the foot, so that this advances without knowing that there is a man beneath; therefore: totally vanished from the remembrance of those who pass by above. מאנושׁ is not to be connected with נעוּ (Hahn, Schlottm.), but with דּלּוּ, for Munach is the representative of Rebia mugrasch, according to Psalter, ii. 503, §2; and דלו is regularly Milel, whereas Isa 38:14 is Milra without any evident reason. The accentuation here follows no fixed law with equally regulated exceptions (vid., Olsh. §233, c).
Moreover, the perception that Job 28:4 speaks of the shaft of the mine, and the descent of the miners by a rope, is due to modern exegesis; even Schultens, who here exclaims: Cimmeriae tenebrae, quas me exsuperaturum vix sperare ausim, perceived the right thing, but only imperfectly as yet. By נחל he understands the course or vein of the metal, where it is embedded; and, since he understands גר after the Arab. ‛garr, foot of the mountain, he translates: rumpit (homo) alveum de pede montis. Rosenm., on the other hand, correctly translates: canalem deorsum actum ex loco quo versatur homo. Schlottm. understands by gr the miner himself dwelling as a stranger in his loneliness; and if we imagine to ourselves the mining districts of the peninsula of Sinai, we might certainly at once conceive the miners' dwellings themselves which are found in the neighbourhood of the shaft in connection with מעם־גר. But in and for itself גר signifies only those settled (above), without the secondary idea of strangers.

Verses 5-8

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.^[46]
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;^[47] 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.

Verses 9-12

Job 28:9-12 9 He layeth his hand upon the pebbles;
He turneth up the mountains from the root. 10 He cutteth canals through the rocks;
And his eye seeth all kinds of precious things. 11 That they may not leak, he dammeth up rivers;
And that which is hidden he bringeth to light. 12 But wisdom, whence is it obtained?
And where is the place of understanding?
Beneath, whither no other being of the upper world penetrates, man puts his hand upon the quartz or rock. חלּמישׁ (perhaps from חלם, to be strong, firm: Arabic, with the reduplication resolved, chalnubûs, like עכּבישׁ, Arab. ‛ancabûth, vid., Jesurun, p. 229) signifies here the quartz, and in general the hard stone; שׁלח יד בּ something like our “to take in hand” of an undertaking requiring strong determination and courage, which here consists in blasting and clearing away the rock that contains no ore, as Pliny, h. n. xxxiii. 4, 21, describes it: Occursant ... silices; hos igne et aceto rumpunt, saepius vero, quoniam id cuniculos vapore et fumo strangulat, caedunt fractariis CL libras ferri habentibus egeruntque umeris noctibus ac diebus per tenebras proxumis tradentes; lucem novissimi cernunt. Further: he (man, devoted to mining) overturns (subvertit according to the primary signification of הפך, Arab. ‘fk, 'ft, to turn, twist) mountains from the roots. The accentuation הפך with Rebia mugrasch, משׁרשׁ with Mercha, is false; it is, according to Codd. and old editions, to be accented הפך with Tarcha, משׁרשׁ with Munach, and to be translated accordingly: subvertit a radice montes (for Munach is the transformation of a Rebia mugrasch), not a radice montium. Blasting in mining which lays bare the roots (the lowest parts) of the mountains is intended, the conclusion of which - the signal for the flight of the workmen, and the effective crash - is so graphically described by Pliny in the passage cited above: Peracto opere cervices fornicum ab ultumo cadunt; dat signum ruina eamque solus intellegit in cacumine ejus montis vigil. Hic voce, nutu evocari jubet operas pariterque ipse devolat. Mons fractus cadit ab sese longe fragore qui concipi humana mente non possit eque efflatu incredibili spectant victores ruinam naturae.
The meaning of Job 28:10 depends upon the signification of the יארים. It is certainly the most natural that it should signify canals. The word is Egyptian; aur in the language of the hieroglyphs signifies a river, and especially the Nile; wherefore at the close of the Laterculus of Eratosthenes the name of the king, Φρουορῶ (Φουορῶ), is explained by ἤτοι Νεῖλος. If water-canals are intended, they may be either such as go in or come away. In the first case it may mean water let in like a cataract over the ruins of the blasted auriferous rock, the corrugi of Pliny: Alius par labor ac vel majoris impendi: flumina ad lavandam hanc ruinam jugis montium obiter duxere a centesimo plerumque lapide; corrugos vocant, a corrivatione credo; mille et hic labores. But בּקּע is not a suitable word for such an extensive and powerful flooding with water for the purpose of washing the gold. It suits far better to understand the expression of galleries or ways cut horizontally in the rock to carry the water away. Thus von Veltheim explains it: “The miner makes ways through the hard rock into his section in which the perpendicular shaft terminates, guides the water which is found in abundance at that depth through it [i.e., the water as the bottom of the pit that hinders the progress of the work], and is able [thus Job 28:10 naturally is connected with what precedes] to judge of the ore and fragments that are at the bottom, and bring them to the light. This mode of mining by constantly forming one gallery under the other [so that a new gallery is made under the pit that is worked out by extending the shaft, and also freeing this from water by making another outlet below the previous one] is the oldest of all, of which anything certain is known in the history of mining, and the most natural in the days when they had no notion of hydraulics.” This explanation is far more satisfactory than that of Herm. Sam. Reimarus, of the “Wolfenbütteler Fragmente” (in his edition of the Neue Erkl. des B. Hiob, by John Ad. Hoffmann, 1734, iv. S. 772): “He breaks open watercourses in the rocks. What the miners call coming upon water, is when they break into a fissure from which strong streams of water gush forth. The miner not only knows how to turn such water to good account, but it is also a sign that there are rich veins of ore near at hand, as there is the most water by these courses and fissures. Hence follows: and then his eye sees all kinds of precious things.” But there is no ground for saying that water indicates rich veins of ore, and בקע is much more appropriate to describe the designed formation of courses to carry off the water than an accidental discovery of water in course of the work; moreover, יארים is as appropriate to the former as it is inappropriate to the latter explanation, for it signifies elsewhere the arms of the Nile, into which the Nile is artificially divided; and therefore it may easily be transferred to the horizontal canals of the mine cut through the hard rock (or through the upper earth). Nevertheless, although the water plays an important part in mining operations, by giving rise to the greatest difficulties, as it frequently happens that a pit is deluged with water, and must be abandoned because no one can get down to it: it is improbable that Job 28:10 as well as Job 28:11 refers to this; we therefore prefer to understand יארים as meaning the (horizontal) courses (galleries or drifts) in which the ore is dug, - a rendering which is all the more possible, since, on the one hand, in Coptic jaro (Sahidic jero) signifies the Nile of Egypt (phiaro ente chêmi); on the other, ior (eioor) signifies a ditch, διώρυξ (comp. Isa 33:21, יארים, lxx διώρυχες), vid., Ges. Thes. Thus also Job 28:10 is consistently connected with what precedes, since by cutting these cuniculi the courses of the ore (veins), and any precious stones that may also be embedded there, are laid bare.

Verse 11

Contrary to the correct indication of the accentuation, Hahn translates: he stops up the droppings of the watercourses; מבּכי has Dechî, and is therefore not to be connected with what follows as a genitive. But Reimarus' translation: from the drops he connects the streams, is inadmissible. “The trickling water,” he observes, “is carefully caught in channels by the miners for use, and is thus brought together from several parts of the reservoir and the water-wheel. What Pliny calls corrugus, corrivatio,.” On the contrary, Schlottm. remarks that חבשׁ cannot signify such a connection, i.e., gathering together of watercourses; it occurs elsewhere only of hunting, i.e., binding up wounds. Nevertheless, although חבשׁ cannot directly signify “to collect,” the signification coercere (Job 34:17), which is not far from this idea, - as is evident from the Arab. ḥibs (ḥabs), a dam or sluice for collecting water, and Arab. maḥbas 'l-mâ', a reservoir, cistern, - is easily transferable to water, in the sense of binding = catching up and accumulating. But it is contrary to the form of the expression that מבכי, with this use of חבש, should denote the materia ex qua, and that נהרות should be referred to the miry ditches in which “the crushed ore is washed, for the purpose of separating the good from the worthless.” On the contrary, from the form of the expression, it is to be translated: a fletu (not e fletu) flumina obligat, whether it be that a fletu is equivalent to ne flent s. stillent (Simeon Duran: שׁלא יזלו), or obligat equivalent to cohibet (Ralbag: מהזּלה). Thus von Veltheim explains the passage, since he here, as in Job 28:10, understands the channels for carrying off the water. “The miner covers the bottom with mire, and fills up the crevices so exactly i.e., he besmears it, where the channel is broken through, with some water-tight substance, e.g., clay, that it may entirely carry off the water that is caught by it out of the pit in which the shaft terminates, and not let it fall through the fissures crevices to the company of miners below to the vein that lies farther down; then the miner can descend still deeper since the water runs outwards and does not soak through, and bring forth the ore that lies below the channel.” This explanation overlooks the fact that יארים is used in Job 28:10, whereas Job 28:11 has נהרות. It is not probable that these are only interchangeable expressions for the channels that carry off the water. יארים is an appropriate expression for it, but not נהרות, which as appropriately describes the conflux of water in the mine itself.
The meaning of Job 28:11 is, that he (the miner) binds or stops the watercourses which his working out of the pit has interfered with and injured, so that they may not leak, i.e., that they may not in the least ooze through, whether by building up a wall or by collecting the water that streams forth in reservoirs (Arab. mahbas) or in the channels which carry it outwards, - all these modes of draining off the water may be included in Job 28:11, only the channel itself is not, with von Veltheim, to be understood by נהרות, but the concourse of the water which, in one way or the other, is rendered harmless to the pit-work, so that he (the miner), as Job 28:11 says, can bring to light (אור = לאור) whatever precious things the bowels of the earth conceals (תּעלמהּ, according to Kimchi and others, with euphonic Mappik, as according to the Masora כבכורהּ Isa 28:4, גשׁמהּ Eze 22:24, and also וגלהּ Zec 4:2, only לתפארת הקריאה ולא לכינוי, i.e., they have Mappik only for euphony, not as the expression of the suff.).

Verse 12

With the question in Job 28:12 the description of mining attains the end designed: man can search after and find out silver, gold, and others metals and precious stones, by making the foundations of the earth accessible to him; but wisdom, whence shall be obtain it, and which (ואי־זה, according to another reading ואיזה) is the place of understanding? החכמה has the art. to give prominence to its transcendency over the other attainable things. חכמה is the principal name, and בּינה interchanges with it, as תּבוּנה, Pro 8:1, and other synonyms in which the Chokma literature abounds elsewhere in Prov 1-9. בינה is properly the faculty of seeing through that which is distinguishable, consisting of the possession of the right criteria; חכמה, however, is the perception, in general, of things in their true nature and their final causes.

Verses 13-16

Job 28:13-16 13 A mortal knoweth not its price,
And it is not found in the land of the living. 14 The abyss saith: It is not in me,
And the sea saith: It is not with me. 15 Pure gold cannot be given for it,
And silver cannot be weighed as its price; 16 And it is not outweighed with fine gold of Ophir,
With the precious onyx and the sapphire.
It is self-evident that wisdom is found nowhere directly present and within a limited space, as at the bottom of the sea, and cannot be obtained by a direct exchange by means of earthly treasures. It is, moreover, not this self-evident fact that is denied here; but the meaning is, that even if a man should search in every direction through the land of the living, i.e., (as e.g., Psa 52:7) the world - if he should search through the תּהום, i.e., the subterranean waters that feed the visible waters (vid., Gen. 39:25) - if he should search through the sea, the largest bounded expanse of this water that wells up from beneath - yea, even if he would offer all riches and precious things to put himself in possession of the means and instruments for the acquirement of wisdom, - wisdom, i.e., the profoundest perception of the nature of things, would still be beyond him, and unattainable. ערך, Job 28:13, an equivalent (from ערך, to range beside, to place at the side of), interchanges with מחיר (from מחר, cogn. מהר, מכר, mercari). סגור is זהב סגוּר, 1Ki 6:20 and freq., which hardly signifies gold shut up = carefully preserved, rather: closed = compressed, unmixed; Targ. דּהב סנין, aurum colatum (purgatum). Ewald compares Arab. sajara, to seethe, heat; therefore: heated, gained by smelting. On the other hand, כּתם from כתם, Arab. ktm, occulere, seems originally to denote that which is precious, then precious gold in particular, lxx χρυσίῳ Ωφείρ, Cod. Vat. and Cod. Sinaiticus, Σωφίρ (Egyptized by prefixing the Egyptian sa, part, district, side, whence e.g., sa-rees, the upper country, and sa-heet, the lower country, therefore = sa-ofir, land of Ophir). שׁהם is translated here by the lxx ὄνυξ (elsewhere σαρδόνυξ or σάρδιος), of which Pliny, h. n. xxxvii. 6, 24, appealing to Sudeines, says, in gemma esse candorem unguis humanii similitudinem; wherefore Knobel, Rödiger, and others, compare the Arab. sâhim, which, however, does not signify pale, but lean, and parched by the heat, with which, in hot countries at least, not pallor, but, on the contrary, a dark brown-black colour, is identified (Fl.). Arab. musahham, striped (Mich.), would be more appropriate, since the onyx is marked through by white veins; but this is a denom. from sahm, a dart, prop. darted, and is therefore wide of the mark. On the etymology of ספּיר, vid., Jesurun, p. 61. Nevertheless both שׁהם and ספּיר are perhaps foreign names, as the name of the emerald (vid., ib. p. 108), which is Indian (Sanskr. marakata, or even marakta); and, on the other hand, it is called in hieroglyph (determined by the stone) uot, the green stone (in Coptic p. auannēse, the green colour) (Lauth).
The transcendent excellence of wisdom above the most precious earthly treasures, which the author of the introduction to the book of Proverbs briefly describes, Job 3:14, is now drawn out in detail.

Verses 17-20

Job 28:17-20 17 Gold and glass are not equal to it,
Nor is it exchanged for jewels of gold. 18 Pearls and crystal are not to be mentioned,
And the acquisition of wisdom is beyond corals. 19 The topaz of Ethiopia is not equal to it,
It is not outweighed by pure fine gold. 20 Whence, then, cometh wisdom,
And which is the place of understanding?
Among the separate חפצים, Pro 3:15, which are here detailed, apart from זהב, glass has the transparent name זכוּכית, or, as it is pointed in Codd., in old editions, and by Kimchi, זכוכית, with Cholem (in the dialects with ג instead of )כ. Symm. indeed translates crystal, and in fact the ancient languages have common names for glass and crystal; but the crystal is here called זכוּבישׁ, which signifies prop., like the Arab. ‘gibs, ice; κρύσταλλος also signifies prop. ice, and this only in Homer, then crystal, exactly as the cognate קרח unites both significations in itself. The reason of this homonymy lies deeper than in the outward similarity, - the ancients really thought the crystal was a product of the cold; Pliny, xxxvii. 2, 9, says: non alibi certe reperitur quam ubi maxume hibernae nives rigent, glaciemque esse certum est, unde nomen Graeci dedere. The Targ. translates גבישׁ by פּנינים, certainly in the sense of the Arabico-Persic bullûr (bulûr), which signifies crystal, or even glass, and moreover is the primary word for βήρυλλος, although the identical Sanskrit word, according to the laws of sound, vaidurja (Pali, velurija), is, according to the lexicons, a name of the lapis lazuli (Persic, lagurd). Of the two words ראמות and פּננים, the one appears to mean pearls and the other corals; the ancient appellations of these precious things which belong to the sea are also blended; the Persic mergân (Sanskr. mangara) unites the signification pearl and coral in itself. The root פן, Arab. fn, which has the primary notion of pushing, especially of vegetation (whence Arab. fann, a branch, shoot, prop. motion; French, jet), and Lam 4:7, where snow and milk, as figures of whiteness (purity), are placed in contrast with פנינים as a figure of redness, favour the signification corals for פנינים. The Coptic be nôni, which signifies gemma, favours (so far as it may be compared) corals rather than pearls. And the fact that ראמות, Eze 27:16, appears as an Aramaean article of commerce in the market of Tyre, is more favourable to the signification pearls than corals; for the Babylonians sailed far into the Indian Ocean, and brought pearls from the fisheries of Bahrein, perhaps even from Ceylon, into the home markets (vid., Layard, New Discoveries, 536). The name is perhaps, from the Western Asiatic name of the pearl,^[48] mutilated and Hebraized.^[49]
The name of the פּטדּה of Ethiopia appears to be derived from to'paz by transposition; Pliny says of the topaz, xxxvii. 8, 32, among other passages; Juba Topazum insulam in rubro mari a continenti stadiis CCC abesse dicit, nebulosam et ideo quaesitam saepius navigantibus; ex ea causa nomen accepisse: topazin enim Troglodytarum lingua significationem habere quaerendi. This topaz, however, which is said to be named after an island of the same name, the Isle of Serpents in Agatharchides and Diodorus, is, according to Pliny, yellowish green, and therefore distinct from the otherwise so-called topaz. To make a candid confession, we grope about everywhere in the dark here, and the ancient versions are not able to help us out of our difficulty.^[50]
The poet lays everything under contribution to illustrate the thought, that the worth of wisdom exceeds the worth of the most valuable earthly thing; besides which, in משׁך חכמה מפנינים, “the acquisition or possession (from משׁך, Arab. msk, to draw to one's self, to take hold of) of wisdom is above corals,” there is an indication that, although not by the precious things of the earth, still in some way or other, wisdom can be possessed, so that consequently the question repeated at the end of the strophe will not remain unanswered. This is its meaning: now if wisdom is not to be found in any of the places named, and is not to be attained by any of the means mentioned, whence can man hope to attain it, and whither must he turn to find it? for its existence is certain, and it is an indisputable need of man that he should partake of it.

Verses 21-24

Job 28:21-24 21 It is veiled from the eyes of all living,
And concealed from the fowls of heaven. 22 Destruction and death say:
With our ears we heard a report of it. - 23 Elohim understandeth the way to it,
And He - He knoweth its place. 24 For He looketh to the ends of the earth,
Under the whole heaven He seeth.
No living created being (כּל־חי, as Job 12:10; Job 30:23) is able to answer the question; even the birds that fly aloft, that have keener and farther-seeing eyes than man, can give us no information concerning wisdom; and the world at least proclaims its existence in a rich variety of its operations, but in the realm of Abaddon and of death below (comp. the combination שׁאול ואבדון, Pro 15:11, ᾅδου καὶ τοῦ θανάτου, Rev 1:18) it is known only by an indistinct hearsay, and from confused impressions. Therefore: no creature, whether in the realm of the living or the dead, can help us to get wisdom. There is but One who possesses a perfect knowledge concerning wisdom, namely Elohim, whose gave extends to the ends of the earth, and who sees under the whole heaven, i.e., is everywhere present (תּחת, definition of place, not equivalent to אשׁר תּחת; comp. on Job 24:9), who therefore, after the removal of everything earthly (sub-celestial), alone remains. And why should He with His knowledge, which embraces everything, not also know the way and place of wisdom? Wisdom is indeed the ideal, according to which He has created the world.

Verses 25-28

Job 28:25-28 25 When He appointed to the wind its weight,
And weighed the water according to a measure, 26 When He appointed to the rain its law,
And the course to the lightning of the thunder: 27 Then He saw it and declared it,
Took it as a pattern and tested it also, 28 And said to man: Behold, the fear of the Lord is wisdom,
And to depart from evil is understanding.
It is impracticable to attach the inf. לעשׂות to Job 28:24 as the purpose, because it is contrary to the meaning; but it is impossible, according to the syntax, to refer it to Job 28:27 as the purpose placed in advance, or to take it in the sense of perfecturus, because in both instances it ought to have been יתכּן instead of תּכּן, or at least ותכּן with the verb placed first (vid., Job 37:15). But even the temporal use of ל in לפנות at the turn (of morning, of evening, e.g., Gen 24:63) cannot be compared, but לעשׂות signifies perficiendo = quum perficeret (as e.g., 2Sa 18:29, mittendo = quum mitteret), it is a gerundival inf. Nägelsb. S. 197f., 2nd edition); and because it is the past that is spoken of, the modal inf. can be continued in the perf., Ges. §132, rem. 2. The thought that God, when He created the world, appointed fixed laws of equable and salutary duration, he particularizes by examples: He appointed to the wind its weight, i.e., the measure of its force or feebleness; distributed the masses of water by measure; appointed to the rain its law, i.e., the conditions of its development and of its beginning; appointed the way, i.e., origin and course, to the lightning (חזיז from חזז, Arab. ḥzz, secare). When He thus created the world, and regulated what was created by laws, then He perceived (ראהּ with He Mappic. according to the testimony of the Masora) it, wisdom, viz., as the ideal of all things; then He declared it, enarravit, viz., by creating the world, which is the development and realization of its substance; then He gave it a place הכינהּ (for which Döderl. and Ewald unnecessarily read הבינהּ), viz., to create the world after its pattern, and to commit the arrangement of the world as a whole to its supreme protection and guidance; then He also searched it out or tested it, viz., its demiurgic powers, by setting them in motion to realize itself.
If we compare Pro 8:22-31 with this passage, we may say: the חכמה is the divine ideal-world, the divine imagination of all things before their creation, the complex unity of all the ideas, which are the essence of created things and the end of their development. “Wisdom,” says one of the old theologians,^[51] “is a divine imagination, in which the ideas of the angels and souls and all things were seen from eternity, not as already actual creatures, but as a man beholds himself in a mirror.” It is not directly one with the Logos, but the Logos is the demiurg by which God has called the world into existence according to that ideal which was in the divine mind. Wisdom is the impersonal model, the Logos the personal master-builder according to that model. Nevertheless the notions, here or in the alter cognate portion of Scripture, Pro 8:22-31, are not as yet so distinct as the New Testament revelation of God has first of all rendered possible. In those days, when God realized the substance of the חכמה, this eternal mirror of the world, in the creation of the world, He also gave man the law, corresponding to which he corresponds to His idea and participates in wisdom. Fearing the supreme Lord (אדני) only here in the book of Job, one of the 134 ודאין, i.e., passages, where אדני is not merely to be read instead of יהוה, but is actually written),^[52] and renouncing evil (סוּר מרע, according to another less authorized mode of writing מרע), - this is man's share of wisdom, this is his relative wisdom, by which he remains in connection with the absolute. This is true human φιλοσοφία, in contrast to all high-flown and profound speculations; comp. Pro 3:7, where, in like manner, “fear Jehovah” is placed side by side with “depart from evil,” and Pro 16:6, according to which it is rendered possible סור מרע, to escape the evil of sin and its punishment by fearing God. “The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom” (Pro 1:7; comp. Psa 111:10) is the symbolum, the motto and uppermost principle, of that Israelitish Chokma, whose greatest achievement is the book of Job. The whole of Job 28:1 is a minute panegyric of this principle, the materials of which are taken from the far-distant past; and it is very characteristic, that, in the structure of the book, this twenty-eighth chapter is the clasp which unites the half of the δέσις with the half of the λύσις, and that the poet has inscribed upon this clasp that sentence, “The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.” But, moreover, Job's closing speech, which ends in this celebration of the praise of the חכמה, also occupies an important position, which must not be determined, in the structure of the whole.
After Job has refuted Bildad, and, continuing his description, has celebrated in such lofty strains the majesty of God, it can hardly be expected that the poet will allow Zophar to speak fore the third time. Bildad is unable to advance anything new, and Zophar has already tried his utmost to terrify Job for the second time; besides, Job's speech furnishes no material for a reply (a motive which is generally overlooked), unless the controversy were designed to ramble on into mere personalities. Accordingly the poet allows Job to address the friends once more, but no longer in the extreme and excited tone of the previous dialogue, but, since the silence of the friends must produce a soothing impression on Job, tempering him to gentleness and forbearance, in a tone of confession conscious of victory, yet altogether devoid of haughty triumph, - a confession in which only one single word of reproach (Job 27:12) escapes him. Job 27:1 contain this confession - Job's final address to his friends.
Job once again most solemnly asserts his innocence before the friends; all attempts on the part of the friends to entice or to extort from him a confession which is against his conscience, have therefore been in vain: joyous and victorious he raises his head, invincible, even to death, in the conviction of that which is a fact of his consciousness that cannot be got rid of by denial. He is not an evil-doer; accordingly he must stand convicted as an evil-doer who treats him as such. For although he is not far from death, and is in sore vexation, he has not manifested the hopelessness and defection from God in which the evil-doer passes away. Job has indeed even expressed himself despondingly, and complained of God's wrath; but the true essence of his relation to God came to light in such words as Job 16:19-21; Job 17:9; Job 19:25-27. If the friends had not been blind to such brilliant aspirations of his life in God, how could they regard him as a godless man, and his affliction as the punishment of such an one! His affliction has, indeed, no connection with the terrible end of the evil-doer. Job here comes before the friends with the very doctrine they have so frequently advanced, but infatuated with the foolish notion that it is suited to his case. He here gives it back to them, to show them that it is not suited to him. He also does not deny, that in the rule the evil-doer meets a terrible end, although he has hitherto disputed the assertion of the friends, because of the exclusiveness with which it was maintained by them. His counter-assertion respecting the prosperity of the evil-doer, which from the beginning was not meant by him so exclusively as the friends meant theirs respecting the misfortune of the evil-doer, is here indirectly freed from the extreme appearance of exclusiveness by Job himself, and receives the necessary modification. Job does not deny, yea, he here brings it under the notice of the friends, that the sword, famine, and pestilence carry off the descendants of the evil-doer, and even himself; that his possessions at length fall into the hands of the righteous, and contain within themselves the germ of destruction from the very first; that God's curse pursues, and suddenly destroys, the godless rich man himself. Thus it comes to pass; for while silver and other precious things come from the depths of the earth, wisdom, whose worth far transcends all earthly treasures, is to be found with no created being, but is with God alone; and the fear of God, to avoid evil, is the share of wisdom to which man is directed according to God's primeval decree.
The object of the section, Job 28:1, is primarily to confirm the assertion concerning the judgment that befalls the evil-doer, Job 27:13-23; the confirmation is, however, at the same time, according to the delicately laid plan of the poet, a glorious general confession, in which Job's dialogue with the friends comes to a close. This panegyric of wisdom (similar to Paul's panegyric of charity, 1Co 13:1-13) is the presentation of Job's predominant principle, and as such, is like a song of triumph, with which, without vain-glory, he closes the dialogue in the most appropriate manner. If God's life has such a basis, it is not possible that his affliction should be the punishment of an ungodly man. And if the fear of God is the wisdom appointed to man, he also teaches himself that, though unable to see through the mystery of his affliction, he must still hold on to the fear of God, and teaches the friends that they must do the same, and not lay themselves open to the charge of injustice and uncharitableness towards him, the suffering one, in order to solve the mystery. Job's conclusion, which is first intended to show that he who does not fear God is overtaken by the merited fate of a fool who rebels against God's moral government, shows at the same time that the afflictive lot of those who fear God must be judged of in an essentially different manner from that of the ungodly.
We may imagine what impression these last words of Job to the friends must have made upon them. Since they were obliged to be silent, they will not have admitted that they are vanquished, although the drying up of their thoughts, and their involuntary silence, is an actual proof of it. But does Job make them feel this oppressively? Now that they are become so insignificant, does he read them a severe lecture? does he in general act towards them as vanquished? No indeed, but solemnly, and without vaunting himself over his accusers, he affirms his innocence; earnestly, but in a winning manner, he admonishes them, by tempering and modifying what was vehement and extreme in his previous replies. He humbly submits himself to the divine wisdom, by setting the fear of God, as man's true wisdom, before himself and the friends as their common aim. Thus he utters “the loftiest words, which must surprise the opponents as they exhibit him as the not merely mighty, but also wonderfully calm and modest conqueror, who here for the first time wears the crown of true victory, when, in outward victory conquering himself, he struggles on towards a more exalted clearness of perception.”

Chap. 29

Verses 1-6

Job 29:1-6 1 Then Job continued to take up his proverb, and said: 2 O that I had months like the times of yore,
Like the days when Eloah protected me, 3 When He, when His lamp, shone above my head,
By His light I went about in the darkness; 4 As I was in the days of my vintage,
When the secret of Eloah was over my tent, 5 When the Almighty was still with me,
My children round about me; 6 When my steps were bathed in cream,
And the rock beside me poured forth streams of oil.
Since the optative מי־יתּן (comp. on Job 23:3) is connected with the acc. of the object desired, Job 14:4; Job 31:31, or of that respecting which anything is desired, Job 11:5, it is in itself possible to explain: who gives (makes) me like the months of yore; but since, when מי־יתּנני occurs elsewhere, Isa 27:4; Jer 9:1, the suff. is meant as the dative (= מי־יתן לי, Job 31:35), it is also here to be explained: who gives me (= O that one would give me, O that I had) like (instar) the months of yore, i.e., months like those of the past, and indeed those that lie far back in the past; for ירחי־קדם means more than עברוּ (אשׁר) ירחים. Job begins to describe the olden times, that he wishes back, with the virtually genitive relative clause: “when Eloah protected me” (Ges. §116, 3). It is impossible to take בּהלּו as Hiph.: when He caused to shine (Targ. בּאנהרוּתיהּ); either בּההלּו (Olsh.) or even בּהלּו (Ew. in his Comm.) ought to be read then. On the other hand, הלּו can be justified as the form for inf. Kal of הלל (to shine, vid., Job 25:5) with a weakening of the a to i (Ew. §255, a), and the suff. may, according to the syntax, be taken as an anticipatory statement of the object: when it, viz., His light, shone above my head; comp. Exo 2:6 (him, the boy), Isa 17:6 (its, the fruit-tree's, branches), also Isa 29:23 (he, his children); and Ew. §309, c, also decides in its favour. Nevertheless it commends itself still more to refer the suff. of בהלו to אלוהּ (comp. Isa 60:2; Psa 50:2), and to take נרו as a corrective, explanatory permutative: when He, His lamp, shone above my head, as we have translated. One is at any rate reminded of Isa 60 in connection with Job 29:3; for as בהלו corresponds to יזרח there, so לאורו corresponds to לאורך in the Job 29:3 of the same: by His light I walked in darkness (חשׁך locative = בּחשׁך), i.e., rejoicing in His light, which preserved me from its dangers (straying and falling).
In Job 29:4 כּאשׁר is not a particle of time, but of comparison, which was obliged here to stand in the place of the כּ, which is used only as a preposition. And חרפּי (to be written thus, not חרפי with an aspirated )פ may not be translated “(in the days) of my spring,” as Symm. ἐν ἡμέραις νεότητός μου, Jer. diebus adolescentiae meae, and Targ. בּיומי חריפוּתי, whether it be that חריפות here signifies the point, ἀκμή (from חרף, Arab. ḥrf, acuere), or the early time (spring time, from חרף, Arab. chrf, carpere). For in reference to agriculture חרף can certainly signify the early half of the year (on this, vid., Genesis, S. 270), inasmuch as sowing and ploughing time in Palestine and Syria is in November and December; wherefore Arab. chrı̂f signifies the early rain or autumn rain; and in Talmudic, חרף, premature (ripe too early), is the opposite of אפל, late, but the derivatives of חרף only obtain this signification connotative, for, according to its proper signification, חרף (Arab. chrı̂f with other forms) is the gathering time, i.e., the time of the fruit harvest (syn. אסיף), while the Hebr. אביב (אב) corresponds to the spring in our sense. If Job meant his youth, he would have said בּימי אבּי, or something similar; but as Job 29:5 shows, he meant his manhood, and this he calls his autumn as the season of maturity, or rather of the abundance of fruits (Schult.: aetatem virilem suis fructibus faetum et exuberantum),^[53] which, according to Olympiodorus, also with ὅτε ἤμην ἐπιβρίθων ὁδούς (perhaps καρπούς) of the lxx, is what is intended. Then the blessed fellowship of Eloah (סוד, familiarity, confiding, unreserved intercourse, Psa 55:15; Pro 3:32, comp. Psa 25:14) ruled over his tent; the Almighty was still with him (protecting and blessing him), His נערים were round about him. It certainly does not mean servants (Raschi: משׁרתי), but children (as Job 1:19; Job 24:5); for one expects the mention of the blessing of children first of all (Psa 127:3, Psa 128:3). His steps (הליך, ἅπ. λεγ.) bathed then בּחמה = בּחמאה, Job 20:17 (as שׁלה = שׁאלה, 1Sa 1:17, and possibly גּוה = גּאוה), and the rocks poured forth, close by him, streams of oil (a figure which reminds one of Deu 32:13). A rich blessing surrounded him wherever he tarried or went, and flowed to him wonderfully beyond desire and comprehension.

Verses 7-10

Job 29:7-10 7 When I went forth to the gate of the city,
Prepared my seat in the market, 8 Then the young men hid themselves as soon as they saw me,
And the aged rose up, remained standing. 9 Princes refrained from speaking,
And laid their hand on their mouth. 10 The voice of the nobles was hidden,
And their tongue clave to their palate.
When he left the bounds of his domain, and came into the city, he was everywhere received with the profoundest respect. From the facts of the case, it is inadmissible to translate quum egrederer portam after Gen 34:24, comp. infra, Job 31:34, for the district where Job dwelt is to be thought of as being without a gate. True, he did not dwell with his family in tents, i.e., pavilions of hair, but in houses; he was not a nomad (a wandering herdsman), or what is the same thing, a Beduin, otherwise his children would not have been slain in a stone house, Job 1:19. “The daughter of the duck,” says an Arabian proverb, “is a swimmer,” and the son of a Beduin never dwells in a stone house. He was, however, also, not a citizen, but a hadarı̂ (חצרי), i.e., a permanent resident, a large landowner and husbandman. Thus therefore שׁער (for which Ew. after the lxx reads שׁחר: “when I went up early in the morning to the city”) is locative, for שׁערה (comp. צא השּׂדה, go out into the field, Gen 27:3): when he went forth to the gate above the city; or even, since it is natural to imagine the city as situated on an eminence: up to the city (so that צאת includes in itself by implication the notion of עלות); not, however: to the gate near the city (Stick., Hahn), since the gate of a city is not situated near the city, but is part of the city itself. The gates of cities and large houses in Western Asia are vaulted entrances, with large recesses on either side, where people congregate for business and negotiations.^[54]
The open space at the gate, which here, as in Neh 8:1, Neh 8:3, Neh 8:16, is called רחוב, i.e., the open space within the gate and by the gate, was the forum (Job 5:4).

Verse 8

When Job came hither to the meeting of the tribunal, or the council of the elders of the city, within which he had a seat and a voice, the young men hid themselves, conscious of his presence (which εἰρομένῃ λέξει, or, is expressed paratactically instead of as a period), i.e., they retired into the background, since they feared his look of salutation;^[55] and old men (hoary heads) stood up, remained standing (ἀσυνδέτως, as Job 20:19; Job 28:4). קוּם signifies to stand up, עמד to advance towards any one and remain standing. They rose in order not to seat themselves until he was seated. שׂרים are magnates (proceres) of the city. These עצרוּ בּמלּים, cohibebant verba (עצר with Beth of the obj., as Job 4:2; Job 12:15), and keeping a respectful silence, they laid their hand on their mouth (comp. Job 21:5). All stepped back and desisted from speaking before him: The speech of illustrious men (נגידים from נגד, Arab. njd, to be visible, pleasant to the sight, comp. supra, p. 510) hid itself (not daring to be heard), and the tongue of the same clave (motionless) to their palate. We do not translate: as to the voice illustrious men hid themselves, for it is only the appearance produced by the attractional construction Ges. §148, 1 that has led to the rendering of קול־נגידים as an acc. of closer definition (Schult., Hahn: quod ad vocem eminentium, comprimebantur). The verb is construed with the second member of the genitival expression instead of with the first, as with מספר, Job 15:20; Job 21:21; Job 38:21, and with ראשׁ, Job 22:12; a construction which occurs with קול not merely in such exclamatory sentences as Gen 4:10; Isa 52:8, but also under other conditions, 1Ki 1:41, comp. Job 14:6. This may be best called an attraction of the predicate by the second member of the compound subject, like the reverse instance, Isa 2:11; and it is sometimes found even where this second member is not logically the more important. Thus Ew. transl.: “the voice of the nobles hides itself;” whereas Olsh., wrongly denying that the partt. in passages like Gen 4:10; 1Ki 1:41, are to be taken as predicative, wishes to read נחבא, which is the more inadmissible, as even the choice of the verb is determined by the attractional construction.
The strophe which follows tells how it came to pass that those in authority among the citizens submitted to him, and that on all sides the people were zealous to show him tokens of respect.

Verses 11-14

Job 29:11-14 11 For an ear heard, and called me happy;
And an eye saw, and bear witness to me: 12 For I rescued the sufferer who cried for help,
And the orphan, and him that had no helper. 13 The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me,
And I made the widow's heart rejoice. 14 I put on justice, and it put me on;
As a robe and turban was my integrity.
Thus imposing was the impression of his personal appearance wherever he appeared; for (כּי explic.) the fulness of the blessing of the possession of power and of prosperity which he enjoyed was so extraordinary, that one had only to hear of it to call him happy, and that, especially if any one saw it with his own eyes, he was obliged to bear laudatory testimony to him. The futt. consec. affirm what was the inevitable consequence of hearing and seeing; העיד, seq. acc., is used like הזכּיר in the signification of laudatory recognition. The expression is not brachylogical for ותּעד לּי (vid., on Job 31:18); for from 1Ki 21:10, 1Ki 21:13, we perceive that העיד with the acc. of the person signifies to make any one the subject of assertion, whether he be lower or higher in rank (comp. the New Testament word, especially in Luke, μαρτυρεῖσθαι). It was, however, not merely the outward manifestation of his unusual prosperity which called forth such admiration, but his active benevolence united with the abundant resources at his command. For where there was a sufferer who cried for help he, relieved him, especially orphans and those who had no helper. ולא־עזר לו is either a new third object, or a closer definition of what precedes: the orphan and (in this state of orphanhood) helpless one. The latter is more probable both here and in the Salomonic primary passage, Psa 72:12; in the other case ואשׁר אין־עזר לח might be expected.

Verse 13

The blessing (בּרכּת with closely closed penult.) of those who stood on the brink of destruction (אובד, interiturus, as Job 31:19; Pro 31:6), and owed their rescue to him, came upon him; and the heart of the widow to whom he gave assistance, compensating for the assistance of her lost husband, he filled with gladness (הרנין causative, as Psa 65:9). For the primary attribute, the fundamental character of his way of thinking and acting, was צדק, a holding fast to the will of God, which before everything else calls for sympathizing love (root צדק, Arab. ṣdq, to be hard, firm, stiff, e.g., rumh-unsadq-un, according to the Kamus: a hard, firm, straight spear), and משׁפּט, judgment and decision in favour of right and equity against wrong and injustice. Righteousness is here called the garment which he put on (as Psa 132:9, comp. Isa 11:5; Isa 59:17), and right is the robe and turban with which he adorns himself (comp. Isa 61:10); as by Arabian poets noble attributes are also called garments, which God puts on any one, or which any one puts on himself (albasa).^[56]
Righteousness is compared to the לבושׁ (corresponding to the thob, i.e., garment, indusium, of the nomads) which is worn on the naked body, justice to the צניף, a magnificent turban (corresponding to the kefije, consisting of a thick cotton cloth, and fastened with a cord made of camel's hair), and the magnificent robe (corresponding to the second principal article of clothing, the ‛abâ). The lxx, Jer., Syr., and Arab. wrongly refer ויּלבּשׁני to משׁפטי of the second half of the verse, while, on the contrary, it is said of צדק, per antanaclasin, that Job put this on, and this in turn put Job on, induit; for וילבשׁני, as the usage of the language, as we have it, elsewhere shows, does not signify: it (righteousness) clothed me well (Umbr.), or: adorned me (Ew., Vaih.), also not: it dressed me out (Schlottm.), but only: it put me on as a garment, i.e., it made me so its own, that my whole appearance was the representation of itself, as in Jdg 6:34 and twice in the Chronicles, of the Spirit of Jehovah it is said that He puts on any one, induit, when He makes any one the organ of His own manifestation.

Verses 15-17

Job 29:15-17 15 I was eyes to the blind,
And feet was I to the lame. 16 I was a father to the needy,
And the cause of the unknown I found out, 17 And broke the teeth of the wicked,
And I cast the spoil forth out of his teeth.
The less it is Job's purpose here to vindicate himself before the friends, the more forcible is the refutation which the accusations of the most hard-hearted uncharitableness raised against him by them, especially by Eliphaz, Job 22, find everywhere here. His charity relieved the bodily and spiritual wants of others - eyes to the blind (לעוּר with Pathach), feet to the lame. A father was he to the needy, which is expressed by a beautiful play of words, as if it were: the carer for the care-full ones; or what perhaps corresponds to the primary significations of אב and אביון:^[57] the protector of those needing (seeking) protection. The unknown he did not regard as those who were nothing to him, but went unselfishly and impartially into the ground of their cause. לא־ידעתּי is an attributive clause, as Job 18:21; Isa 55:5; Isa 41:3, and freq., with a personal obj. (eorum) quos non noveram, for the translation causam quam nesciebam (Jer.) gives a tame, almost meaningless, thought. With reference to the suff. in אחקרהוּ, on the form ehu used seldom by Waw consec. (Job 12:4), and by the imper. (Job 40:11), chiefly with a solemn calm tone of speech, vid., Ew. §250, c. Further: He spared not to render wrong-doers harmless, and snatched from them what they had taken from others. The cohortative form of the fut. consec., ואשׁבּרה, has been discussed already on Job 1:15; Job 19:20. The form מתלּעות is a transposition of מלתּעות, to render it more convenient for pronunciation, for the Arab. ṭl‛, efferre se, whence a secondary form, Arab. tl‛, although used of the appearing of the teeth, furnishes no such appropriate primary signification as the Arab. lḏg, pungere, mordere, whence a secondary form, Arab. ltg; the Aethiopic maltâht, jawbone (maxilla), also favours מלתעה as the primary form. He shattered the grinders of the roguish, and by moral indignation against the robber he cast out of his teeth what he had stolen.

Verses 18-20

Job 29:18-20 18 Then I thought: With my nest I shall expire,
And like the phoenix, have a long life. 19 My root will be open for water,
And the dew will lodge in my branches. 20 Mine honour will remain ever fresh to me,
And my bow will become young in my hand.
In itself, Job 29:18 might be translated: “and like to the sand I shall live many days” (Targ., Syr., Arab., Saad., Gecat., Luther, and, among moderns, Umbr., Stick., Vaih., Hahn, and others), so that the abundance of days is compared to the multitude of the grains of sand. The calculation of the immense total of grains of sand (atoms) in the world was, as is known, a favourite problem of antiquity; and in the Old Testament Scriptures, the comprehensive knowledge of Solomon is compared to “the sand upon the sea-shore,” 1Ki 5:9, - how much more readily a long life reduced to days! comp. Ovid, Metam. xiv. 136-138; quot haberet corpora pulvis, tot mihi natales contingere vana rogavi. We would willingly decide in favour of this rendering, which is admissible in itself, although a closer definition like היּם is wanting by כחול, if an extensive Jewish tradition did not secure the signification of an immortal bird, or rather one rising ever anew from the dead. The testimony is as follows: (1) b. Sanhedrin 108b, according to which חול is only another name for the bird אורשׁינא,^[58] of which the fable is there recorded, that when Noah fed the beasts in the ark, it sat quite still in its compartment, that it might not give more trouble to the patriarch, who had otherwise plenty to do, and that Noah wished it on this account the reward of immortality (יהא רעוא דלא תמות). (2) That this bird חול is none other than the phoenix, is put beyond all doubt by the Midrashim (collected in the Jalkut on Job, §517). There it is said that Eve gave all the beasts to eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree, and that only one bird, the חול by name, avoided this death-food: “it lives a thousand years, at the expiration of which time fire springs up in its nest, and burns it up to about the size of an egg;” or even: that of itself it diminishes to that size, from which it then grows up again and continues to live (וחוזר ומתגדל איברים וחיה). (3) The Masora observes, that כחול occurs in two different significations (בתרי לישׁני), since in the present passage it does not, as elsewhere, signify sand. (4) Kimchi, in his Lex., says: “in a correct Jerusalem MS I found the observation: בשׁורק לנהרדעי ובחלם למערבאי, i.e., וכחוּל according to the Nehardean (Babylonian) reading, וכחול according to the western (Palestine) reading;” according to which, therefore, the Babylonian Masoretic school distinguished וכחול in the present passage from וכחול, Gen 22:17, even in the pronunciation. A conclusion respecting the great antiquity of this lexical tradition may be drawn (5) from the lxx, which translates ὥσπερ στέλεχος φοίνικος, whence the Italic sicut arbor palmae, Jerome sicut palma.
If we did not know from the testimonies quoted that חול is the name of the phoenix, one might suppose that the lxx has explained וכחול according to the Arab. nachl, the palm, as Schultens does; but by a comparison of those testimonies, it is more probable that the translation was ὥσπερ φοῖνιξ originally, and that ὥσπερ στέλεχος φοίνικος is an interpolation, for φοῖνιξ signifies both the immortal miraculous bird and the inexhaustibly youthful palm.^[59]
We have the reverse case in Tertullian, de resurrectione carnis, c. xiii., which explains the passage in Ps; Psa 92:13, δίκαιος ὡς φοῖνιξ ἀντηήσει, according to the translation justus velut phoenix florebit, of the ales orientis or avis Arabiae, which symbolizes man's immortality.^[60]
Both figures, that of the phoenix and that of the palm, are equally appropriate and pleasing in the mouth of Job; but apart from the fact that the palm everywhere, where it otherwise occurs, is called תּמר, this would be the only passage where it occurs in the book of Job, which, in spite of its richness in figures taken from plants, nowhere mentions the palm, - a fact which is perhaps not accidental.^[61]
On the contrary, we must immediately welcome a reference to the Arabico-Egyptian myth of the phoenix, that can be proved, in a book which also otherwise thoroughly blends things Egyptian with Arabian, and the more so since (6) even the Egyptian language itself supports חול or חוּל as a name of the phoenix; for ΑΛΛΩΗ ΑΛΛΟΗ is explained in the Coptico-Arabic glossaries by es-semendel (the Arab. name of the phoenix, or at least a phoenix-like bird, that, like the salamander, semendar, cannot be burned), and in Kircher by avis Indica, species Phoenicis.^[62] חול is Hebraized from this Egyptian name of the phoenix; the word signifies rotation (comp. Arab. haul, the year; haula, round about), and is a suitable designation of the bird that renews its youth periodically after many centuries of life: quae reparat seque ipsa reseminat ales (Ovid), not merely beginning a new life, but also bringing in a new great year: conversionem anni magni (Pliny); in the hieroglyphic representations it has the circle of the sun as a crown. In the full enjoyment of the divine favour and blessing, and in the consciousness of having made a right use of his prosperity, Job hoped φοίνικος ἔτη βιοῦν (Lucian, Hermot. 53), to use a Greek expression, and to expire or die עם־קנּי, as the first half of the verse, now brought into the right light, says. Looking to the form of the myth, according to which Ovid sings:Quassa cum fulvâ substravit cinnama myrrhâ,Se super imponit finitque in odoribus aevum, it might be translated: together with my nest (Umbr., Hirz., Hlgst.); but with the wish that he may not see any of his dear ones die before himself, there is at the same time connected the wish, that none of them should survive him, which is in itself unnatural, and diametrically opposed to the character of an Arab, who in the presence of death cherishes the twofold wish, that he may continue to live in his children (a proverb says: men chalaf el-weled el-fâlih ma mât, he who leaves a noble child behind him is not dead), and that he may die in the midst of his family. Expressly this latter wish, עם־קני signifies: with = in my nest, i.e., in the bosom of my family, not without reference to the phoenix, which, according to the form of the myth in Herodotus, Pliny, Clemens, and others, brings the remains of its father in a nest or egg of myrrh to Heliopolis, into the sacred precincts of the temple of the sun, and thus pays him the last and highest tribute of respect. A different but similar version if given in Horapollo ii. 57, according to which the young bird came forth from the blood of its sire, σὺν τῷ πατρὶ πορεύεται εἰς τῆν Ἡλίου πόλιν τῆν ἐν Αιγύπτῳ, ὃς καὶ παραγενόμενος ἐκεῖ ἅμα τῇ ἡλίου ἀνατολῇ τελευτᾷ. The father, therefore, in death receives the highest tribute of filial respect; and it is this to which the hope of being able to die with (in) his nest, expressed by Job, refers.
The following substantival clause, Job 29:19, is to be understood as future, like the similar clause, Job 29:16, as perfect: my root - so I hoped - will remain open (unclosed) towards the water, i.e., it will never be deficient of water in its vicinity, that it may plentifully supply the stem and branches with nourishment, and dew will lodge on my branches, i.e., will descend nightly, and remain upon them to nourish them. אלי (corresponding to the Arab. ila, originally ilai) occurs only in the book of Job, and here for the fourth and last time (comp. Job 3:22; Job 5:26; Job 15:22). קציר does not signify harvest here, as the ancient expositors render it, but, like Job 14:9; Job 18:16, a branch, or the intertwined branches. The figure of the root and branch, the flow of vitality downwards and upwards, is the counterpart of Job 18:16. In Job 29:20 a substantival clause also comes first, as in Job 29:19, Job 29:16 (for the established reading is חדשׁ, not חדשׁ), and a verbal clause follows: his honour - so he hoped - should continue fresh by him, i.e., should abide with him in undiminished value and splendour. It is his honour before God and men that is intended, not his soul (Hahn); כבוד, δόξα, certainly is an appellation of the נפשׁ (Psychol. S. 98), but חדשׁ is not appropriate to it as predicate. By the side of honour stands manliness, or the capability of self-defence, whose symbol is the bow: and my bow should become young again in my hand, i.e., gain ever new strength and elasticity. It is unnecessary to supply כּח (Hirz., Schlottm., and others). The verb חלף, Arab. chlf, signifies, as the Arab. shows, properly to turn the back, then to go forth, exchange; the Hiph. to make progress, to cause something new to come into the place of the old, to grow young again. These hopes introduced with ואמר were themselves an element of his former happiness. Its description can therefore be continued in connection with the ואמר without any fresh indication.

Verses 21-25

Job 29:21-25 21 They hearkened to me and waited,
And remained silent at my decision. 22 After my utterance they spake not again,
And my speech distilled upon them. 23 And they waited for me as for the rain,
And they opened their mouth wide for the latter rain. 24 I smiled to them in their hopelessness,
And the light of my countenance they cast not down. 25 I chose the way for them, and sat as chief,
And dwelt as a king in the army,
As one that comforteth the mourners.
Attentive, patient, and ready to be instructed, they hearkened to him (this is the force of שׁמע ל), and waited, without interrupting, for what he should say. ויחלּוּ, the pausal pronunciation with a reduplication of the last radical, as Jdg 5:7, חדלּוּ (according to correct texts), Ges. §20, 2, c; the reading of Kimchi, ויחלוּ, is the reading of Ben-Naphtali, the former the reading of Ben-Ascher (vid., Norzi). If he gave counsel, they waited in strictest silence: this is the meaning of ידּמוּ (fut. Kal of דּמם); למו, poetic for ל, refers the silence to its outward cause (vid., on Hab 3:16). After his words non iterabant, i.e., as Jerome explanatorily translates: addere nihil audebant, and his speech came down upon them relieving, rejoicing, and enlivening them. The figure indicated in תּטּף is expanded in Job 29:23 after Deu 32:2 : they waited on his word, which penetrated deeply, even to the heart, as for rain, מטר, by which, as Job 29:23, the so-called (autumnal) early rain which moistens the seed is prominently thought of. They open their mouth for the late rain, מלקושׁ (vid., on Job 24:6), i.e., they thirsted after his words, which were like the March or April rain, which helps to bring to maturity the corn that is soon to be reaped; this rain frequently fails, and is therefore the more longed for. פּער פּה is to be understood according to Psa 119:131, comp. Psa 81:11; and one must consider, in connection with it, what raptures the beginning of the periodical rains produces everywhere, where, as e.g., in Jerusalem, the people have been obliged for some time to content themselves with cisterns that are almost dried to a marsh, and how the old and young dance for joy at their arrival!
In Job 29:24 a thought as suited to the syntax as to the fact is gained if we translate: “I smiled to them - they believed it not,” i.e., they considered such condescension as scarcely possible (Saad., Raschi, Rosenm., De Wette, Schlottm., and others); עשׂחק is then fut. hypotheticum, as Job 10:16; Job 20:24; Job 22:27., Ew. §357, b. But it does not succeed in putting Job 29:24 in a consistent relation to this thought; for, with Aben-Ezra, to explain: they did not esteem my favour the less on that account, my respect suffered thereby no loss among them, is not possible in connection with the biblical idea of “the light of the countenance;” and with Schlottm. to explain: they let not the light of my countenance, i.e., token of my favour, fall away, i.e., be in vain, is contrary to the usage of the language, according to which הפּיל פּנים signifies: to cause the countenance to sink (gloomily, Gen 4:5), whether one's own, Jer 3:12, or that of another. Instead of פּני we have a more pictorial and poetical expression here, אור פּני: light of my countenance, i.e., my cheerfulness (as Pro 16:15). Moreover, the אשׂחק אליהם, therefore, furnishes the thought that he laughed, and did not allow anything to dispossess him of his easy and contented disposition. Thus, therefore, those to whom Job laughed are to be thought of as in a condition and mood which his cheerfulness might easily sadden, but still did not sadden; and this their condition is described by לא יאמינוּ (a various reading in Codd. and editions is ולא), a phrase which occurred before (Job 24:22) in the signification of being without faith or hope, despairing (comp. האמין, to gain faith, Psa 116:10), - a clause which is not to be taken as attributive (Umbr., Vaih.: who had not confidence), but as a neutral or circumstantial subordinate clause (Ew. §341, a). Therefore translate: I smiled to them, if they believed not, i.e., despaired; and however despondent their position appeared, the cheerfulness of my countenance they could not cause to pass away. However gloomy they were, they could not make me gloomy and off my guard. Thus also Job 29:25 is now suitably attached to the preceding: I chose their way, i.e., I made the way plain, which they should take in order to get out of their hopeless and miserable state, and sat as chief, as a king who is surrounded by an armed host as a defence and as a guard of honour, attentive to the motion of his eye; not, however, as a sovereign ruler, but as one who condescended to the mourners, and comforted them (נחם Piel, properly to cause to breathe freely). This peaceful figure of a king brings to mind the warlike one, Job 15:24. כּאשׁר is not a conj. here, but equivalent to כאישׁ אשׁר, ut (quis) qui; consequently not: as one comforts, but: as he who comforts; lxx correctly: ὃν τρόπον παθεινοὺς παρακαλῶν. The accentuation (כאשׁר Tarcha, אבלים Munach, ינחם Silluk) is erroneous; כאשׁר should be marked with Rebia mugrasch, and אבלים with Mercha-Zinnorith.
From the prosperous and happy past, absolutely passed, Job now turns to the present, which contrasts so harshly with it.

The Second Part of the Monologue.--Chap. XXX.

Schema: 10. 8. 9. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8.

1 And now they who are younger than I have me in derision,

Those whose fathers I disdained To set with the dogs of my flock.

2 Yea, the strength of their hands, what should it profit me?

They have lost vigour and strength.

3 They are benumbed from want and hunger,

They who gnaw the steppe,

The darkness of the wilderness and waste;

4 They who pluck mallows in the thicket,

And the root of the broom is their bread.

With ועתּה, which also elsewhere expresses the turning-point from the premises to the conclusion, from accusation to the threat of punishment, and such like, Job here begins to bewail the sad turn which his former prosperity has taken. The first line of the verse, which is marked off by Mercha-Mahpach, is intentionally so disproportionately long, to form a deep and long breathed beginning to the lamentation which is now begun. Formerly, as he has related in the first part of the monologue, an object of reverential fear to the respectable youth of the city (Job 29:8), he is now an object of derision (שׂחק על, to laugh at, distinct from שׂחק אל, Job 29:24, to laugh to, smile upon) to the young good-for-nothing vagabonds of a miserable class of men. They are just the same עניּי ארץ, whose sorrowful lot he reckons among the mysteries of divine providence, so difficulty of solution (Job 24:4-8). The less he belongs to the merciless ones, who take advantage of the calamities of the poor for their own selfish ends, instead of relieving their distress as far as is in their power, the more unjustifiable is the rude treatment which he now experiences from them, when they who meanly hated him before because he was rich, now rejoice at the destruction of his prosperity. Younger than he in days (לימים as Job 32:4, with ל of closer definition, instead of which the simple acc. was inadmissible here, comp. on Job 11:9) laugh at him, sons of those fathers who were so useless and abandoned that he scorned (מאס ל, comp. מאס מן, 1Sa 15:26) to entrust to them even a service so menial as that of the shepherd dogs. Schult., Rosenm., and Schlottm. take שׁית עם for שׁית על, praeficere, but that ought to be just simply שׁית על; שׁית עם signifies to range beside, i.e., to place alike, to associate; moreover, the oversight of the shepherd dogs is no such menial post, while Job intends to say that he did not once consider them fit to render such a subordinate service as is that of the dogs which help the shepherds.
And even the strength of their (these youths') hands (גּם is referable to the suff. of ידיהם: even; not: now entirely, completely, as Hahn translates), of what use should it be to him: (למּה not cur, but ad quid, quorsum, as Gen 25:32; Gen 27:46.) They are enervated, good-for-nothing fellows: כּלח is lost to them (עלימו trebly emphatic: it is placed in a prominent position, has a pathetic suff., and is על for ל, 1Sa 9:3). The signif. senectus, which suits Job 5:26, is here inapplicable, since it is not the aged that are spoken of, but the young; for that “old age is lost to them” would be a forced expression for the thought - which, moreover, does not accord with the connection - that they die off early. One does not here expect the idea of senectus or senectus vegeta, but vigor, as the Syriac (‛ushino) and Arabic also translate it. May not כּלח perhaps be related to כּח, as שׁלאנן to שׁאנן, the latter being a mixed form from שׁאנן and שׁלו, the former from כּח and לח, fresh juicy vigour, or as we say: pith and marrow (Saft and Kraft)? At all events, if this is somewhat the idea of the word, it may be derived from כּלח = כּלה (lxx συντέλεια), or some other way (vid., on Job 5:26): it signifies full strength or maturity.^[63]
With Job 30:3 begins a new clause. It is גּלמוּד, not גּלמוּדים, because the book of Job does not inflect this Hebraeo-Arabic word, which is peculiar to it (besides only Isa 49:21, גּלמוּדה). It is also in Arab. more a substantive (stone, a mass) than an adj. (hard as stone, massive, e.g., Hist. Tamerlani in Schultens: Arab. ‘l-ṣchr 'l-jlmûd, the hardest rock); and, similar to the Greek χέρσος (vid., Passow), it denotes the condition or attribute of rigidity, i.e., sterility, Job 3:7; or stiff as death, Job 15:34; or, as here, extreme weakness and incapability of working. The subj.: such are they, is wanting; it is ranged line upon line in the manner of a mere sketch, participles with the demonstrative article follow the elliptical substantival clause. The part. הערקים is explained by lxx, Targ., Saad. (Arab. fârrı̂n), and most of the old expositors, after ערק, Arab. ‛araqa, fut. ya‛riq, fugere, abire, which, however, gives a tame and - since the desert is to be thought of as the proper habitation of these people, be they the Seir remnant of the displaced Horites, or the Hauran ”races of the clefts” - even an inappropriate sense. On the contrary, ‛rq in Arab. (also Pael ‛arreq in Syriac) signifies to gnaw; and this Arabic signification of a word exclusively peculiar to the book of Job (here and Job 30:17) is perfectly suitable. We do not, however, with Jerome, translate: qui rodebant in solitudine (which is doubly false), but qui rodunt solitudinem, they gnaw the sunburnt parched ground of the steppe, stretched out there more like beasts than men (what Gecatilia also means by his Arab. lâzmû, adhaerent), and derive from it their scanty food. אמשׁ שׁואה וּמשׁאה is added as an explanatory, or rather further descriptive, permutative to ציּה. The same alliterative union of substantives of the same root occurs in Job 38:27; Zep 1:15, and a similar one in Nah 2:11 (בוקה ומבוקה), Eze 6:14; Eze 33:29 (שׁמה ומשׁמה); on this expression of the superlative by heaping up similar words, comp. Ew. §313, c. The verb שׁאה has the primary notion of wild confused din (e.g., Isa 17:12.), which does not pass over to the idea of desolation and destruction by means of the intermediate notion of ruins that come together with a crash, but by the transfer of what is confusing to the ear to confusing impressions and conditions of all kinds; the desert is accordingly called also תּהוּ, Deu 32:10, from תּהה = שׁאה (vid., Genesis, S. 93).
The noun אמשׁ nuon signifies elsewhere adverbially, in the past night, to grow night-like, and in general yesterday, according to which it is translated: the yesterday of waste and desolation; or, retaining the adverbial form: waste and desolation are of yesterday = long since. It is undeniable that מאתמוּל and אתמוּל, Isa 30:33; Mic 2:8, are used in the sense pridem (not only to-day, but even yesterday); but our poet uses תּמול, Job 8:9, in the opposite sense, non pridem (not long since, but only of yesterday); and it is more natural to ask whether אמשׁ then has not here the substantival signification from which it has become an adverb, in the signification nightly or yesterday. Since it originally signifies yesterday evening or night, then yesterday, it must have the primary signification darkness, as the Arab. ams is also traceable to the primary notion of the sinking of the sun towards the horizon; so that, consequently, although the usage of Arabic does not allow this sense,^[64] it can be translated (comp. צלמות, Jer 2:6), “the evening darkness (gloominess) of the waste and wilderness” (אמשׁ as regens, Ew. §286, a). The Targ. also translated similarly, but take אמשׁ as a special attribute: חשׁוכא היך רוּמשׁא, “darkness like the late evening.” Olshausen's conjecture of ארץ makes it easier, but puts a word that affirms nothing in the place of an expressive one.
Job 30:4 tells what the scanty nourishment is which the chill, desolate, and gloomy desert, with its steppes and gorges, furnishes them. מלּוּח (also Talmudic, Syriac, and Arabic) is the orach, and indeed the tall shrubby orach, the so-called sea-purslain, the buds and young leaves of which are gathered and eaten by the poor. That it is not merely a coast plant, but grows also in the desert, is manifest from the narrative b. Kidduschin, 66a: “King Jannai approached כוחלית in the desert, and conquered sixty towns there Ges. translates wrongly, captis LX talentis; and on his return with great joy, he called all the orphans of Israel to him, and said: Our fathers ate מלוחים in their time when they were engaged with the building of the temple (according to Raschi: the second temple; according to Aruch: the tabernacle in the wilderness); we will also eat מלוחים in remembrance of our fathers! And מלוחים were served up on golden tables, and they ate.” The lxx translates, ἅλιμα (not: ἄλιμα); as in Athenaeus, poor Pythagoreans are once called ἅλιμα τρώγοντες καὶ κακὰ τοιαῦτα συλλέγοντες.^[65]
The place where they seek for and find this kind of edible plant is indicated by עלי־שׂיח. שׂיח is a shrub in general, but certainly pre-eminently the Arab. šı̂h, that perennial, branchy, woody plant of uncultivated ground, about two-thirds of a yard high, and the same in diameter, which is one of the greatest blessings of Syria and of the steppe, since, with the exception of cow and camel's dung, it is often the only fuel of the peasants and nomads, - the principal, and often in a day's journey the only, vegetation of the steppe, in the shade of which, then everything else is parched, a scanty vegetation is still preserved.^[66]
The poor in search of the purslain surround this Arab. šı̂ḥ (shı̂h), and as Job 30:4 continues: the broom-root is their bread. Ges. understands לחמם according to Isa 47:14, where it is certainly the pausal form for לחמם (“there is not a coal to warm one's self”), and that because the broom-root is not eatable. But why should broom-root and not broom brushwood be mentioned as fuel? The root of the steppe that serves as fuel, together with the shı̂h, is called gizl (from גזל, to tear out), not retem, which is the broom (and is extraordinarily frequent in the Belka). The Arabs, however, not only call Genista monosperma so, but also Chamaerops humilis, a degenerate kind of which produces a kind of arrow-root which the Indians in Florida use.^[67] לחמם in the signification cibus eorum is consequently not incomprehensible. lxx (which throws Job 30:4 into sad confusion): οἳ καὶ ῥΊζας ξύλων ἐμασσῶντο.^[68]
All the ancient versions translate similarly. One is here reminded of what Agatharchides says in Strabo concerning the Egyptio-Ethiopian eaters of the rush root and herb.^[69] ==Verses 5-8== Job 30:5-8
5 They are driven forth from society,
They cry after them as after a thief. 6 In the most dismal valleys they must dwell,
In holes of the earth and in rocks. 7 Among the bushes they croak,
Under nettles are they poured forth, 8 Sons of fools, yea sons of base men:
They are driven forth out of the land! -
If, coming forth from their lurking-places, they allow themselves to be seen in the villages of the plain or in the towns, they are driven forth from among men, e medio pelluntur (to use a Ciceronian phrase). גּו (Syr. gau, Arab. gaww, guww) is that which is internal, here the circle of social life, the organized human community. This expression also is Hebraeo-Arabic; for if one contrasts a house of district with what is outside, he says in Arabic, jûwâ wa-barrâ, guwwâ wa-berrâ, within and without, or Arab. ‘l-jûwâ-nı̂ wa-'l-brrâ-nı̂, el-guwwâni wa'l-berrâni, the inside and the outside. In Job 30:5, כּגּנּב, like the thief, is equivalent to, as after the thief, or since this generic Art. is not usual with us Germ. and Engl.: after a thief; French, on crie après eux comme après le voleur. In Job 30:6, לשׁכּן is, according to Ges. §132, rem. 1 (comp. on Hab 1:17), equivalent to היוּ לשׁכּן, “they are to dwell” = they must dwell; it might also signify, according to the still more frequent usage of the language, habitaturi sunt; it here, however, signifies habitandum est eis, as לבלום, Psa 32:9, obturanda sunt. Instead of בּערוּץ with Shurek, the reading בּערוץ with Cholem (after the form סגור, Hos 13:8) is also found, but without support. ארוּץ is either a substantive after the form גּבוּל (Ges., as Kimchi), or the construct of ערוּץ = נערץ, feared = fearful, so that the connection of the words, which we prefer, is a superlative one: in horridissima vallium, in the most terrible valleys, as Job 41:22, acutissimae testarum (Ew., according to §313, c). The further description of the habitation of this race of men: in holes (חרי = בּחרי) of the earth (עפר, earth with respect to its constituent parts) and rocks (lxx τρῶγλαι πετρῶν), may seem to indicate the aborigines of the mountains of the district of Seir, who are called החרים, τρωγλοδύνται (vid., Genesis, S. 507); but why not, which is equally natural, חורן, Eze 47:16, Eze 47:18, the “district of caverns,” the broad country about Bosra, with the two Trachônes (τράχωνες), of which the smaller western, the Legâ, is the ancient Trachonitis, and with Ituraea (the mountains of the Druses)?^[70]
As Job 6:5 shows, there underlies Job 30:7 a comparison of this people with the wild ass. The פּרא, ferâ, goes about in herds under the guidance of a so-called leader (vid., on Job 39:5), with which the poet in Job 24:5 compares the bands that go forth for forage; here the point of comparison, according to Job 6:5, is their bitter want, which urges from them the cry of pain; for ינהקוּ, although not too strong, would nevertheless be an inadequate expression for their sermo barbarus (Pineda), in favour of which Schlottmann calls to mind Herodotus' (iv. 183) comparison of the language of the Troglodyte Ethiopians with the screech of the night-owl (τετρίγασι κατάπερ αι ̓ νυκτερίδες). Among bushes (especially the bushes of the shih, which affords them some nourishment and shade, and a green resting-place) one hears them, and hears from their words, although he cannot understand them more closely, discontent and lamentation over their desperate condition: there, under nettles (חרוּל, root חר, Arab. ḥrr, as urtica from urere), i.e., useless weeds of the desert, they are poured forth, i.e., spread about in disorder. Thus most moderns take ספח = שׁפך, Arab. sfḥ, comp. סרוּח, profusus, Amo 6:4, Amo 6:7, although one might also abide by the usual Hebrew meaning of the verb ספח (hardened from ספה), adjungere, associare (vid., Habak. S. 88), and with Hahn explain: under nettles they are united together, i.e., they huddle together. But neither the fut. nor the Pual (instead of which one would expect the Niph. or Hithpa.) is favourable to the latter interpretation; wherefore we decide in favour of the former, and find sufficient support for a Hebr.-Arabic ספח in the signification effundere from a comparison of Job 14:19 and the present passage. Job 30:8, by dividing the hitherto latent subject, tells what sort of people they are: sons of fools, profane, insane persons (vid., on Psa 14:1); moreover, or of the like kind (גּם, not אף), sons of the nameless, ignobilium or infamium, since בלי־שׁם is here an adj. which stands in dependence, not filii infamiae = infames (Hirz. and others), by which the second בני is rendered unlike the first. The assertion Job 30:8 may be taken as an attributive clause: who are driven forth ... ; but the shortness of the line and the prominence of the verb are in favour of the independence of the clause like an exclamation in its abrupt and halting form. נכּאוּ is Niph. of נכא = נכה (נכי), root נך, to hew, pierce, strike.^[71]
On הארץ, of arable land in opposition to the steppe, vid., on Job 18:17.

Verses 9-12

Job 30:9-12 9 And now I am become their song,
And a by-word to them. 10 They avoid me, they flee far from me,
And spare not my face with spitting. 11 For my cord of life He hath loosed, and afflicted me,
Therefore they let loose the bridle recklessly. 12 The rabble presses upon my right hand,
They thrust my feet away,
And cast up against me their destructive ways.
The men of whom Job complains in this strophe are none other than those in the preceding strophe, described from the side of their coarse and degenerate behaviour, as Job 24:4-8 described them from the side of the wrong which was practised against them. This rabble, constitutionally as well as morally degraded, when it comes upon Job's domain in its marauding expeditions, makes sport of the sufferer, whose former earnest admonitions, given from sympathizing anxiety for them, seemed to them as insults for which they revenge themselves. He is become their song of derision (נגינתם to be understood according to the dependent passage, Lam 3:14, and Psa 69:13), and is למלּה to them, their θρύλλημα (lxx), the subject of their foolish talk (מלּה - Arab. mille, not = melle, according to which Schultens interprets it, sum iis fastidio). Avoiding him, and standing at a distance from him, they make their remarks upon him; and if they come up to him, it is only for the sake of showing him still deeper scorn: a facie ejus non cohibent sputam. The expositors who explain that, contrary to all decent bearing, they spit in his presence (Eichh., Justi, Hirz., Vaih., Hlgst.), or with Fie! spit out before him (Umbr., Hahn, Schlottm.), overlook the fact of its being מפּני, not לפני. The expression as it stands can only affirm that they do not spare his face with spitting (Jer. correctly: conspuere non veruntur), so that consequently he is become, as he has complained in Job 17:6, a תּפת, an object of spitting (comp. also the declaration of the servant of Jehovah, Isa 50:6, which stands in close connection with this declaration of Job, according to previous explanations).
It now becomes a question, Who is the subj. in Job 30:11? The Chethib יתרו demands an attempt to retain the previous subj. Accordingly, most moderns explain: solvit unusquisque eorum funem suum, i.e., frenum suum, quo continebatur antea a me (Rosenm., Umbr., Stick., Vaih., Hlgst., and others), but it is to be doubted whether יתר can mean frenum; it signifies a cord, the string of a bow, and of a harp. The reconciliation of the signification redundantia, Job 22:20, and funis, is, in the idea of the root, to be stretched tight and long.^[72] from Arab. banâ, בּנה.
The significations of watara which Freytag arranges under 1, 2, 3, 4, proceed from the transitive application of יתר, as the Italian soperchiare, soverchiare, from supra, to offend, insult; oltraggiare, outrager, from ultra; ὑβρίζειν from ὑπέρ. Similarly, Arab. tṭâwl ‛lı̂h and ‛stṭâl ‛lı̂h (form VI and X from ṭâl), to act haughtily towards any one, to make him feel one's superiority, properly to stretch one's self out over or against any one.
But in another direction the signif. to be stretched out goes into: overhanging, surpassing, projecting, to be superfluous, and to be left over, περιττὸν εἶναι, to exceed a number or bulk, superare (comp. Italian soperchiare as intrans.), περιεῖναι, ὑπερεῖναι; to prove, as result, gain, etc., περιεῖναι, etc. Similar is the development of the meaning of Arab. faḍala and of ṭâ'l, gain, use, from Arab. ṭâl, to be stretched out. In like manner, the German reich, reichlich rich, abundant, comes from the root reichen, recken to stretch, extend. - Fl.</ref>

Hirz. therefore imagines the loosing of the cord round the body, which served them as a girdle, in order to strike Job with it. But whether one decides in favour of the Chethib יתרו or of the Keri יתרי, the persons who insult Job cannot in any case be intended. The isolated sing. form of the assertion, while the rabble is everywhere spoken of in the plur., is against it; and also the כּי, which introduces it, and after which Job here allows the reason to come in, why he is abandoned without any means of defence to such brutal misconduct. The subj. of Job 30:11 is God. If יתרו is read, it may not be interpreted: He hath opened = taken off the covering of His string (= bow) (Ew., Hahn, and similarly even lxx, Jer.), for יתר does not dignify the bow, but the string (Arab. muwattar‛, stretched, of a bow); and while פּתח, Ezek. 21:33 (usually שׁלף or הריק), can certainly be said of drawing a sword from its sheath, ערה is the appropriate and usual word (vid., Hab. S. 164) for making bare the bow and shield. Used of the bow-string, פּתּח signifies to loose what is strained, by sending the arrow swiftly forth from it, according to which, e.g., Elizabeth Smith translates: Because He hath let go His bow-string and afflicted me. One cannot, however, avoid feeling that ויּענּני is not a right description of the effect of shooting with arrows, whereas an idea is easily gained from the Keri יתרי, to which the description of the effect corresponds. It has been interpreted: He has loosed my rein or bridle, by means of which I hitherto bound them and held them in check; but יתר in the signification rein or bridle, is as already observed, not practicable. Better Capellus: metaphora ducta est ab exarmato milite, cujus arcûs solvitur nervus sicque inermis redditur; but it is more secure, and still more appropriate to the ויענני which follows, when it is interpreted according to Job 4:21 : He has untied (loosened) my cord of life, i.e., the cord which stretched out and held up my tent (the body) (Targ. similarly: my chain and the threads of my cord, i.e., surely: my outward and inward stay of life), and bowled me down, i.e., deprived me of strength (comp. Psa 102:24); or also: humbled me. Even in this his feebleness he is the butt of unbridled arrogance: and they let go the bridle before me (not לפני, in my presence, but מפּני, before me, before whom previously they had respect; מפני the same as Lev 19:32), they cast or shake it off (שׁלּח as Job 39:3, synon. of השׁליך; comp. 1Ki 9:7 with 2Ch 7:20).
Is it now possible that in this connection פּרחח can denote any else but the rabble of these good-for-nothing fellows? Ewald nevertheless understands by it Job's sufferings, which as a rank evil swarm rise up out of the ground to seize upon him; Hahn follows Ew., and makes these sufferings the subj., as even in Job 30:11. But if we consider how Ew. translates: “they hung a bridle from my head;” and Hahn: “they have cast a bit before my face,” this might make us tired of all taste for this allegorical mode of interpretation. The stump over which they must stumble is Job 30:13, where all climax must be abandoned in order to make the words לא עזר למו intelligible in this allegorical connection. No indeed; פּרחח (instead of which פרחח might be expected, as supra, Job 3:5, כמרירי for כמרירי) is the offspring or rabble of those fathers devoid of morals and honour, those צעירים of Job 30:1, whose laughing-stock Job is now, as the children of priests are called in Talmudic פּרחי כהנּה, and in Arabic farch denotes not only the young of animals, but also a rascal or vagabond. This young rabble rises על־ימין, on Job's right hand, which is the place of an accuser (Psa 109:6), and generally one who follows him up closely and oppresses him, and they press him continually further and further, contending one foot's-breadth after another with him: רגלי שׁלּחוּ, my feet thrust them forth, protrudunt (שׁלּח the same as Job 14:20). By this pressing from one place to another, a way is prepared for the description of their hostile conduct, which begins in Job 30:12 under the figure of a siege. The fut. consec. ויּסלּוּ, Job 30:12, is not meant retrospectively like ויענני, but places present with present in the connection of cause and effect (comp. Ew. 343, a). We must be misled by the fact that ויסלו, Job 19:12 (which see), was said of the host of sufferings which come against Job; here it is those young people who cast up the ramparts of misfortune or burdensome suffering (איד) against Job, which they wish to make him feel. The tradition, supported by the lxx, that Job had his seat outside his domain ἐπὶ τῆς κοπρίας, i.e., upon the mezbele, is excellently suited to this and the following figures. Before each village in Hauran there is a place where the households heap up the sweepings of their stalls, and it gradually reaches a great circumference, and a height which rises above the highest buildings of the village.^[73]
Notwithstanding, everything is intelligible without this thoroughly Hauranitish conception of the scene of the history. Bereft of the protection of his children and servants, become an object of disgust to his wife, and an abhorrence to his brethren, forsaken by every attention of true affection, Job 19:13-19, Job lies out of doors; and in this condition, shelterless and defenceless, he is abandoned to the hideous malignant joy of those gipsy hordes which wander hither and thither.

Verses 13-15

Job 30:13-15 13 They tear down my path,
They minister to my overthrow,
They who themselves are helpless. 14 As through a wide breach they approach,
Under the crash they roll onwards. 15 Terrors are turned against me,
They pursue my nobility like the wind,
And like a cloud my prosperity passed away. -
They make all freedom of motion and any escape impossible to him, by pulling down, diruunt, the way which he might go. Thus is נתסוּ (cogn. form of נתץ, נתע, נתשׁ) to be translated, not: they tear open (proscindunt), which is contrary to the primary signification and the usage of the language. They, who have no helper, who themselves are so miserable and despised, and yet so feelingless and overbearing, contribute to his ruin. הועיל, to be useful, to do any good,to furnish anything effective (e.g., Isa 47:12), is here united with ל of the purpose; comp. עזר ל, to help towards anything, Zec 1:15. היה (for which the Keri substitutes the primary form הוּה), as was already said on Job 6:2, is prop. hiatus, and then barathrum, pernicies, like הוּה in the signification cupiditas, prop. inhiatio. The verb הוה, Arab. hwy, also signifies delabi, whence it may be extended (vid., on Job 37:6) in like manner to the signification abyss (rapid downfall); but a suitable medium for the two significations, strong passion (Arab. hawa) and abyss (Arab. hâwije, huwwe, mahwa), is offered only by the signification of the root flare (whence hawâ, air). לא עזר למו is a genuine Arabic description of these Idumaean or Hauranite pariahs. Schultens compares a passage of the Hamâsa: “We behold you ignoble, poor, laisa lakum min sâir-in-nâsi nasirun, i.e., without a helper among the rest of men.” The interpretations of those who take למו for לו, and this again for לי (Eichh., Justi), condemn themselves. It might more readily be explained, with Stick.: without any one helping them, i.e., with their own strong hand; but the thought thus obtained is not only aimless and tame, but also halting and even untrue (vid., Job 19:13).

Verse 14

The figure of a siege, which is begun with Job 30:12 and continued in Job 30:13, leaves us in no doubt concerning פּרץ רחב and שׁאה. The Targ. translates: like the force of the far-extending waves of the sea, not as though פּרץ could in itself signify a stream of water, but taking it as = פרץ מים, 2Sa 5:20 (synon. diffusio aquarum). Hitzig's translation:^[74] “like a broad forest stream they come, like a rapid brook they roll on,” gives unheard-of significations to the doubtful words. In Job 16:14 we heard Job complain: He (Eloah) brake through me על־פני־פרץ פרץ, breach upon breach, - by the divine decrees of sufferings, which are completed in this ill-treatment which he receives from good-for-nothing fellows, he is become as a wall with a wide-gaping breach, through which they rush in upon him (instar rupturae, a concise mode of comparison instead of tanquam per rupt.), in order to get him entirely into their power as a plaything for their coarse passions. שׁאה is the crash of the wall with the wide breaches, and תּחת שׁאה signifies sub fragore in a local sense: through the wall which is broken through and crashes above the assailants. There is no ground in Job 30:15 for dividing, with Umbreit, thus: He hath turned against me! Terrors drove away, etc., although this would not be impossible according to the syntax (comp. Gen 49:22, בּנות צעדה). It is translated: terrors are turned against me; so that the predicate stands first in the most natural, but still indefinite, personal form, Ges. §147, a, although בּלּהות might also be taken as the accus. of the object after a passive, Ges. §143, 1. The subj. of Job 30:15 remains the same: they (these terrors) drive away my dignity like the wind; the construction is like Job 27:20; Job 14:19; on the matter, comp. Job 18:11. Hirz. makes כּרוּח the subj.: quasi ventus aufert nobilitatem meam, in which case the subj. would be not so much ventus as similitudo venti, as when one says in Arabic, ‘gâani kazeidin, there came to me one of Zeid's equals, for in the Semitic languages כּ has the manner of an indeclinable noun in the signification instar. But the reference to בלהות is more natural; and Hahn's objection, that calamity does not first, if it is there, drive away prosperity, but takes the place of that which is driven away, is sophisticated and inadequate, since the object of the driving away here is not Job's prosperity, but Job's נדיבה, appearance and dignity, by which he hitherto commanded the respect of others (Targ. רבּנוּתי). The storms of suffering which pass over him take this nobility away to the last fragment, and his salvation - or rather, since this word in the mouth of an extra-Israelitish hero has not the meaning it usually otherwise has, his prosperous condition (from Arab. wasi‛a, amplum esse) - is as a cloud, so rapidly and without trace (Job 7:9; Isa 44:22), passed away and vanished. Observe the music of the expression כּעב עברה, which cannot be reproduced in translation.

Verses 16-19

Job 30:16-19 16 And now my soul is poured out within me,
Days of suffering hold me fast. 17 The night rendeth my bones from me,
And my gnawers sleep not. 18 By great force my garment is distorted,
As the collar of my shirt it encompasseth me. 19 He hath cast me into the mire,
And I am in appearance as dust and ashes.
With this third ועתּה (Job 30:1, Job 30:9) the elegiac lament over the harsh contrast between the present and the past begins for the third time. The dash after our translation of the second and fourth strophes will indicate that a division of the elegy ends there, after which it begins as it were anew. The soul is poured out within a man (עלי as Job 10:1, Psychol. S. 152), when, “yielding itself without resistance to sadness, it is dejected to the very bottom, and all its organization flows together, and it is dissolved in the one condition of sorrow” - a figure which is not, however, come about by water being regarded as the symbol of the soul (thus Hitzig on Psa 42:5), but rather by the intimate resemblance of the representation of a flood of tears (Lam 2:19): the life of the soul flows in the blood, and the anguish of the soul in tears and lamentations; and since the outward man is as it were dissolved in the gently flowing tears (Isa 15:3), his soul flows away as it were in itself, for the outward incident is but the manifestation and result of an inward action. ימי־עני we have translated days of suffering, for עני, with its verb and the rest of its derivatives, is the proper word for suffering, and especially the passion of the Servant of Jehovah. Days of suffering Job complains - hold him fast; עחז unites in itself, like החזיק, the significations prehendere and prehensum tenere. In Job 30:17 we must not, with Arnh. and others, translate: by night it (affliction) pierces ... , for עני does not stand sufficiently in the foreground to be the subject of what follows; it might sooner be rendered: by night it is pierced through (Targ., Rosenm., Hahn); but why is not לילה to be the subject, and נקּר consequently Piel (not Niph.)? The night has been personified already, Job 3:2; and in general, as Herder once said, Job is the brother of Ossian for personifications: Night (the restless night, Job 7:3, in which every malady, or at least the painful feeling of it, increases) pierces his bones from him, i.e., roots out his limbs (synon. בּדּים, Job 18:13) so inwardly and completely. The lepra Arabica (Arab. ‘l-brṣ, el-baras) terminates, like syphilis, with an eating away of the limbs, and the disease has its name Arab. juḏâm from jḏm, truncare, mutilare: it feeds on the bones, and destroys the body in such a manner that single limbs are completely detached.
In Job 30:17, lxx (νεῦρα), Parchon, Kimchi, and others translate ערקי according to the Targum. ערקין (= גּידים), and the Arab. ‛rûq, veins, after which Blumenf.: my veins are in constant motion. But ערקי in the sense of Job 30:3 : my gnawers (Jer. qui me comedunt, Targ. דּמעסּן יתי, qui me conculcant, conterunt), is far more in accordance with the predicate and the parallelism, whether it be gnawing pains that are thought of - pains are unnatural to man, they come upon him against his will, he separates them from himself as wild beasts - or, which we prefer, those worms (רמּה, Job 7:5) which were formed in Job's ulcers (comp. Aruch, ערקא, a leech, plur. ערקתא, worms, e.g., in the liver), and which in the extra-biblical tradition of Job's decease are such a standing feature, that the pilgrims to Job's monastery even now-a-days take away with them thence these supposedly petrified worms of Job.^[75]
Job 30:18 would be closely and naturally connected with what precedes if לבוּשׁי could be understood of the skin and explained: By omnipotence (viz., divine, as Job 23:6, Ew. §270a) the covering of my body is distorted, as even Raschi: משׁתנה גלד אחר גלד, it is changed, by one skin or crust being formed after another. But even Schultens rightly thinks it remarkable that לבושׁ, Job 30:18, is not meant to signify the proper upper garment but the covering of the skin, but כּתּנת, Job 30:18, the under garment in a proper sense. The astonishment is increased by the fact that התהפּשׂ signifies to disguise one's self, and thereby render one's self unrecognisable, which leads to the proper idea of לבושׁ, to a clothing which looks like a disguise. It cannot be cited in favour of this unusual meaning that לבושׁ is used in Job 41:5 of the scaly skin of the crocodile: an animal has no other לבושׁ but its skin. Therefore, with Ew., Hirz., and Hlgst., we take לבושׁ strictly: “by (divine) omnipotence my garment is distorted (becomes unlike itself), like the collar of my shirt it fits close to me.” It is unnecessary to take כּפי as a compound praep.: according to (comp. Zec 2:4; Mal 2:9 : ”according as”), in the sense of כּמו, as Job 33:6, since פּי כּתּנת is, according to the nature of the thing mentioned, a designation of the upper opening, by means of which the shirt, otherwise only provided with armholes (distinct from the Beduin shirt thôb, which has wide and long sleeves), is put on. Also, Psa 133:2, פּי מדּותיו signifies not the lower edge, but the opening at the head פּי הראשׁע, Exo 28:32) or the collar of the high priest's vestment (vid., the passage cited). Thus even lxx ὥσπερ τὸ περιστόμιον τοῦ χιτῶνός μου, and Jer.: velut capitio tunicae meae. True, Schlottm. observes against this rendering of Job 30:18, that it is unnatural according to substance, since on a wasted body it is not the outer garment that assumes the appearance of a narrow under one, but on the contrary the under garment assumes the appearance of a wide outer one. But this objection is not to the point. If the body is wasted away to a skeleton, there is an end to the rich appearance and beautiful flow which the outer garment gains by the full and rounded forms of the limbs: it falls down straight and in perpendicular folds upon the wasted body, and contributes in no small degree to make him whom one formerly saw in all the fulness of health still less recognisable than he otherwise is. יאזרני, cingit me, is not merely the falling together of the outer garment which was formerly filled out by the members of the body, but its appearance when the sick man wraps himself in it: then it girds him, fits close to him like his shirt-collar, lying round about the shrivelled figure like the other about a thin neck. On the terrible wasting away which is combined with hypertrophical formations in elephantiasis, vid., Job 7:15, and especially Job 19:20. The subject of Job 30:19 is God, whom Job 30:18 also describes as efficient cause: He has cast me into, or daubed^[76] me with, mud, and I am become as (כּ instead of the dat., Ew. §221, a) dust and ashes. This is also intended pathologically: the skin of the sufferer with elephantiasis becomes first an intense red, then assumes a black colour; scales like fishes' scales are formed upon it, and the brittle, dark-coloured surface of the body is like a lump of earth.

Verses 20-23

Job 30:20-23 20 I cry to Thee for help, and Thou answerest not;
I stand there, and Thou lookest fixedly at me. 21 Thou changest Thyself to a cruel being towards me,
With the strength of Thy hand Thou makest war upon me. 22 Thou raisest me upon the stormy wind,
Thou causest me to drive along And vanish in the roaring of the storm. 23 For I know: Thou wilt bring me back to death,
Into the house of assembly for all living.
If he cries for help, his cry remains unanswered; if he stands there looking up reverentially to God (perhaps עמד, with משּׁוּע to be supplied, has the sense of desisting or restraining, as Gen 29:35; Gen 30:9), the troubling, fixed look of God, who looks fixedly and hostilely upon him, anything but ready to help (comp. Job 7:20; Job 16:9), meets his upturned eye. התבּנן, to look consideringly upon anything, is elsewhere joined with אל, על, עד, or even with the acc; here, where a motionless fixed look is intended, with בּ (= fi). It is impossible to draw the לא, Job 30:20, over to ותּתבּנן (Jer., Saad., Umbr., Welte, and others), both on account of the Waw consec. (Ew. §351a), and on account of the separation by the new antecedent עמדתּי. On the reading of two Codd. ותתכנן (“Thou settest Thyself against me”), which Houbigant and Ew. prefer, Rosenm. has correctly pronounced judgment: est potius pro mendo habenda. Instead of consolingly answering his prayer, and instead of showing Himself willing to help, God, who was formerly so kind towards him, changes towards him, His creature, into a cruel being, saevum (אכזר in the book of Job only here and Job 41:2, where it signifies “foolhardy;” comp. לאויב in the dependent passage, Isa 63:10), and makes war upon him (שׂטם as Job 16:9) by causing him to feel the strength of His omnipotent hand (עצם יד as Deu 8:17, synon. חזק).
It is not necessary in Job 30:22 to forsake the accentuation, and to translate: Thou raisest me up, Thou causest me go in the wind (Ew., Hirz., and others); the accentuation of רוח is indeed not a disjunctive Dechî, but a conjunctive Tarcha, but preceded by Munach, which, according to the rule, Psalter ii. 500, §5, here, where two conjunctives come together, has a smaller conjunctive value. Therefore: elevas me in ventum, equitare facis me, viz., super ventum (Dachselt), for one does not only say הרכּיב על, 1Ch 13:7, or ל, Psa 66:12, but also אל, 2Sa 6:3; and accordingly תּשּׂאני אל־רוּח is also not to be translated: Thou snatchest me into the wind or storm (Hahn, Schlottm.), but: Thou raisest me up to the wind or storm, as upon an animal for riding (Umbr., Olsh.). According to Oriental tradition, Solomon rode upon the east wind, and in Arabic they say of one who hurried rapidly by, racab al-genâhai er-rih, he rides upon the wings of the wind; in the present passage, the point of comparison is the being absolutely passively hurried forth from the enjoyment of a healthy and happy life to a dizzy height, whence a sudden overthrow threatens him who is unwillingly removed (comp. Psa 102:11, Thou hast lifted me up and hurled me forth).
The lot which threatens him from this painful suspense Job expresses (Job 30:22) in the puzzling words: וּתמגגני תשׁיּה. Thus the Keri, after which lxx transl. (if it has not read מישׁוּעה), καὶ ἀπέῤῥηιψάς με ἀπὸ σωτηρίας. The modern expositors who follow the Keri, by taking ותמגגני for ותמגג לי (according to Ges. §121, 4), translate: Thou causest counsel and understanding (Welte), happiness (Blumenf.), and the like, to vanish from me; continuance, existence, duration would be better (vid., Job 6:13, and especially on Job 26:3). The thought it appropriate, but the expression is halting. Jerome, who translates valide, points to the correct thing, and Buxtorf (Lex. col. 2342f.) by interpreting the not less puzzling Targum translation in fundamento = funditus or in essentia = essentialiter, has, without intending it, hit upon the idea of the Hebr. Keri; תשׁיּה is intended as a closer defining, or adverbial, accusative: Thou causest me to vanish as to existence, ita ut tota essentia pereat h.e. totaliter et omnino. Perhaps this was really the meaning of the poet: most completely, most thoroughly, altogether, like the Arab. ḥaqqan. But it is unfavourable to this Keri, that תושׁיה (from the verb ושׁי), as might be expected, is always written plene elsewhere; the correction of the תשׁוה is violent, and moreover this form, correctly read, gives a sense far more consistent with the figure, Job 30:22. Ges., Umbr., and Carey falsely read תּשׁוּה, terres me; this verb is unknown in Hebr., and even in Chaldee is only used in Ithpeal, אשׁתּוי (= Hebr. חרד); for a similar reason Böttcher's תּשׁוה (which is intended to mean: in despair) is also not to be used. Even Stuhlmann perceived that תשׁוה is equivalent to תּשׁוּאה; it is, with Ew. and Olsh., to be read תּשׁוּה (not with Pareau and Hirz. תּשׁוה without the Dag.), and this form signifies, as תשׁואה, Job 36:29, from שׁוא = שׁאה, from which it is derived by change of consonants, the crash of thunder, or even the rumbling or roar as of a storm or a falling in (procellae sive ruinae). The meaning is hardly, that he who rides away upon the stormy wind melts and trickles down like drops of rain among the pealing of the thunder, when the thunder-storm, whose harbinger is the stormy wind, gathers; but that in the storm itself, which increases in fury to the howling of a tempest, he dissolves away. תּשׁוּה for בּתּשׁוּה, comp. Psa 107:26 : their soul melted away (dissolved) בּרעה. The compulsory journey in the air, therefore, passes into nothing or nearly nothing, as Job is well aware, Job 30:23 : “for I know: (without כּי, as Job 19:25; Ps. 9:21) Thou wilt bring me back to death” (acc. of the goal, or locative without any sign). If תּשׁיבני is taken in its most natural signification reduces, death is represented as essentially one with the dust of death (comp. Job 1:21 with Gen 3:19), or even with non-existence, out of which man is come into being; nevertheless השׁיב can also, by obliterating the notion of return, like redigere, have only the signification of the turn of destiny and change of condition that is effected. The assertion that שׁוּב always includes an “again,” and retains it inexorably (vid., Köhler on Zec 13:7, S. 239), is untenable. In post-biblical Hebrew, at least, it is certain that שׁוּב signifies not only ”to become again,” but also “to become,” as Arab. ‛âd is used as synon. of jâ'in, devenir.^[77]
With מות, the designation of the condition, is coupled the designation of the place: Hades (under the notion of which that of the grave is included) is the great involuntary rendezvous of all who live in this world.

Verses 24-27

Job 30:24-27 24 Doth one not, however, stretch out the hand in falling,
Doth he not raise a cry for help on that account in his ruin? 25 Or have I not wept for him that was in trouble,
Hath not my soul grieved for the needy? - 26 For I hoped for good, then evil came;
I waited for light, and darkness came. 27 My bowels boiled without ceasing,
Days of misery met me.
Most of the ancient versions indulge themselves in strange fancies respecting Job 30:24 to make a translatable text, or find their fancies in the text before them. The translation of the Targum follows the fancies of the Midrash, and places itself beyond the range of criticism. The lxx reads בי instead of בעי, and finds in Job 30:24 a longing for suicide, or death by the hand of another. The Syriac likewise reads בי, although it avoids this absurdity. Jerome makes an address of the assertion, and, moreover, also moulds the text under the influence of the Midrash. Aq., Symm., and Theod. strive after a better rendering than the lxx, but (to judge from the fragment in the Hexapla) without success. Saadia and Gecatilia wring a sense out of Job 30:24, but at the expense of the syntax, and by dragging Job 30:24 after it, contrary to the tenor of the words. The old expositors also advance nothing available. They mostly interpret it as though it were not להן, but להם (a reading which has been forced into the Midrash texts and some Codd. instead of the reading of the text that is handed down to us). Even Rosenm. thinks להן might, like the Ara. להון, be equivalent to להם; and Carey explains the enallage generis from the perhaps existing secondary idea of womanly fear, as 2Sa 4:6, הנּה instead of המּה is used of the two assassins to describe them as cowards. But the Hebr. להן is fem.; and often as the enallage masc. pro fem. occurs, the enallage fem. pro masc. is unknown; הנּה, 2Sa 4:6, is an adv. of place (vid., moreover, Thenius in loc.). It is just as absolutely inadmissible when the old expositors combine שׁוּע with ושׁע (ושׁע), or as e.g., Raschi with שׁעשׁע, and translate, "welfare” or “exhilaration” (refreshing). The signif. “wealth” would be more readily admissible, so that שׁוּע, as Aben-Ezra observes, would be the subst. to שׁוע, Job 34:19; but in Job 36:19 (which see), שׁוּע (as שׁוע Isa 22:5) signifies a cry of distress (= שׁוע), and an attempt must be made here with this meaning before every other.
On the other hand comes the question whether בעי is not perhaps to be referred to the verb בּעה, whether it be as subst. after the form מרי (Ralbag after the Targ.) or as part. pass. (Saad. Arab. gı̂r ‛nnh lı̂s 'l-mbtgan, “only that it is not desired”). The verb does not, indeed, occur elsewhere in the book of Job, but is very consistent with its style, which so abounds in Aramaisms, and is at the same time so coloured with Arabic that we should almost say, its Hauranitish style.^[78]
Thus taking בעי as one word, Ralbag transl.: prayer stretched not forth the hand, which is intended to mean: is not able to do anything, cannot cause the will of God to miscarry. This meaning is only obtained by great violence; but when Renan (together with Böckel and Carey, after Rosenm.) translates: Vaines prières!..il étend sa main; à quoi bon protester contre ses coups? the one may be measured with the other. If בעי is to be derived from בעי, it must be translated either: shall He, however, without prayer (sine imploratione), or: shall He, however, unimplored (non imploratus), stretch out His hand? The thought remains the same by both renderings of בעי, and suits as a vindication of the cry for help in the context. But בּעה, in the specific signification implorare, deprecari, is indeed the usage of the Targum, although strange to the Hebr., which is here so rich in synonyms; then, in the former case, לא for בלא is harsh, and in the other, בעי as part. pass. is too strong an Aramaism. We must therefore consider whether בעי as עי with the praep. בּ gives a suitable sense. Since שׁלח יד בּ, e.g., Job 28:9 and elsewhere, most commonly means “to lay the hand on anything, stretch out the hand to anything,” it is most natural to take בעי in dependence upon ישׁלח ידו, and we really gain an impressive thought, if we translate: Only may He not stretch out His hand (to continue His work of destruction) to a heap of rubbish (which I am already become); but by this translation of Job 30:24, Job 30:24 remains a glaring puzzle, insoluble in itself and in respect of the further course of the thought, for Schlottmann's interpretation, “Only one does not touch ruins, or the ruin of one is the salvation of another,” which is itself puzzling, is no solution. The reproach against the friends which is said to lie in Job 30:24 is contrary to the character of this monologue, which is turned away from his human opponents; then שׁוּע does not signify salvation, and there is no ”one” and “another” to be found in the text. We must therefore, against our inclination, give up this dependent relation of בעי, so that בעי signifies either, upon a heap of rubbish, or, since this ought to be על־עי: by the falling in; עי (from עוה = ‛iwj) can mean both: a falling in or overthrow (bouleversement) as an event, and ruins or rubbish as its result.
Accordingly Hirz. translates: Only upon the ruins (more correctly at least: upon ruins) one will not stretch out his hand, and Ew.: Only - does not one stretch out one's hand by one's overthrow? But this “only” is awkward. Hahn is of opinion that אך לא may be taken in the signification not once, and translates: may one not for once raise one's hand by one's downfall; but even this is lame, because then all connection with what precedes is wanting; besides, אך לא does not signify ne quidem. The originally affirmative אך has certainly for the most part a restrictive signification, which, as we observed on Job 18:21, is blended with the affirmative in Hebr., but it is also, as more frequently אכן, used adversatively, e.g., Job 16:7, and in the combination אך לא this adversative signification coincides with the restrictive, for this double particle signifies everywhere else: only not, however not, Gen 20:12; 1Ki 11:39; 2Ki 12:14; 2Ki 13:6; 2Ki 23:9, 2Ki 23:26. It would be more natural to translate, as we have stated above: only may be not, etc., but Job 30:24 puts in its veto against this. If, as Hirz., Ew., and Hahn also suppose, לא, Job 30:24, is equivalent to הלא, so that the sentence is to be spoken with an interrogative accent, we must translate אך as Jer. has done, by verumtamen. He knows that he is being hurried forth to meet death; he knows it, and has also already made himself so familiar with this thought, that the sooner he sees an end put to this his sorrowful life the better - nevertheless does one not stretch out one's hand when one is falling? This involuntary reaction against destruction is the inevitable result of man's instinct of self-preservation. It needs no proof that שׁלח יד can signify “to stretch out one's hand for help;” ישׁלח is used with a general subj.: one stretches out, as Job 17:5; Job 21:22. With this determination of the idea of Job 30:24, Job 30:24 is now also naturally connected with what precedes. It is not, however, to be translated, as Ew. and Hirz.: if one is in distress, is not a cry for help heard on account of it? If אם were intended hypothetically, a continuation of the power of the interrogative לא from Job 30:24 would be altogether impossible. Hahn and Loch-Reischl rightly take אם in the sense of an. It introduces another turn of the question: Does one, however, not stretch out one's hand to hasten the fall, or in his downfall (raise) a cry for help, or a wail, on that account? Döderlein's conjecture, לחן for להן (praying “for favour”), deserves respectful mention, but it is not needed: להן signifies neutrally: in (under) such circumstances (comp. בּהם, Job 22:21; Isa 64:5), or is directly equivalent to להן, which (Rth 1:13) signifies propterea, and even in biblical Chaldee, beside the Chaldee signif. sed, nisi, retains this Hebrew signif. (Dan 2:6, Dan 2:9; Dan 4:24). פּיד, which signifies dying and destruction (Talmud. in the peculiar signif.: that which is hewn or pecked open), synon. of איד, has been already discussed on Job 12:5.

Verse 25

The further progress of the thoughts seems to be well carried out only by our rendering of Job 30:24. The manifestation of feeling - Job means to say - which he himself felt at the misfortune of others, will be still permitted to him in his own misfortune, the seeking of compassion from the sympathising: or have I not wept for the hard of day? i.e., him whose lot in life is hard (comp. Arab. qası̂y, durus, miser); did not my soul grieve for the needy? Here, also, לא from Job 30:25 continues its effect (comp. Job 3:10; Job 28:17); עגם is ἅπ. γεγρ., of like signification with אגם, whence אגם Isa 19:10, אגמה (sadness) b. Moëd katan 14b, Arab. agima, to feel disgust. If the relation of Job 30:25 to Job 30:24 is confirmatory, Job 30:26 and what follows refers directly to Job 30:24 : he who felt sympathy with the sufferings of others will nevertheless dare in his own affliction to stretch out his hand for help in the face of certain ruin, and pour forth his pain in lamentation; for his affliction is in reality inexpressibly great: he hoped for good (for the future from his prosperous condition, in which he rejoiced),^[79] then came evil; and if I waited for light, deep darkness came. Ewald (§232, h) regards ואיחלה as contracted from ואיחלה, but this shortening of the vowel is a pure impossibility. The former signifies rather καὶ ἤλπιζον or ἐβουλόμην ἐλπίζειν, the latter καὶ ἤλπισα, and that cohortative fut. logically forms a hypothetical antecedent, exactly like Job 19:18, if I desire to rise (אקומה), they speak against me (vid., Ew. §357, b). In feverish heat and anxiety his bowels were set boiling (רתח as Job 41:23, comp. Talmud. רתחן, a hot-headed fellow), and rested not (from this boiling). The accentuation Tarcha, Mercha, and Athnach is here incorrect; instead of Athnach, Rebia mugrasch is required. Days of affliction came upon him (קדּם as Psa 18:6), viz., as a hostile power cutting off the previous way of his prosperity.

Verses 28-31

Job 30:28-31 28 I wandered about in mourning without the sun;
I rose in the assembly, I gave free course to my complaint. 29 I am become a brother of the jackals
And a companion of ostriches. 30 My skin having become black, peels off from me,
And my bones are parched with dryness. 31 My harp was turned to mourning,
And my pipe to tones of sorrow.
Several expositors (Umbr., Vaih., Hlgst.) understand קדר of the dirty-black skin of the leper, but contrary to the usage of the language, according to which, in similar utterances (Psa 35:14; Psa 38:7; Psa 42:10; Psa 43:2, comp. supra, Job 5:11), it rather denotes the dirty-black dress of mourners (comp. Arab. qḏḏr, conspurcare vestem); to understand it of the dirty-black skin as quasi sordida veste (Welte) is inadmissible, since this distortion of the skin which Job bewails in Job 30:30 would hardly be spoken of thus tautologically. קדר therefore means in the black of the שׂק, or mourning-linen, Job 16:15, by which, however, also the interpretation of בּלא חמּה, “without sunburn” (Ew., Hirz.), which has gained ground since Raschi's day (לא שׁשׁזפתני השׁמשׁ), is disposed of; for “one can perhaps say of the blackness of the skin that it does not proceed from the sun, but not of the blackness of mourning attire” (Hahn). קדר also refutes the reading בלא חמה in lxx Complut. (ἄνευ θυμοῦ),^[80]
Syr., Jer. (sine furore), which ought to be understood of the deposition of the gall-pigment on the skin, and therefore of jaundice, which turns it (especially in tropical regions) not merely yellow, but a dark-brown. Hahn and a few others render בלא חמה correctly in the sense of בחשׁך, "without the sun having shone on him.” Bereft of all his possessions, and finally also of his children, he wanders about in mourning (הלּך as Job 24:10; Psa 38:7), and even the sun had clothed itself in black to him (which is what קדר השׁמשׁ means, Joe 2:10 and freq.); the celestial light, which otherwise brightened his path, Job 29:3, was become invisible. We must not forget that Job here reviews the whole chain of afflictions which have come upon him, so that by Job 30:28 we have not to think exclusively, and also not prominently, of the leprosy, since הלכתי indeed represents him as still able to move about freely.
In Job 30:28 the accentuation wavers between Dechî, Munach, Silluk, according to which בּקּהל אשׁוּע belong together, which is favoured by the Dagesh in the Beth, and Tarcha, Munach, Silluk, according to which (because Munach, according to Psalter ii. 503, §2, is a transformation of Rebia mugrasch) קמתּי בּקּהל belong together. The latter mode of accentuation, according to which בקהל must be written without the Dag. instead of בּקהל (vid., Norzi), is the only correct one (because Dechî cannot come in the last member of the sentence before Silluk), and is also more pleasing as to matter: I rose (and stood) in the assembly, crying for help, or more generally: wailing. The assembly is not to be thought of as an assembly of the people, or even tribunal (Ew.: ”before the tribunal seeking a judge, with lamentations”), but as the public; for the thought that Job sought help against his unmerited sufferings before a human tribunal is absurd; and, moreover, the thought that he cried for help before an assembly of the people called together to take counsel and pronounce decisions is equally absurd. Welte, however, who interprets: I was as one who, before an assembled tribunal, etc., introduces a quasi of which there is no trace in the text. בּקּהל must therefore, without pressing it further, be taken in the sense of publice, before all the world (Hirz.: comp. בקהל, ἐν φανερῷ, Pro 26:26); אשׁוּע, however, is a circumstantial clause declaring the purpose (Ew. §337, b; comp. De Sacy, Gramm. Arabe ii. §357), as is frequently the case after קום, Job 16:8; Psa 88:11; Psa 102:14 : surrexi in publico ut lamentarer, or lamentaturus, or lamentando. In this lament, extorted by the most intense pain, which he cannot hold back, however many may surround him, he is become a brother of those תּנּים, jackals (canes aurei), whose dolorous howling produces dejection and shuddering in all who hear it, and a companion of בּנות יענה, whose shrill cry is varied by wailing tones of deep melancholy.^[81]
The point of comparison is not the insensibility of the hearers (Sforno), but the fellowship of wailing and howling together with the accompanying idea of the desert in which it is heard, which is connected with the idea itself (comp. Mic 1:8).

Verse 30

Now for the first time he speaks of his disfigurement by leprosy in particular: my skin (עורי, masc., as it is also used in Job 19:26, only apparently as fem.) is become black (nigruit) from me, i.e., being become black, has peeled from me, and my bones (עצמי, construed as fem. like Job 19:20; Psa 102:6) are consumed, or put in a glow (חרה, Milel, from חרר, as Eze 24:11) by a parching heat. Thus, then, his harp became mournful, and his pipe (ועגבי with ג raphatum) the cry of the weepers; the cheerful music (comp. Job 21:12) has been turned into gloomy weeping and sobbing (comp. Lam 5:15). Thus the second part of the monologue closes. It is somewhat lengthened and tedious; it is Job's last sorrowful lament before the catastrophe. What a delicate touch of the poet is it that he makes this lament, Job 30:31, die away so melodiously! One hears the prolonged vibration of its elegiac strains. The festive and joyous music is hushed; the only tones are tones of sadness and lament, mesto, flebile.

Chap. 31

Verses 1-4

Job 31:1-4 1 I have made a covenant with mine eyes,
And how should I fix my gaze upon a maiden! 2 What then would be the dispensation of Eloah from above,
And the inheritance of the Almighty from the heights - 3 Doth not calamity overtake the wicked,
And misfortune the workers of evil? 4 Doth He not see my ways
And count all my steps?
After Job has described and bewailed the harsh contrast between the former days and the present, he gives us a picture of his moral life and endeavour, in connection with the character of which the explanation of his present affliction as a divinely decreed punishment becomes impossible, and the sudden overthrow of his prosperity into this abyss of suffering becomes to him, for the same reason, the most painful mystery. Job is not an Israelite, he is without the pale of the positive, Sinaitic revelation; his religion is the old patriarchal religion, which even in the present day is called dı̂n Ibrâhı̂m (the religion of Abraham), or dı̂n el-bedu (the religion of the steppe) as the religion of those Arabs who are not Moslem, or at least influenced by the penetrating Islamism, and is called by Mejânı̂shı̂ el-hanı̂fı̂je (vid., supra, p. 362, note) as the patriarchally orthodox religion.^[82]
As little as this religion, even in the present day, is acquainted with the specific Mohammedan commandments, so little knew Job of the specifically Israelitish. On the contrary, his confession, which he lays down in this third monologue, coincides remarkably with the ten commandments of piety (el-felâh) peculiar to the dı̂n Ibrâhı̂m, although it differs in this respect, that it does not give the prominence to submission to the dispensations of God, that teslı̂m which, as the whole of this didactic poem teaches by its issue, is the duty of the perfectly pious; also bravery in defence of holy property and rights is wanting, which among the wandering tribes is accounted as an essential part of the hebbet er-rı̂h (inspiration of the Divine Being), i.e., active piety, and to which it is similarly related, as to the binding notion of “honour” which was coined by the western chivalry of the middle ages.
Job begins with the duty of chastity. Consistently with the prologue, which the drama itself nowhere belies, he is living in monogamy, as at the present day the orthodox Arabs, averse to Islamism, are not addicted to Moslem polygamy. With the confession of having maintained this marriage (although, to infer from the prologue, it was not an over-happy, deeply sympathetic one) sacred, and restrained himself not only from every adulterous act, but also from adulterous desires, his confessions begin. Here, in the middle of the Old Testament, without the pale of the Old Testament νόμος, we meet just that moral strictness and depth with which the Preacher on the mount, Mat 5:27., opposes the spirit to the letter of the seventh commandment. It is לעיני, not עם־עיני, designedly; כרת ברית עם or את is the usual phrase where two equals are concerned; on the contrary, כרת ברית ל where two the superior - Jehovah, or a king, or conqueror - binds himself to another under prescribed conditions, or the covenant is made not so much by a mutual advance as by the one taking the initiative. In this latter case, the secondary notions of a promise given (e.g., Isa 55:3), or even, as here, of a law prescribed, are combined with כרת ברית: “as lord of my senses I prescribed this law for my eyes” (Ew.). The eyes, says a Talmudic proverb, are the procuresses of sin (סרסורי דחטאה נינהו); “to close his eyes, that they may not feast on evil,” is, in Isa 33:15, a clearly defined line in the picture of him on whom the everlasting burnings can have no hold. The exclamation, Job 31:1, is spoken with self-conscious indignation: Why should I... (comp. Joseph's exclamation, Gen 39:9); Schultens correctly: est indignatio repellens vehementissime et negans tale quicquam committi par esse; the transition of the מה, Arab. mâ, to the expression of negation, which is complete in Arabic, is here in its incipient state, Ew. §325, b. התבּונן על is intended to express a fixed and inspection (comp. אל, 1Ki 3:21) gaze upon an object, combined with a lascivious imagination (comp. Sir. 9:5, παρθένον μὴ καταμάνθανε, and 9:8, ἀπόστρεψον ὀφθαλμὸν ἀπὸ γυναικὸς εὐμόρφου καὶ μὴ καταμάνθανε κάλλος ἀλλότριον), a βλέπειν which issues in ἐπιθυμῆσαι αὐτῆν, Mat 5:28. Adulterium reale, and in fact two-sided, is first spoken of in the third strophe, here it is adulterium mentale and one-sided; the object named is not any maiden whatever, but any בּתוּלה, because virginity is ever to be revered, a most sacred thing, the holy purity of which Job acknowledges himself to have guarded against profanation from any lascivious gaze by keeping a strict watch over his eyes. The Waw of וּמה is, as in Job 31:14, copulative: and if I had done it, what punishment might I have looked for?
The question, Job 31:2, is proposed in order that it may be answered in Job 31:3 again in the form of a question: in consideration of the just punishment which the injurer of female innocence meets, Job disavows every unchaste look. On חלק and נחלה used of allotted, adjudged punishment, comp. Job 20:29; Job 27:13; on נכר, which alternates with איד (burden of suffering, misfortune), comp. Oba 1:12, where in its stead נכר occurs, as Arab. nukr, properly id quod patienti paradoxum, insuetum, intolerabile videtur, omne ingratum (Reiske). Conscious of the just punishment of the unchaste, and, as he adds in Job 31:4, of the omniscience of the heavenly Judge, Job has made dominion over sin, even in its first beginnings and motions, his principle.
The הוּא, which gives prominence to the subject, means Him who punishes the unchaste. By Him who observes his walk on every side, and counts (יספּור, plene, according to Ew. §138, a, on account of the pause, but vid., the similar form of writing, Job 39:2; Job 18:15) all his steps, Job has been kept back from sin, and to Him Job can appeal as a witness.

Verses 5-8

Job 31:5-8 5 If I had intercourse with falsehood,
And my foot hastened after deceit: 6 Let Him weigh me in the balances of justice,
And let Eloah know my innocence. 7 If my steps turned aside from the way,
And my heart followed mine eyes,
And any spot hath cleaved to my hands: 8 May I sow and another eat,
And let my shoots be rooted out.
We have translated שׁוא (on the form vid., on Job 15:31, and the idea on Job 11:11) falsehood, for it signifies desolateness and hollowness under a concealing mask, therefore the contradiction between what is without and within, lying and deceit, parall. מרמה, deceit, delusion, imposition. The phrase הלך עם־שׁוא is based on the personification of deceit, or on thinking of it in connection with the מתי־שׁוא (Job 11:11). The form ותּחשׁ cannot be derived from חוּשׁ, from which it ought to be ותּחשׁ, like ויּסר Jdg 4:18 and freq., ויּשׂר (serravit) 1Ch 20:3, ויּעט (increpavit) 1Sa 25:14. Many grammarians (Ges. §72, rem. 9; Olsh. 257, g) explain the Pathach instead of Kametz as arising from the virtual doubling of the guttural (Dagesh forte implicitum), for which, however, no ground exists here; Ewald (§232, b) explains it by “the hastening of the tone towards the beginning,” which explains nothing, since the retreat of the tone has not this effect anywhere else. We must content ourselves with the supposition that ותּחשׁ is formed from a חשׁה having a similar meaning to חוּשׁ (חישׁ), as also ויּעט, 1Sa 15:19, comp. 1Sa 14:32, is from a עטח of similar signification with עיט. The hypothetical antecedent, Job 31:5, is followed by the conclusion, Job 31:6 : If he have done this, may God not spare him. He has, however, not done it; and if God puts him to an impartial trial, He will learn his תּמּה, integritas, purity of character. The “balance of justice” is the balance of the final judgment, which the Arabs call Arab. mı̂zân 'l-a‛mâl, “the balance of actions (works).”^[83]
Job 31:7 also begins hypothetically: if my steps (אשּׁוּרי from אשּׁוּר, which is used alternately with אשׁוּר without distinction, contrary to Ew. §260, b) swerve (תּטּה, the predicate to the plur. which follows, designating a thing, according to Ges. §146, 3) from the way (i.e., the one right way), and my heart went after my eyes, i.e., if it followed the drawing of the lust of the eye, viz., to obtain by deceit or extortion the property of another, and if a spot (מאוּם, macula, as Dan 1:4, = מוּם, Job 11:15; according to Ew., equivalent to מחוּם, what is blackened and blackens, then a blemish, and according to Olsh., in מאוּמה...לא, like the French ne ... point) clave to my hands: I will sow, and let another eat, and let my shoots be rooted out. The poet uses צאצאים elsewhere of offspring of the body or posterity, Job 5:25; Job 21:8; Job 27:14; here, however, as in Isaiah, with whom he has this word in common, Job 34:2; Job 42:5, the produce of the ground is meant. Job 31:8 is, according to Joh 4:37, a λόγος, a proverb. In so far as he may have acted thus, Job calls down upon himself the curse of Deut. 38:20f.: what he sows, let strangers reap and eat; and even when that which is sown does not fall into the hands of strangers, let it be uprooted.

Verses 9-12

Job 31:9-12 9 If my heart has been befooled about a woman,
And if I lay in wait at my neighbour's door: 10 Let my wife grind unto another,
And let others bow down over her. 11 For this is an infamous act,
And this is a crime to be brought before judges; 12 Yea, it is a fire that consumeth to the abyss,
And should root out all my increase.
As he has guarded himself against defiling virgin innocence by lascivious glances, so is he also conscious of having made no attempt to trespass upon the marriage relationship of his neighbour (רע as in the Decalogue, Exo 20:17): his heart was not persuaded, or he did not allow his heart to be persuaded (נפתּה like πείθεσθαι), i.e., misled, on account of a woman (אשּׁה as אשׁת אישׁ, in post-bibl. usage, of another's wife), and he lay not in wait (according to the manner of adulterous lovers described at Job 24:15, which see) at his neighbour's door. We may here, with Wetzstein, compare the like-minded confession in a poem of Muhâdi ibn-Muhammel: Arab. mâ nabb klb 'l-jâr mnâ ẇlâ ‛awâ, i.e., “The neighbour's dog never barked (נב, Beduin equivalent to נבח in the Syrian towns and villages) on our account (because we have gone by night with an evil design to his tent), and it never howled (being beaten by us, to make it cease its barking lest it should betray us).” In Job 31:10 follows the punishment which he wishes might overtake him in case he had acted thus: “may my wife grind to another,” i.e., may she become his “maid behind the mill,” Exo 11:5, comp. Isa 47:2, who must allow herself to be used for everything; ἀλετρίς and a common low woman (comp. Plutarch, non posse suav. viv. c. 21, καὶ παχυσκελὴς ἀλετρὶς πρὸς μύλην κινουμένη) are almost one and the same. On the other hand, the Targ. (coeat cum alio), lxx (euphemistically ἀρέσαι ἑτέρῳ, not, as the Syr. Hexapl. shows, ἀλέσαι), and Jer. (scortum sit alterius), and in like manner Saad., Gecat., understand תּטחן directly of carnal surrender; and, in fact, according to the traditional opinion, b. Sota 10a: אין טחינה אלא לשׁון עבירה, i.e., “טחן everywhere in Scripture is intended of (carnal) trespass.” With reference to Jdg 16:21 and Lam 5:13 (where טחון, like Arab. ṭaḥûn, signifies the upper mill-stone, or in gen. the mill), this is certainly incorrect; the parallel, as well as Deu 28:30, favours this rendering of the word in the obscene sense of μύλλειν, molere, in this passage, which also is seen under the Arab. synon. of grinding, Arab. dahaka (trudere); according to which it would have to be interpreted: let her grind to another, i.e., serve him as it were as a nether mill-stone. The verb טחן, used elsewhere (in Talmud.) of the man, would here be transferred to the woman, like as it is used of the mill itself as that which grinds. This rendering is therefore not refuted by its being תּטחן and not תּטּחן. Moreover, the word thus understood is not unworthy of the poet, since he designedly makes Job seize the strongest expressions. Among moderns, תטחן is thus tropically explained by Ew., Umbr., Hahn, and a few others, but most expositors prefer the proper sense, in connection with which molat certainly, especially with respect to Job 31:9, is also equivalent to fiat pellex. It is hard to decide; nevertheless the preponderance of reasons seems to us to be on the side of the traditional tropical rendering, by the side of which Job 31:10 is not attached in progressive, but in synonymous parallelism: et super ea incurvent se alii, כּרע of the man, as in the phrase Arab. kr‛t 'l-mrât 'lâ 'l-rjl(curvat se mulier ad virum) of the acquiescence of the woman; אחרין is a poetical Aramaism, Ew. §177, a. The sin of adultery, in case he had committed it, ought to be punished by another taking possession of his own wife, for that (הוּא a neutral masc., Keri היא in accordance with the fem. of the following predicate, comp. Lev 18:17) is an infamous act, and that (היא referring back to זמּה, Keri הוּא in accordance with the masc. of the following predicate) is a crime for the judges. On this wavering between הוא and היא vid., Gesenius, Handwörterbuch, 1863, s. v. הוּא, S. 225. זמּה is the usual Thora-word for the shameless subtle encroachments of sensual desires (vid., Saalschütz, Mosaisches Recht, S. 791f.), and פּלילים עון (not עון), according to the usual view equivalent to crimen et crimen quidem judicum (however, on the form of connection intentionally avoided here, where the genitival relation might easily give an erroneous sense, vid., Ges. §116, rem.), signifies a crime which falls within the province of the penal code, for which in Job 31:28 it is less harshly עון פּלילי: a judicial, i.e., criminal offence. פּלילים is, moreover, not the plur. of פּלילי (Kimchi), but of פּליל, an arbitrator (root פל, findere, dirimere).
The confirmatory clause, Job 31:12, is co-ordinate with the preceding: for it (this criminal, adulterous enterprise) is a fire, a fire consuming him who allows the sparks of sinful desire to rise up within him (Pro 6:27.; Sir. 9:8), which devours even to the bottom of the abyss, not resting before it has dragged him whom it has seized down with it into the deepest depth of ruin, and as it were melted him away, and which ought to root out all my produce (all the fruit of my labour).^[84]
The function of ב is questionable. Ew. (§217, f) explains it as local: in my whole revenue, i.e., throughout my whole domain. But it can also be Beth objecti, whether it be that the obj. is conceived as the means of the action (vid., on Job 16:4-5, Job 16:10; Job 20:20), or that, “corresponding to the Greek genitive, it does not express an entire full coincidence, but an action about and upon the object” (Ew. §217, S. 557). We take it as Beth obj. in the latter sense, after the analogy of the so-called pleonastic Arab. b (e.g., qaraa bi-suwari, he has practised the act of reading upon the Suras of the Koran); and which ought to undertake the act of outrooting upon my whole produce.^[85]

Verses 13-15

Job 31:13-15 13 If I despised the cause of my servant and my maid,
When they contended with me: 14 What should I do, if God should rise up,
And if He should make search, what should I answer Him? 15 Hath not He who formed me in the womb formed him also,
And hath not One fashioned us in the belly?
It might happen, as Job 31:13 assumes, that his servant or his maid (אמה, Arab. amatun, denotes a maid who is not necessarily a slave, ‛abde, as Job 19:15, whereas שׁפחה does not occur in the book) contended with him, and in fact so that they on their part began the dispute (for, as the Talmud correctly points out, it is not בּריבי עמּם, but בּריבם עמּדי), but he did not then treat them as a despot; they were not accounted as res but personae by him, he allowed them to maintain their personal right in opposition to him. Christopher Scultetus observes here: Gentiles quidem non concedebant jus servo contra dominum, cui etiam vitae necisque potestas in ipsum erat; sed Iob amore justitiae libere se demisit, ut vel per alios judices aut arbitros litem talem curaret decidi vel sibi ipsi sit moderatus, ut juste pronuntiaret. If he were one who despised (אמאס not מאסתּי) his servants' cause: what should he do if God arose and entered into judgment; and if He should appoint an examination (thus Hahn correctly, for the conclusion shows that פקד is here a synon. of בחן Psa 17:3, and חקר Psa 44:22, Arab. fqd, V, VIII, accurate inspicere), what should he answer?

Verse 15

The same manner of birth, by the same divine creative power and the same human agency, makes both master and servant substantially brethren with equal claims: Has not He who brought me forth in my mother's womb (also) brought forth him (this my servant or my maid), and has not One fashioned us in our mother's belly? אחד, unus, viz., God, is the subj., as Mal 2:10, אחד (אב) אל (for the thought comp. Eph 6:9), as it is also translated by the Targ., Jer., Saad., and Gecat.; whereas the lxx (ἐν τῇ αὐτῇ κοιλίᾳ), Syr., Symm. (as it appears from his translation ἐν ὁμοίῳ τρόπῳ), construe אחד as the adj. to בּרחם, which is also the idea of the accentuation (Rebia mugrasch, Mercha, Silluk). On the other hand, it has been observed (also Norzi) that it ought to be האסחד according to this meaning; but it was not absolutely necessary, vid., Ges. §111, 2, b. אחד also would not be unsuitable in this combination; it would, as e.g., in אחד חלום, not affirm identity of number, but of character. But אחד is far more significant, and as the final word of the strophe more expressive, when referred to God. The form ויכוּננּוּ is to be judged of just like ותּמוּגנוּ, Isa 54:6; either they are forms of an exceptionally transitive (as שׁוּב, Psa 85:5, and in שׁוב שׁבות) use of the Kal of these verbs (vid., e.g., Parchon and Kimchi), or they are syncopated forms of the Pilel for ויכנננּוּ, ותּמגגנוּ, syncopated on account of the same letters coming together, especially in ויכנננו (Ew. §81, a, and most others); but this coincidence is sought elsewhere (e.g., Psa 50:23; Pro 1:28), and not avoided in this manner (e.g., Psa 119:73). Beside this syncope ויכוּננּוּ might also be expected, while according to express testimony the first Nun is raphatum: we therefore prefer to derive these forms from Kal, without regarding them, with Olsh., as errors in writing. The suff. is rightly taken by lxx, Targ., Abulwalid, and almost all expositors,^[86] not as singular (ennu = êhu), but as plural (ennu = ênu); The Babylonian school pointed ויכוּננוּ, like ממנו where it signifies a nobis, ממּנוּ (Psalter ii. 459, and further information in Pinsker's works, Zur Geschichte des Karaismus, and Ueber das sogen. assyrische Punktationssystem). Therefore: One, i.e., one and the same God, has fashioned us in the womb without our co-operation, in an equally animal way, which smites down all pride, in like absolute conditionedness.

Verses 16-18

Job 31:16-18 16 If I held back the poor from what they desired,
And caused the eyes of the widow to languish, 17 And ate my morsel alone
Without letting the fatherless eat thereof: - 18 No indeed, from my youth he grew up to me as to a father,
And from my mother's womb I guided her -
The whole strophe is the hypothetical antecedent of the imprecative conclusion, Job 31:22, which closes the following strophe. Since מנע דּבר ממּנוּ, cohibere aliquid ab aliquo (Job 22:7), is said as much in accordance with the usage of the language as מנעו מדּבר, cohibere aliquem ab aliquo (Num 24:11; Ecc 2:10), in the sense of denegare alicui aliquid, there is no reason for taking מחפץ דּלּים together as a genitival clause (a voto tenuium), as the accentuation requires it. On חפץ, vid., on Job 21:21; it signifies solicitude (what is ardently desired) and business, here the former: what is ever the interest and want of the poor (the reduced or those without means). From such like things he does not keep the poor back, i.e., does not refuse them; and the eyes of the widow he did not cause or allow to languish (כּלּה, to bring to an end, i.e., cause to languish, of the eyes, as Lev 26:16; 1Sa 2:33); he let not their longing for assistance be consumed of itself, let not the fountain of their tears become dry without effect. If he had done the opposite, if he had eaten his bread (פּת = פּת לחם) alone, and not allowed the orphan to eat of it with him - but no, he had not acted thus; on the contrary (כּי as Psa 130:4 and frequently), he (the parentless one) grew up to him (גּדלני = גּדל לּי, Ges. §121, 4, according to Ew. §315, b, “by the interweaving of the dialects of the people into the ancient form of the declining language;” perhaps it is more correct to say it is by virtue of a poetic, forced, and rare brevity of expression) as to a father (= לאב כּמו), and from his mother's womb he guided her, the helpless and defenceless widow, like a faithful child leading its sick or aged mother. The hyperbolical expression מבּטן אמּי dates this sympathizing and active charity back to the very beginning of Job's life. He means to say that it is in-born to him, and he has exercised it ever since he was first able to do so. The brevity of the form גּדלני, brief to incorrectness, might be removed by the pointing גּדּלני (Olsh.): from my youth up he (the fatherless one) honoured me as a father; and גּדּלני (instead of כּבּדני would be explained by the consideration, that a veneration is meant that attributed a dignity which exceed his age to the נער who was not yet old enough to be a father. But גּדּל signifies “to cause to grow” in such a connection elsewhere (parall. רומם, to raise), wherefore lxx translates ἐξέτρεφον (גּדּלתּי); and גּדלני has similar examples of the construction of intransitives with the acc. instead of the dat. (especially Zec 7:5) in its favour: they became me great, i.e., became great in respect of me. Other ways of getting over the difficulty are hardly worth mentioning: the Syriac version reads כּאב (pain) and אנחות; Raschi makes Job 31:18, the idea of benevolence, the subj., and Job 31:18 (as מדּה, attribute) the obj. The suff. of אנחנּה Schlottm. refers to the female orphan; but Job refers again to the orphan in the following strophe, and the reference to the widow, more natural here on account of the gender, has nothing against it. The choice of the verb (comp. Job 38:32) also corresponds to such a reference, since the Hiph. has an intensified Kal-signification here.^[87]
From earliest youth, so far back as he can remember, he was wont to behave like a father to the orphan, and like a child to the widow.

Verses 19-23

Job 31:19-23 19 If I saw one perishing without clothing,
And that the needy had no covering; 20 If his loins blessed me not,
And he did not warm himself from the hide of my lambs; 21 If I have lifted up my hand over the orphan,
Because I saw my help in the gate: 22 Let my shoulder fall out of its shoulder-blade,
And mine arm be broken from its bone; 23 For terror would come upon me, the destruction of God,
And before His majesty I should not be able to stand.
On אובד comp. on Job 4:11; Job 29:13; he who is come down from his right place and is perishing (root בד, to separate, still perfectly visible through the Arab. bâda, ba‛ida, to perish), or also he who is already perished, periens and perditus. The clause, Job 31:19, forms the second obj. to אם אראה, which otherwise signifies si video, but here, in accordance with the connection, signifies si videbam. The blessing of the thankful (Job 29:13) is transferred from the person to the limbs in Job 31:20, which need and are benefited by the warmth imparted. אם־לא here is not an expression of an affirmative asseveration, but a negative turn to the continuation of the hypothetical antecedents. The shaking, הניף, of the hand, Job 31:21, is intended, like Isa 11:15; Isa 19:16 (comp. the Pilel, Isa 10:32), Zec 2:13, as a preparation for a crushing stroke. Job refrained himself from such designs upon the defenceless orphan, even when he saw his help in the gate, i.e., before the tribunal (Job 29:7), i.e., even when he had a certain prospect or powerful assistance there. If he has acted otherwise, his כּתף, i.e., his upper arm together with the shoulder, must fall out from its שׁכם, i.e., the back which bears it together with the shoulder-blades, and his אזרע, upper and lower arm, which is considered here according to its outward flesh, must be broken out of its קנה, tube, i.e., the reed-like hollow bone which gives support to it, i.e., be broken asunder from its basis (Syr. a radice sua), this sinning arm, which did not compassionate the naked, and mercilessly threatened the defenceless and helpless. The ת raphatum which follows in both cases, and the express testimony of the Masora, show that משּׁכמה and מקּנה have no Mappik. The He quiescens, however, is in both instances softened from the He mappic. of the suff., Ew. §21,f. פּחד in Job 31:23 is taken by most expositors as predicate: for terror is (was) to me evil as God, the righteous judge, decrees it. But אלי is not favourable to this. It establishes the particular thing which he imprecates upon himself, and that consequently which, according to his own conviction and perception, ought justly to overtake him out of the general mass, viz., that terror ought to come upon him, a divine decreed weight of affliction. איד אל is a permutative of פחד = פחד אלהים, and אלי with Dechî equivalent to אלי (יבא) יהיה, comp. Jer 2:19 (where it is to be interpreted: and that thou lettest no fear before me come over thee). Thus also Job 31:23 is suitably connected with the preceding: and I should not overcome His majesty, i.e., I should succumb to it. The מן corresponds to the prae in praevalerem; שׂאת (lxx falsely, λῆμμα, judgment, decision = משׂא, Jer. pondus) is not intended otherwise than Job 13:11 (parall. פחד as here).

Verses 24-28

Job 31:24-28 24 If I made gold my confidence,
And said to the fine gold: O my trust; 25 If I rejoiced that my wealth was great,
And that my hand had gained much; - 26 If I saw the sunlight when it shone,
And the moon walking in splendour, 27 And my heart was secretly enticed,
And I threw them a kiss by my hand: 28 This also would be a punishable crime,
For I should have played the hypocrite to God above.
Not only from covetous extortion of another's goods was he conscious of being clear, but also from an excessive delight in earthly possessions. He has not made gold his כּסל, confidence (vid., on כּסלתך, Job 4:6); he has not said to כּתם, fine gold (pure, Job 28:19, of Ophir, Job 28:16), מבטחי (with Dag. forte implicitum as Job 8:14; Job 18:14): object (ground) of my trust! He has not rejoiced that his wealth is great (רב, adj.), and that his hand has attained כּבּיר, something great (neutral masc. Ew. §172, b). His joy was the fear of God, which ennobles man, not earthly things, which are not worthy to be accounted as man's highest good. He indeed avoided πλεονεξία as εἰλωλολατρεία (Col 3:5), how much more the heathenish deification of the stars! אור is here, as Job 37:21 and φάος in Homer, the sun as the great light of the earth. ירח is the moon as a wanderer (from רח = ארח), i.e., night-wanderer (noctivaga), as the Arab. târik in a like sense is the name of the morning-star. The two words יקר הלד describe with exceeding beauty the solemn majestic wandering of the moon; יקר is acc. of closer definition, like תמים, Psa 15:2, and this “brilliantly rolling on” is the acc. of the predicate to אראה, corresponding to the כּי יחל, “that (or how) it shoots forth rays” (Hiph. of הלל, distinct from יחל Isa 13:20), or even: that it shot forth rays (fut. in signif. of an imperf. as Gen 48:17).
Job 31:27 proceeds with futt. consec. in order to express the effect which this imposing spectacle of the luminaries of the day and of the night might have produced on him, but has not. The Kal ויּפתּ is to be understood as in Deu 11:16 (comp. ib. iv. 19, נדּח): it was enticed, gave way to the seducing influence. Kissing is called נשׁק as being a joining of lip to lip. Accordingly the kiss by hand can be described by נשׁקה יד לפה; the kiss which the mouth gives the hand is to a certain extent also a kiss which the hand gives the mouth, since the hand joins itself to the mouth. Thus to kiss the hand in the direction of the object of veneration, or also to turn to it the kissed hand and at the same time the kiss which fastens on it (as compensation for the direct kiss, 1Ki 19:18; Hos 13:2), is the proper gesture of the προσκύνησις and adoratio mentioned; comp. Pliny, h. n. xxviii. 2, 5; Inter adorandum dexteram ad osculum referimus et totum corpus circumagimus. Tacitus, Hist. iii. 24, says that in Syria they value the rising sun; and that this was done by kissing the hand (τῆν χεῖρα κύσαντες) in Western Asia as in Greece, is to be inferred from Lucians Περὶ ὀρχήσεως, c. xvii.^[88]
In the passage before us Ew. finds an indication of the spread of the Zoroaster doctrine in the beginning of the seventh century b.c., at which period he is of opinion the book of Job was composed, but without any ground. The ancient Persian worship has no knowledge of the act of adoration by throwing a kiss; and the Avesta recognises in the sun and moon exalted genii, but created by Ahuramazda, and consequently not such as are to be worshipped as gods. On the other hand, star-worship is everywhere the oldest and also comparatively the purest form of heathenism. That the ancient Arabs, especially the Himjarites, adored the sun, שׁמשׁ, and the moon, שׂין (סין, whence סיני, the mountain dedicated to the moon), as divine, we know from the ancient testimonies,^[89] and many inscriptions^[90] which confirm and supplement them; and the general result of Chwolsohn's^[91] researches is unimpeachable, that the so-called Sabians (Arab. ṣâbı̂wn with or without Hamza of the Jê), of whom a section bore the name of worshippers of the sun, shemsı̂je, were the remnant of the ancient heathenism of Western Asia, which lasted into the middle ages. This heathenism, which consisted, according to its basis, in the worship of the stars, was also spread over Syria, and its name, usually combined with צבא השּׁמים (Deu 4:19), perhaps is not wholly devoid of connection with the name of a district of Syria, ארם צובה; certainly our poet found it already there, where he heard the tradition about Job, and in his hero presents to us a true adherent of the patriarchal religion, who had kept himself free from the influence of the worship of the stars, which was even in his time forcing its way among the tribes.
It is questionable whether Job 31:28 is to be regarded as a conclusion, with Umbr. and others, or as a parenthesis, with Ew., Hahn, Schlottm., and others. We take it as a conclusion, against which there is no objection according to the syntax, although strictly it is only a confirmation (vid., Job 31:11, Job 31:23) of an implied imprecatory conclusion: therefore it is (would be) also a judicial misdeed, i.e., one to be severely punished, for I should have played the hypocrite to God above (לאל ממּעל, recalling the universal Arabic expression allah ta‛âla, God, the Exalted One) by making gold and silver, the sun and moon my idols. By פּלילי both the sins belonging to the judgment-seat of God, as in ἔνοχος τῷ συνεδρίῳ, Mat 5:22, are not referred to a human tribunal, but only described κατ ̓ ἄνθρωπον as punishable transgressions of the highest grade. כּחשׁ ל signifies to play the hypocrite to any one, whereas to disown any one is expressed by כחשׁ בּ. His worship of God would have been hypocrisy, if he had disowned in secret the God whom he acknowledged openly and outwardly.
Now follow strophes to which the conclusion is wanting. The single imprecatory conclusion which yet follows (Job 31:40), is not so worded that it might avail for all the preceding hypothetical antecedents. There are therefore in these strophes no conclusions that correspond to the other clauses. The inward emotion of the confessor, which constantly increases in fervour the more he feels himself superior to his accusers in the exemplariness of his life hitherto, struggles against this rounding off of the periods. A “yea then - !” is easily supplied in thought to these strophes which per aposiopesin are devoid of conclusions.

Verses 29-30

Job 31:29-30 29 If I rejoiced over the destruction of him who hated me,
And became excited when evil came upon him - 30 Yet I did not allow my palate to sin
By calling down a curse upon his life.
The aposiopesis is here manifest, for Job 31:29 is evidently equal to a solemn denial, to which Job 31:30 is then attached as a simple negative. He did not rejoice at the destruction (פיד, Arab. fêd,^[92] as Job 12:5; Job 30:24) of his enemy who was full of hatred towards him (משׂנאי, elsewhere also שׂנאי), and was not excited with delight (התערר, to excite one's self, a description of emotion, whether it be pleasure, or as Job 17:8, displeasure, as a not merely passive but moral incident) if calamity came upon him, and he did not allow his palate (חך as the instrument of speech, like Job 6:30) to sin by asking God that he might die as a curse. Love towards an enemy is enjoined by the Thora, Exo 23:4, but it is more or less with a national limitation, Lev 19:18, because the Thora is the law of a people shut out from the rest of the world, and in a state of war against it (according to which Mat 5:43 is to be understood); the books of the Chokma, however (comp. Pro 24:17; Pro 25:21), remove every limit from the love of enemies, and recognise no difference, but enjoin love towards man as man. With Job 31:30 this strophe closes. Among modern expositors, only Arnh. takes in Job 31:31 as belonging to it: “Would not the people of my tent then have said: Would that we had of his flesh?! we have not had enough of it,” i.e., we would eat him up both skin and hair. Of course it does not mean after the manner of cannibals, but figuratively, as Job 19:22; but in a figurative sense “to eat any one's flesh” in Semitic is equivalent to lacerare, vellicare, obtrectare (vid., on Job 19:22, and comp. also Sur. xlix. 12 of the Koran, and Schultens' Erpenius, pp. 592f.), which is not suitable here, as in general this drawing of Job 31:31 to Job 31:29 is in every respect, and especially that of the syntax, inadmissible. It is the duty of beneficence, which Job acknowledges having practised, in Job 31:31.

Verses 31-32

Job 31:31-32 31 If the people of my tent were not obliged to say:
Where would there be one who has not been satisfied with his flesh?! - 32 The stranger did not lodge out of doors,
I opened my door towards the street.
Instead of אמרוּ, it might also be יאמרוּ (dicebant); the perf., however, better denotes not merely what happens in a general way, but what must come to pass. The “people of the tent” are all who belong to it, like the Arab. ahl (tent, metonym. dwellers in the tent), here pre-eminently the servants, but without the expression in itself excluding wife, children, and relations. The optative מי־יתּן, so often spoken of already, is here, as in Job 31:35; Job 14:4; Job 29:2, followed by the acc. objecti, for נשׂבּע is part. with the long accented a (quis exhibebit or exhibeat non saturatum), and מבּשׂרו is not meant of the flesh of the person (as even the lxx in bad taste renders: that his maids would have willingly eaten him, their kind master, up from love to him), but of the flesh of the cattle of the host. Our translation follows the accentuation, which, however, perhaps proceeds from an interpretation like that of Arnheim given above. His constant and ready hospitality is connected with the mention of his abundant care and provision for his own household. It is unnecessary to take ארח, with the ancient versions, for ארח, or so to read it; לארח signifies towards the street, where travellers are to be expected, comp. Pirke aboth i. 5: ”May thy house be open into the broad place (לרוחה), and may the poor be thy guests.” The Arabs pride themselves on the exercise of hospitality. “To open a guest-chamber” is the same as to establish one's own household in Arabic. Stories of judgments by which the want of hospitality has been visited, form an important element of the popular traditions of the Arabs.^[93]

Verses 33-34

Job 31:33-34 33 If I have hidden my wickedness like Adam,
Concealing my guilt in my bosom, 34 Because I feared the great multitude
And the contempt of families affrighted me,
So that I acted secretly, went not out of the door. -
Most expositors translate כּאדם: after the manner of men; but appropriate as this meaning of the expression is in Psa 82:7, in accordance with the antithesis and the parallelism (which see), it would be as tame here, and altogether expressionless in the parallel passage Hos 6:7 -^[94] the passage which comes mainly under consideration here - since the force of the prophetic utterance: “they have כאדם transgressed the covenant,” consists in this, “that Israel is accused of a transgression which is only to be compared to that of the first man created: here, as there, a like transgression of the expressed will of God” (von Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, i. 412f.); as also, according to Rom 5:14, Israel's transgression is that fact in the historical development of redemption which stands by the side of Adam's transgression. And the mention of Adam in Hosea cannot surprise one, since he also shows himself in other respects to be familiar with the contents of Genesis, and to refer back to it (vid., Genesis, S. 11-13). Still much less surprising is such a reference to primeval history in a book that belongs to the literature of the Chokma (vid., Introduction, §2). The descent of the human race from a single pair, and the fall of those first created, are, moreover, elements in all the ancient traditions; and it is questionable whether the designation of men by beni Adama (children of Adam), among the Moslems, first sprang from the contact of Judaism and Christianity, or whether it was not rather an old Arabic expression. Therefore we translate with Targ., Schult., Boullier, Rosenm., Hitz., Kurtz, and von Hofm.: if I have hidden (disowned) like Adam my transgression. The point of comparison is only the sinner's dread of the light, which became prominent as the prototype for every succeeding age in Adam's hiding himself. The לטמון which follows is meant not so much as indicating the aim, as gerundive (abscondendo); on this use of the inf. constr. with ל, vid., Ew. §280, d. חב, bosom, is ἁπ. γεγρ.; Ges. connects it with the Arab. habba, to love; it is, however, to be derived from the חב, occulere, whence chabı̂be, that which is deep within, a deep valley (comp. חבא, chabaa, with their derivatives); in Aramaic it is the common word for the Hebr. חיק.

Verse 34

With כּי follows the motive which Job might have had for hiding himself with his sin: he has been neither an open sinner, nor from fear of men and a feeling of honour a secret sinner. He cherished within him no secret accursed thing, and had no need for playing the hypocrite, because he dreaded (ערץ only here with the acc. of the obj. feared) the great multitude of the people (רבּה not adv. but adj.; המון with Mercha-Zinnorith, consequently fem., as עם sometimes, Ew. §174, b), and consequently the moral judgment of the people; and because he feared the stigma of the families, and therefore the loss of honour in the higher circles of society, so that as a consequence he should have kept himself quiet and retired, without going out of the door. One might think of that abhorrence of voluptuousness, with which, in the consciousness of its condemnatory nature, a man shuts himself up in deep darkness; but according to Job 31:33 it is in general deeds that are intended, which Job would have ground for studiously concealing, because if they had become known he would have appeared a person to be scouted and despised: he could frankly and freely meet any person's gaze, and had no occasion to fear the judgment of men, because he feared sin. He did nothing which he should have caused for carefully keeping from the light of publicity. And yet his affliction is to be accounted as the punishment of hidden sin! as proof that he has committed punishable sin, which, however, he will not confess!

Verses 35-37

Job 31:35-37 35 O that I had one who would hear me!
Behold my signature-the Almighty will answer me -
And the writing which my opponent hath written! 36 Truly I will carry it upon my shoulder,
I will wind it about me as a crown. 37 The number of my steps I will recount to Him,
As a prince will I draw near to Him.
The wish that he might find a ready willing hearer is put forth in a general way, but, as is clear in itself, and as it becomes manifest from what follows, refers to Him who, because it treats of a contradiction between the outward appearance and the true but veiled fact, as searcher of the heart, is the only competent judge. It may not be translated: et libellum (the indictment, or even: the reply to Job's self-defence) scribat meus adversarius (Dachselt, Rosenm., Welte) - the accentuation seems to proceed from this rendering, but it ought to be וכתב ספר; if כּתב governed by יענני were intended to be equivalent to יכתּב, and referred to God, the longing would be, as it runs, an unworthy and foolish one - nor: (O that I had one who would hear me ... ) and had the indictment, which my adversary has written (Ew., Hirz., Schlottm.) - for וספר is too much separated from מי יתּן by what intervenes - in addition to which comes the consideration that the wish, as it is expressed, cannot be referred to God, but only to the human opponent, whose accusations Job has no occasion to wish to hear, since he has already heard amply sufficient even in detail. Therefore הן (instead of הן with a conjunctive accent, as otherwise with Makkeph) will point not merely to תּוי, but also to liber quem scripsit adversarius meus as now lying before them, and the parenthetical שׁדּי יענני will express a desire for the divine decision in the cause now formally prepared for trial, ripe for discussion. By תּוי, my sign, i.e., my signature (comp. Eze 9:4, and Arab. tiwa, a branded sign in the form of a cross), Job intends the last word to his defence which he has just spoken, Job 31:1; it is related to all his former confessions as a confirmatory mark set below them; it is his ultimatum, as it were, the letter and seal to all that he has hitherto said about his innocence in opposition to the friends and God. Moreover, he also has the indictment of the triumvirate which has come forward as his opponent in his hands. Their so frequently repeated verbal accusations are fixed as if written; both - their accusation and his defence - lie before him, as it were, in the documentary form of legal writings. Thus, then, he wishes an observant impartial hearer for this his defence; or more exactly: he wishes that the Almighty may answer, i.e., decide. Hahn interprets just as much according to the syntax, but understanding by תוי the witness which Job carries in his breast, and by ספר וגו the testimony to his innocence written by God in his own consciousness; which is inadmissible, because, as we have often remarked already, אישׁ ריבי (comp. Job 16:21) cannot be God himself.
In Job 31:36 Job now says how he will appear before Him with this indictment of his opponent, if God will only condescend to speak the decisive word. He will wear it upon his shoulder as a mark of his dignity (comp. Isa 22:22; Isa 9:5), and wind it about him as a magnificent crown of diadems intertwined and heaped up one above another (Rev 19:12, comp. Köhler on Zec 6:11) - confident of his victory at the outset; for he will give Him, the heart-searcher, an account of all his steps, and in the exalted consciousness of his innocence, he will approach Him as a prince (קרב intensive of Kal). How totally different from Adam, who was obliged to be drawn out of his hiding-place, and tremblingly, because conscious of guilt, underwent the examination of the omniscient God! Job is not conscious of cowardly and slyly hidden sins; no secret accursed thing is cherished in the inmost recesses of his heart and home.

Verses 38-40

Job 31:38-40 38 If my field cry out against me,
And all together its furrows weep; 39 If I have devoured its strength without payment,
And caused the soul of its possessor to expire: 40 May thistles spring up instead of wheat,
And darnel instead of barley.
The field which he tills has no reason to cry out on account of violent treatment, nor its furrows to weep over wrong done to them by their lord.^[95] אדמה, according to its radical signification, is the covering of earth which fits close upon the body of the earth as its skin, and is drawn flat over it, and therefore especially the arable land; תּלם (Arab. telem, not however directly referable to an Arab. root, but as also other words used in agriculture, probably borrowed from the North Semitic, first of all the Aramaic or Nabataic), according to the explanation of the Turkish Kamus, the “ditch-like crack which the iron of the ploughman tears in the field,” not the ridge thrown up between every two furrows (vid., on Psa 65:11). He has not unlawfully used (which would be the reason of the crying and weeping) the usufruct of the field (כּח meton., as Gen 4:12, of the produce, proportioned to its capability of production) without having paid its value, by causing the life to expire from the rightful owner, whether slowly or all at once (Jer 15:9). The wish in Job 31:40 is still stronger than in Job 31:8, Job 31:12 : there the loss and rooting out of the produce of the field is desired, here the change of the nature of the land itself; the curse shall and must come upon it, if its present possessor has been guilty of the sin of unmerciful covetousness, which Eliphaz lays to his charge in Job 22:6-9.
According to the view of the Capuchin Bolducius (1637), this last strophe, Job 31:38, stood originally after Job 31:8, according to Kennicott and Eichhorn after Job 31:25, according to Stuhlmann after Job 31:34. The modern expositors retain it in its present position. Hirzel maintains the counter arguments: (1) that none of the texts preserved to us favour the change of position; (2) that it lay in the plan of the poet not to allow the speeches of Job to be rounded off, as would be the case by Job 31:35 being the concluding strophe, but to break off suddenly without a rhetorical conclusion. If now we imagine the speeches of Elihu as removed, God interrupts Job, and he must cease without having come to an end with what he had to say. But these counter arguments are an insufficient defence: for (1) there is a number of admitted misplacements in the Old Testament which exceed the Masora (e.g., 1Sa 13:1; Jer 27:1), and also the lxx (e.g., 1Sa 17:12, באנשׁים, lxx ἐν ἀνδράσιν, instead of בשׁנים); (2) Job's speech would gain a rhetorical conclusion by Job 31:38, if, as Hirzel in contradiction of himself supposes, Job 31:35 ought to be considered as a parenthesis, and Job 31:40 as a grammatical conclusion to the hypothetical clauses from Job 31:24 onwards. But if this strange view is abandoned, it must be supposed that with Job 31:38 Job intends to begin the assertion of his innocence anew, and is interrupted in this course of thought now begun, by Jehovah. But it is improbable that one has to imagine this in the mind of such a careful poet. Also the first word of Jehovah, “Who is this that darkeneth counsel with words without knowledge?” Job 38:2, is much more appropriate to follow directly on Job 31:37 than Job 31:40; for a new course of thought, which Jehovah's appearing interrupts, begins with Job 31:35; and the rash utterance, Job 31:37, is really a “darkening of the divine decree.” For by declaring he will give an account to God, his judge, concerning each of his steps, and approach Him like a prince, Job does not merely express the injustice of the accusations raised by his human opponents, but he casts a reflection of injustice upon the divine decree itself, inasmuch as it appears to him to be a de facto accusation of God.
Nevertheless, whether Elihu's speeches are not be put aside as not forming an original portion of the book, or not, the impression that Job 31:38 follow as stragglers, and that Job 31:35 would form a more appropriate close, and a more appropriate connection for the remonstrance that follows, whether it be Jehovah's or Elihu's, remains. For the assertion in Job 31:38 cannot in itself be considered to be a justifiable boldness; but in Job 31:35 the whole condition of Job's inner nature is once more mirrored forth: his longing after God, by which Satan's prediction is destroyed; and his overstepping the bounds of humility, on account of which his affliction, so far as it is of a tentative character, cannot end before it is also become a refining fire to him. Therefore we cannot refrain from the supposition that it is with Job 31:38 just as with Isa 38:21 The lxx also found these two verses in this position; they belong, however, after Isa 38:6, as is clear in itself, and as is evident from 2Ki 20:7 There they are accidentally omitted, and are now added at the close of the narration as a supplement. If the change of position, which is there an oversight, is considered as too hazardous here, Job 31:35 must be put in the special and close relation to the preceding strophe indicated by us in the exposition, and Job 31:38 must be regarded as a final rounding off (not as the beginning of a fresh course of thought); for instead of the previous aposiopeses, this concluding strophe dies away, and with it the whole confession, in a particularly vigorous, imprecative conclusion.
Let us once more take a review of the contents of the three sharply-defined monologues. After Job, in Job 27:1, has closed the controversy with the friends, in the first part to this trilogy, Job 29:1, he wishes himself back in the months of the past, and describes the prosperity, the activity, for the good of his fellow-men, and the respect in which he at that time rejoiced, when God was with him. It is to be observed here, how, among all the good things of the past which he longs to have back, Job gives the pre-eminence to the fellowship and blessing of God as the highest good, the spring and fountain of every other. Five times at the beginning of Job 29:1 in diversified expressions he described the former days as a time when God was with him. Look still further from the beginning of the monologue to its close, to the likewise very expressive כאשׁר אבלים ינחם. The activity which won every heart to Job, and toward which he now looks back so longingly, consisted of works of that charity which weeps with them that weep, and rejoices not in injustice, Job 29:12-17. The righteousness of life with which Job was enamoured, and which manifested itself in him, was therefore charity arising from faith (Liebe aus Glauben). He knew and felt himself to be in fellowship with God; and from the fulness of this state of being apprehended of God, he practised charity. He, however, is blessed who knows himself to be in favour with God, and in return loves his fellow-men, especially the poor and needy, with the love with which he himself is loved of God. Therefore does Job wish himself back in that past, for now God has withdrawn from him; and the prosperity, the power, and the important position which were to him the means for the exercise of his charity, are taken from him.
This contrast of the past and present is described in Job 30:1, which begins with ועתה. Men who have become completely animalized, rough hordes driven into the mountains, with whom he sympathized, but without being able to help them as he had wished, on account of their degeneracy, - these mock at him by their words and acts. Now scorn and persecution for the sake of God is the greatest honour of which a man can be accounted worthy; but, apart from the consideration that this idea could not yet attain its rightful expression in connection with the present, temporal character of the Old Testament, it was not further from any one than from him who in the midst of his sufferings for God's sake regards himself, as Job does now, as rejected of God. That scorn and his painful and loathesome disease are to him a decree of divine wrath; God has, according to his idea, changed to a tyrant; He will not hear his cry for help. Accordingly, Job can say that his welfare as a cloud is passed away. He is conscious of having had pity on those who needed help, and yet he himself finds no pity now, when he implores pity like one who, seated upon a heap of rubbish, involuntarily stretches forth his hand for deliverance. In this gloomy picture of the present there is not even a single gleam of light; for the mysterious darkness of his affliction has not been in the slightest degree lighted up for Job by the treatment the friends have adopted. Also he is as little able as the friends to think of suffering and sin as unconnected, for which very reason his affliction appears to him as the effect of divine wrath; and the sting of his affliction is, that he cannot consider this wrath just. From the demand made by his faith, which here and there breaks through his conflict, that God cannot allow him to die the death of a sinner without testifying to his innocence, Job nowhere attains the conscious conclusion that the motive of his affliction is love, and not wrath.
In the third part of the speech (Job 31:1), which begins with the words, “I had made a covenant,” etc., without everywhere going into the detail of the visible conjunction of the thought, Job asserts his earnest struggle after sanctification, by delivering himself up to just divine punishment in case his conduct had been the opposite. The poet allows us to gain a clear insight into that state of his hero's heart, and also of his house, which was well-pleasing to God. Not merely outward adultery, even the adulterous look; not merely the unjust acquisition of property and goods, but even the confidence of the heart in such things; not merely the share in an open adoration of idols, but even the side-glance of the heart after them, is accounted by him as condemnatory. He has not merely guarded himself from using sinful curses against his enemies, but he has also not rejoiced when misfortune overtook them. As to his servants, even when he has had a dispute with any of them, he has not forgotten that master and servant, without distinction of birth, are creatures of one God. Towards orphans, from early youth onwards, he has practised such tender love as if he were their father; towards widows, as if he were their son. With the hungry he has shared his bread, with the naked his clothes; his subordinates had no reason to complain of niggardly sustenance; his house always stood open hospitably to the stranger; and, as the two final strophes affirm: he has not hedged in any secret sin, anxious only not to appear as a sinner openly, and has not drawn forth wailings and tears from the ground which he cultivated by avarice and oppressive injustice. Who does not here recognise a righteousness of life and endeavour, the final aim of which is purity of heart, and which, in its relation to man, flows forth in that love which is the fulfilling of the law? The righteousness of which Job (Job 29:14) says, he has put it on like a garment, and it has put him on, is essentially the same as that which the New Testament Preacher on the mount enjoins. As the work of an Israelitish poet, Job 31:1 is a most important evidence in favour of the assertion, that a life well-pleasing to God is not, even in the Old Testament, absolutely limited to the Israelitish nation, and that it enjoins a love which includes man as man within itself, and knows of no distinction.
If, now, Job can lay down the triumphant testimony of such a genuine righteousness of life concerning himself, in opposition to men's misconstruction, the contrast of his past and present becomes for the first time mysterious; but we are also standing upon the extreme boundary where the knot that has been tied must be untied. The injustice done to Job in the accusations which the friends bring against him must be laid bare by the appearance of accusation on the part of God, which his affliction casts upon him, being destroyed. With the highest confidence in a triumphant issue, even before the trial of his cause, Job longs, in the concluding words, Job 31:35, for the judicial decision of God. As a prince he will go before the Judge, and bind his indictment like a costly diadem upon his brow. For he is certain that he has not merited his affliction, that neither human nor divine accusation can do anything against him, and that he will remain conqueror - as over men, so over God Himself.
Thus has the poet, in this threefold monologue of Job, prepared the way for the catastrophe, the unravelment of the knot of the drama. But will God enter into a controversy respecting His cause with Job? This is contrary to the honour of God; and that Job desires it, is contrary to the lowliness which becomes him towards God. On this very account God will not at once acknowledge Job as His servant: Job will require first of all to be freed from the sinful presumption concerning God with which he has handled the problem of his sufferings. But he has proved himself to be a servant of God, in spite of the folly into which he has fallen; the design of Satan to tear him away from God is completely frustrated. Thus, therefore, after he has purified himself from his sin into which, both in word and thought, he has allowed himself to be drawn by the conflict of temptation, Job must be proved to be the servant of God in opposition to the friends.
But before God Himself appears in order to bring about the unravelment, there follow still four speeches, Job 32-37, of a speaker, for whose appearance the former part of the drama has in no way prepared us. It is also remarkable that they are marked off from the book of Job, as far as we have hitherto read, by the formula תּמּוּ דּברי איּוב, are ended the words of Job. Carey is of the opinion that these three words may possibly be Job's own closing dixi. According to Hahn, the poet means to imply by them that Job has now said all that he intended to say, so that it would now have been the friends' turn to speak. These views involve a perplexity like that of those who think that Psa 72:20 must be regarded as a constituent part of the Psalm. As in that position the words, “The prayers of David the son of Jesse are finished,” are as a memorial-stone between the original collection and its later extensions, so this תמו דברי איוב, which is transferred by the lxx (καὶ ἐπαύσατο Ἰὼβ ῥήμασιν) to the historical introduction of the Elihu section, seems to be an important hint in reference to the origin of the book of Job in its present form. Since Job has come to an end with his speeches, and is silent at the four speeches of a new speaker, although they strongly enough provoke him to reply; according to the idea of the poet, Elihu's appearance is to be regarded as belonging to the catastrophe itself. And since a hasty glance at the speeches of Jehovah shows that they do not say anything concerning the motive and object of Job's affliction, these speeches of Elihu, in so far as they seem to be an integral part of the whole, as they cast light upon this dark point, will therefore prove in the midst of the action of the drama, what we know already from the prologue, that Job's affliction has not the wrath of God as its motive power, nor the punishment of Job as ungodly for its object. If the four speeches really furnish this, it is still not absolutely decisive in favour of their forming originally a part of the book. For it would be even possible that a second poet might have added a part, in harmony with its idea, to the work of the first. What we expect, moreover, is the mark of the same high poetic genius which we have hitherto regarded with amazement. But since we are now passing on the the exposition of these speeches, it must be with the assumption that they have a like origin with the whole, and that they also really belong to this whole with which they are embodied, in the place where they now stand. We shall only be able to form a conclusive judgment concerning the character of their form, the solution of their problem, and the manner of their composition, after the exposition is completed, by then taking a comprehensive and critical review of the impressions produced, and our observations. Fourth Part - The Unravelment - Job 32-42
The Speeches of Elihu which Prepare the Way for the Unravelment - Job 32-37
Historical Introduction to the Section - Job 32:1-6
A short introduction in historical prose, which introduces the speaker and justifies his appearance, opens the section. It is not, like the prologue and epilogue, accented as prose; but, like the introductions to the speeches and the clause, Job 31:40 extra, is taken up in the network of the poetical mode of accentuation, because a change of the mode of accentuation in the middle of the book, and especially in a piece of such small compass, appeared awkward. The opposition of the three has exhausted itself, so that in that respect Job seems to have come forth out the controversy as conqueror.

Chap. 32

Verses 1-3

Job 32:1-3 1-3 So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. And the wrath of Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, was kindled: against Job was his wrath kindled, because he justified himself at the expense of God. And against his three friends was his wrath kindled, because they found no answer, and condemned Job.
The name of the speaker is אליהוּא (with Mahpach), son of בּרכאל (with Munach) the buwziy (with Zarka). The name Elihu signifies “my God is He,” and occurs also as an Israelitish name, although it is not specifically Israelitish, like Elijah (my God is Jehovah). Bârach'el (for which the mode of writing בּרכאל with Dag. implic. is also found) signifies “may God bless!” (Olsh. §277, S. 618); for proper names, as the Arabian grammarians observe, can be formed both into the form of assertory clauses (ichbâr), and also into the form of modal (inshâ); the name ברכאל is in this respect distinguished from the specifically Israelitish name בּרכיה (Jehovah blesseth). The accompanying national name defines the scene; for on the one side בּוּז and עוּץ, according to Gen 22:21, are the sons of Nahor, Abraham's brother, who removed with him (though not at the same time) from Ur Casdim to Haran, therefore by family Aramaeans; on the other side, בּוּז, Jer 25:23, appears as an Arab race, belonging to the קצוּצי פאה (comp. Jer 9:25; Jer 49:32), i.e., to the Arabs proper, who cut the hair of their heads short all round (περιτρόχαλα, Herodotus iii. 8), because wearing it long was accounted as disgraceful (vid., Tebrâzi in the Hamâsa, p. 459, l. 10ff.). Within the Buzite race, Elihu sprang from the family of רם. Since רם is the name of the family, not the race, it cannot be equivalent to ארם (like רמּים, 2Ch 22:5, = ארמים), and it is therefore useless to derive the Aramaic colouring of Elihu's speeches from design on the part of the poet. But by making him a Buzite, he certainly appears to make him an Aramaean Arab, as Aristeas in Euseb. praep. ix. 25 calls him Ἐλιοῦν τὸν Βαραξηιὴλ τὸν Ζωβίτην (from ארם צובה). It is remarkable that Elihu's origin is given so exactly, while the three are described only according to their country, without any statement of father or family. It would indeed be possible, as Lightfoot and Rosenm. suppose, for the poet to conceal his own name in that of Elihu, or to make allusion to it; but an instance of this later custom of Oriental poets is found nowhere else in Old Testament literature.
The three friends are silenced, because all their attempts to move Job to a penitent confession that his affliction is the punishment of his sins, have rebounded against this fact, that he was righteous in his own eyes, i.e., that he imagined himself righteous; and because they now (שׁבת of persons, in distinction from חדל, has the secondary notion of involuntariness) know of nothing more to say. Then Elihu's indignation breaks forth in two directions. First, concerning Job, that he justified himself מאלהים, i.e., not a Deo (so that He would be obliged to account him righteous, as Job 4:17), but prae Deo. Elihu rightly does not find it censurable in Job, that as a more commonly self-righteous man he in general does not consider himself a sinner, which the three insinuate of him (Job 15:14; Job 25:4), but that, declaring himself to be righteous, he brings upon God the appearance of injustice, or, as Jehovah also says further on, Job 40:8, that he condemns God in order that he may be able to maintain his own righteousness. Secondly, concerning the three, that they have found no answer by which they might have been able to disarm Job in his maintenance of his own righteousness at the expense of the divine justice, and that in consequence of this they have condemned Job. Hahn translates: so that they should have represented Job as guilty; but that they have not succeeded in stamping the servant of God as a רשׁע, would wrongly excite Elihu's displeasure. And Ewald translates: and that they had nevertheless condemned him (§345, a); but even this was not the real main defect of their opposition. The fut. consec. describes the condemnation as the result of their inability to hit upon the right answer; it was a miserable expedient to which they had recourse. According to the Jewish view, ויּרשׁיעוּ את־איּוב is one of the eighteen תקוני סופרים (correctiones scribarum), since it should be וירשׁיעו את־האלהים. But it is not the friends who have been guilty of this sin of הרשׁיע against God, but Job, Job 40:8, to whom Elihu opposes the sentence אל לא־ירשׁיע, Job 34:12. Our judgment of another such tiqqûn, Job 7:20, was more favourable. That Elihu, notwithstanding the inward conviction to the contrary by which he is followed during the course of the controversial dialogue, now speaks for the first time, is explained by what follows.

Verses 4-5

Job 32:4-5 4-6 And Elihu had waited for Job with words, for they were older than he in days. And Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of the three men, then his wrath was kindled. And Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite began, and said.
He had waited (perf. in the sense of the plusquamperf., Ew. §135, a) for Job with words (בּדברים as elsewhere בּמלּים, בּמלּין), i.e., until Job should have spoken his last word in the controversial dialogue. Thus he considered it becoming on his part, for they (המּה, illi, whereas אלּה according to the usage of the language is hi) were older (seniores) than he in days (לימים as Job 32:6, less harsh here, instead of the acc. of closer definition, Job 15:10, comp. Job 11:9). As it now became manifest that the friends made no reply to Job's last speeches for want of the right solution of problem, and therefore also Job had nothing further to say, he believes that he may venture, without any seeming want of courtesy, to give utterance to his long-restrained indignation; and Elihu (with Mahpach) the son of Barach'el (Mercha) the Buzite (with Rebia parvum) began and spoke (ויּאמר not with Silluk, but Mercha mahpach., and in fact with Mercha on the accented penult., as Job 3:2, and further).

Verses 6-7

Job 32:6-7 6b I am young in days, and ye are hoary,
Therefore I stood back and was afraid
To show you my knowledge. 7 I thought: Let age speak,
And the multitude of years teach wisdom.
It becomes manifest even here that the Elihu section has in part a peculiar usage of the language. זחל in the signification of Arab. zḥl, cogn. with Arab. dḥl, דּחל, to frighten back;^[96] and דּע for דּעת (here and Job 32:10, Job 32:17; Job 36:3; Job 37:16) occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament; על־כּן (comp. לכן, Job 42:3) is used only by Elihu within the book of Job. ימים, days = fulness of days, is equivalent to advanced age, old age with its rich experience. רב with its plural genitive is followed (as כל sa( d usually is) by the predicate in the plur.; it is the attraction already described by מספר, Job 15:10; Job 21:21, Ges. §148, 1.

Verses 8-10

Job 32:8-10 8 Still the spirit, it is in mortal man,
And the breath of the Almighty, that giveth them understanding. 9 Not the great in years are wise,
And the aged do not understand what is right. 10 Therefore I say: O hearken to me,
I will declare my knowledge, even I.
The originally affirmative and then (like אוּלם) adversative אכן also does not occur elsewhere in the book of Job. In contradiction to biblical psychology, Rosenm. and others take Job 32:8 as antithetical: Certainly there is spirit in man, but ... . The two halves of the verse are, on the contrary, a synonymous (“the spirit, it is in man, viz., that is and acts”) or progressive parallelism) thus according to the accents: ”the spirit, even that which is in man, and ... ”). It is the Spirit of God to which man owes his life as a living being, according to Job 33:4; the spirit of man is the principle of life creatively wrought, and indeed breathed into him, by the Spirit of God; so that with regard to the author it can be just as much God's רוּח or נשׁמה, Job 34:14, as in respect of the possessor: man's רוח or נשׁמה. All man's life, his thinking as well as his bodily life, is effected by this inwrought principle of life which he bears within him, and all true understanding, without being confined to any special age of life, comes solely from this divinely originated and divinely living spirit, so far as he acts according to his divine origin and basis of life. רבּים are here (as the opposite of צעירים, Gen 25:23) grandes = grandaevi (lxx πολυχρόνιοι). לא governs both members of the verse, as Job 3:10; Job 28:17; Job 30:24. Understanding or ability to form a judgment is not limited to old age, but only by our allowing the πνεῦμα to rule in us in its connection with the divine. Elihu begs a favourable hearing for that of which he is conscious. דּע, and the Hebr.-Aramaic הוּה, which likewise belong to his favourite words, recur here.

Verses 11-14

Job 32:11-14 11 Behold, I waited upon your words,
Hearkened to your perceptions,
While ye searched out replies. 12 And I attended closely to you,
Yet behold: there was no one who refuted Job,
Who answered his sentences, from you. 13 Lest ye should say: “We found wisdom,
God is able to smite him, not man!” 14 Now he hath not arranged his words against me,
And with your sentences I will not reply to him.
He has waited for their words, viz., that they might give utterance to such words as should tend to refute and silence Job. In what follows, עד still more emphatically than ל refers this aim to that to which Elihu had paid great attention: I hearkened to your understandings, i.e., explanations of the matter, that, or whether, they came forth, (I hearkened) to see if you searched or found out words, i.e., appropriate words. Such abbreviated forms as אזין = אאזין (comp. מזין = מיזין for מעזין, Pro 17:4, Ges. §68, rem. 1, if it does not signify nutriens, from זוּן) we shall frequently meet with in this Elihu section. In Job 32:12, Job 32:12 evidently is related as an antecedent to what follows: and I paid attention to you (עדיכם contrary to the analogy of the cognate praep. instead of עדיכם, moreover for עליכם, with the accompanying notion: intently, or, according to Aben-Duran: thoroughly, without allowing a word to escape me), and behold, intently as I paid attention: no one came forward to refute Job; there was no one from or among you who answered (met successfully) his assertions. Every unbiassed reader will have an impression of the remarkable expressions and constructions here, similar to that which one has in passing from the book of the Kings to the characteristic sections of the Chronicles. The three, Elihu goes on to say, shall not indeed think that in Job a wisdom has opposed them - a false wisdom, indeed - which only God and not any man can drive out of the field (נדף, Arab. ndf, discutere, dispellere, as the wind drives away chaff or dry leaves); while he has not, however (ולא followed directly by a v. fin. forming a subordinate clause, as Job 42:3; Psa 44:18, and freq., Ew. §341, a), arrayed (ערך in a military sense, Job 33:5; or forensic, Job 23:4; or even as Job 37:19, in the general sense of proponere) words against him (Elihu), i.e., utterances before which he would be compelled to confess himself affected and overcome. He will not then also answer him with such opinions as those so frequently repeated by them, i.e., he will take a totally different course from theirs in order to refute him.

Verses 15-17

Job 32:15-17 15 They are amazed, they answer no more,
Words have fled from them. 16 And I waited, for they spake not,
For they stand still, they answer no more. 17 Therefore I also will answer for my part,
I will declare my knowledge, even I.
In order to give a more rapid movement and an emotional force to the speech, the figure asyndeton is introduced in Job 32:15, as perhaps in Jer 15:7, Ew. §349, a. Most expositors render העתּיקוּ passively, according to the sense: they have removed from them, i.e., are removed from them; but why may העתיק not signify, like Gen 12:8; Gen 26:22, to move away, viz., the tent = to wander on (Schlottm.)? The figure: words are moved away (as it were according to an encampment broken up) from them, i.e., as we say: they have left them, is quite in accordance with the figurative style of this section. It is unnecessary to take והוחלתּי, Job 32:16, with Ew. (§342, c) 2 and Hirz. as perf. consec. and interrogative: and should I wait, because they speak no more? Certainly the interrog. part. sometimes disappears after the Waw of consequence, e.g., Eze 18:13, Eze 18:24 (and will he live?); but by what would והוחלתי be distinguished as perf. consec. here? Hahn's interpretation: I have waited, until they do not speak, for they stand ... , also does not commend itself; the poet would have expressed this by עד לא ידברו, while the two כי, especially with the poet's predilection for repetition, appear to be co-ordinate. Elihu means to say that he has waited a long time, surprised that the three did not speak further, and that they stand still without speaking again. Therefore he thinks the time is come for him also to answer Job. אענה cannot be fut. Kal, since where the 1 fut. Kal and Hiph. cannot be distinguished by the vowel within the word (as in the Ayin Awa and double Ayin verbs), the former has an inalienable Segol; it is therefore 1 fut. Hiph., but not as in Ecc 5:19 in the signification to employ labour upon anything (lxx περισπᾶν), but in an intensive Kal signification (as הזעיק for זעק, Job 35:9, comp. on Job 31:18): to answer, to give any one an answer when called upon. Ewald's supposedly proverbial: I also plough my field! (§192, c, Anm. 2) does unnecessary violence to the usage of the language, which is unacquainted with this הענה, to plough. It is perfectly consistent with Elihu's diction, that חלקי beside אני as permutative signifies, “I, my part,” although it might also be an acc. of closer definition (as pro parte mea, for my part), or even - which is, however, less probable - acc. of the obj. (my part). Elihu speaks more in the scholastic tone of controversy than the three.

Verses 18-22

Job 32:18-22 18 For I am full of words,
The spirit of my inner nature constraineth me. 19 Behold, my interior is like wine which is not opened,
Like new bottles it is ready to burst. 20 I will speak, that I may gain air,
I will open my lips and reply. 21 No, indeed, I will accept no man's person,
And I will flatter no man. 22 For I understand not how to flatter;
My Maker would easily snatch me away.
The young speaker continues still further his declaration, promising so much. He has a rich store of מלּים, words, i.e., for replying. מלתי defective for מלאתי, like יצתי for יצאתי, Job 1:21; whereas מלוּ, Eze 28:6, is not only written defectively, but is also conjugated after the manner of a Lamed He verb, Ges. §§23, 3, 74, rem. 4, 75, 21, c. The spirit of his inner nature constrains him, since, on account of its intensity and the fulness of this interior, it struggles to break through as through a space that is too narrow for it. בּטן, as Job 15:2, Job 15:35, not from the curved appearance of the belly, but from the interior of the body with its organs, which serve the spirit life as the strings of a harp; comp. Arab. batn, the middle or interior; bâtin, inwardly (opposite of zâhir, outwardly). His interior is like wine לא יפּתח, which, or (as an adverbial dependent clause) when it is not opened, i.e., is kept closed, so that the accumulated gas has no vent, lxx δεδεμένος (bound up), Jer. absque spiraculo; it will burst like new bottles. יבּקע is not a relative clause referring distributively to each single one of these bottles (Hirz. and others), and not an adverbial subordinate clause (Hahn: when it will explode), but predicate to בטני: his interior is near bursting like new bottles (אבות masc. like נאדות, Jos 9:13), i.e., not such as are themselves new (ἀσκοὶ καινοὶ, Mat 9:17, for these do not burst so easily), but like bottles of new wine, which has to undergo the action of fermentation, lxx ὥσπερ φυσητὴρ (Cod. Sinait.1 φυσητής) χαλκέως, i.e., חרשׁים whence it is evident that a bottle and also a pair of bellows were called אוב). Since he will now yield to his irresistible impulse, in order that he may obtain air or free space, i.e., disburdening and ease (וירוח לּי), he intends to accept no man's person, i.e., to show partiality to no one (vid., on Job 13:8), and he will flatter no one. כּנּה signifies in all three dialects to call any one by an honourable name, to give a surname, here with אל, to speak fine words to any one, to flatter him. This Elihu is determined he will not do; for לא ידעתּי אכנּה, I know not how to flatter (French, je ne sais point flatter), for כנּות or לכנּות; comp. the similar constructions, Job 23:3 (as Est 8:6), Job 10:16, 1Sa 2:3; Isa 42:21; Isa 51:1, Ges. 142, 3, c; also in Arabic similar verbs, as “to be able” and “to prepare one's self,” are thus connected with the fut. without a particle between (e.g., anshaa jef‛alu, he began to act). Without partiality he will speak, flattery is not his force. If by flattery he should deny the truth, his Maker would quickly carry him off. כּמעט followed by subjunct. fut.: for a little (with disjunctive accent, because equivalent to haud multum abest quin), i.e., very soon indeed, or easily would or might ... ; ישּׂני (as Job 27:21) seems designedly to harmonize with עשׂני.

Chap. 33

Verses 1-3

Job 33:1-3 1 But nevertheless, O Job, hear my speeches,
And hearken to all my words. 2 Behold now, I have opened my mouth,
My tongue speaketh in my palate. 3 Sincere as my heart are my utterances,
And knowledge that is pure my lips declare.
The issue of the impartial discussion which Elihu designs to effect, is subject to this one condition, that Job listens to it, and observes not merely this or that, but the whole of its connected contents; and in this sense ואוּלם, which is used just as in Job 1:11; Job 11:5; Job 12:7; Job 13:4; Job 14:18; Job 17:10, in the signification verumtamen, stands at the head of this new turn in his speech. Elihu addresses Job, as none of the previous speakers have done, by name. With הנּה־נא (as Job 13:18), he directs Job's observation to that which he is about to say: he has already opened his mouth, his tongue is already in motion, - circumstantial statement, which solemnly inaugurate what follows with a consciousness of its importance. Job has felt the absence of אמרי־ישׁר, Job 6:25, in the speeches of the three; but Elihu can at the outset ensure his word being “the sincerity of his heart,” i.e., altogether heartily well meant: and - thus it would be to be translated according to the accentuation - the knowledge of my lips, they (my lips) utter purely. But “the knowledge of the lips” is a notion that seems strange with this translation, and בּרוּר is hardly intended thus adverbially. דּעת, contrary to the accentuation, is either taken as the accusative of the obj., and בּרוּר as the acc. of the predicate (masc. as Pro 2:10; Pro 14:6): knowledge my lips utter pure; or interpreted, if one is not willing to depart from the accentuation, with Seb. Schmid: scientiam labiorum meorum quod attinet (the knowledge proceeding from my lips), puram loquentur sc. labia mea. The notions of purity and choice coincide in ברור (comp. Arab. ibtarra, to separate one's self; asfa, to prove one's self pure, and to select). The perff., Job 33:2, describe what is begun, and so, as relatively past, extending into the present.

Verses 4-7

Job 33:4-7 4 The Spirit of God hath made me,
And the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. 5 If thou canst, answer me,
Prepare in my presence, take thy stand! 6 Behold, I am like thyself, of God,
Formed out of clay am I also. 7 Behold, my terror shall not affright thee,
And my pressure shall not be heavy upon thee.
He has both in common with Job: the spirituality as well as the earthliness of man's nature; but by virtue of the former he does not, indeed, feel himself exalted above Job's person, but above the present standpoint taken up by Job; and in consideration of this, Job need not fear any unequal contest, nor as before God, Job 9:34; Job 13:21, in order that he may be able to defend himself against Him, make it a stipulation that His majesty may not terrify him. It is man's twofold origin which Elihu, Job 33:4, Job 33:6, gives utterance to in harmony with Gen 2:7 : the mode of man's origin, which is exalted above that of all other earthly beings that have life; for the life of the animal is only the individualizing of the breath of the Divine Spirit already existing in matter. The spirit of man, on the contrary (for which the language has reserved the name נשׁמה), is an inspiration directly coming forth from God the personal being, transferred into the bodily frame, and therefore forming a person.^[97]
In the exalted consciousness of having been originated by the Spirit of God, and being endowed with life from the inbreathed breath of the Almighty, Elihu stands invincible before Job: if thou canst, refute me (השׁיב with acc. of the person, as Job 33:32); array thyself (ערכה for ערכה, according to Ges. 63, rem. 1) before me (here with the additional thought of מלחמה, as Job 23:4, in a forensic sense with משׁפּט), place thyself in position, or take thy post (imper. Hithpa. with the ah less frequent by longer forms, Ew. §228, a).
On the other side, he also, like Job, belongs to God, i.e., is dependent and conditioned. הן־אני is to be written with Segol (not Ssere); לאל is intended like לו, Job 12:16; and כּפיך signifies properly, according to thine utterance, i.e., standard, in accordance with, i.e., like thee, and is used even in the Pentateuch (e.g., Exo 16:21) in this sense pro ratione; כפי, Job 30:18, we took differently. He, Elihu, is also nipped from the clay, i.e., taken from the earth, as when the potter nips off a piece of his clay (comp. Aram. קרץ, a piece, Arab. qurs, a bread-cake, or a dung-cake, vid., supra, p. 449, from qarasa, to pinch off, take off, cogn. qarada, to gnaw off, cut off, p. 512). Thus, therefore, no terribleness in his appearing will disconcert Job, and his pressure will not be a burden upon him. By a comparison of Job 13:21, it might seem that אכפּי is equivalent to כּפּי (lxx ἡ χείρ μου), but כּבד is everywhere connected only with יד, never with כּף; and the ἁπ. γεγρ. is explained according to Pro 16:26, where אכף signifies to oppress, drive (Jer. compulit), and from the dialects differently, for in Syr. ecaf signifies to be anxious about anything (ecaf li, it causes me anxiety, curae mihi est), and in Arab. accafa, to saddle, ucâf, Talmud. אוּכּף, a saddle, so that consequently the Targ. translation of אכפּי by טוּני, my burden, and the Syr. by אוכפני, my pressing forward (Arabic version iqbâli, my touch), are supported, since אכף signifies pressure, heavy weight, load, and burden; according to which it is also translated by Saad. (my constraint), Gecat. (my might). It is therefore not an opponent who is not on an equality with him by nature, with whom Job has to do. If he is not able to answer him, he will have to be considered as beaten.

Verses 8-12

Job 33:8-12 8 Verily thou hast said in mine ears,
And I heard the sound of thy words: 9 “I am pure, without transgression; “Spotless am I, and I have no guilt. 10 “Behold, He findeth malicious things against me, “He regardeth me as His enemy; 11 “He putteth my feet in the stocks, “He observeth all my paths.” 12 Behold, therein thou art not right, I will answer thee,
For Eloah is too exalted for man.
With אך אמרתּ Elihu establishes the undeniable fact, whether it be that אך is intended as restrictive (only thou hast said, it is not otherwise than that thou ... ), or as we have translated, according to its primary meaning, affirmative (forsooth, it is undeniable). To say anything בּאזני of another is in Hebrew equivalent to not saying it secretly, and so as to be liable to misconstruction, but aloud and distinctly. In Job 33:9, Elihu falls back on Job's own utterances, as Job 9:21, תם אני; Job 16:17, תפלתי זכה; Job 12:4, where he calls himself צדיק תמים, comp. Job 10:7; Job 13:18, Job 13:23; Job 23:10, Job 27:5, Job 29:1, Job 31:1. The expression חף, tersus, did not occur in the mouth of Job; Geiger connects חף with the Arab. hanı̂f (vid., on Job 13:15); it is, however, the adj. of the Semitic verb חף, Arab. ḥff, to rub off, scrape off; Arab. to make smooth by scraping off the hair; Targ., Talm., Syr., to make smooth by washing and rubbing (after which Targ. שׁזיג, lotus).^[98] אנכי has here, as an exception, retained its accentuation of the final syllable in pause. In Job 33:10 Elihu also makes use of a word that does not occur in Job's mouth, viz., תּנוּאות, which, according to Num 14:34, signifies “alienation,” from נוּא (הניא), to hinder, restrain, turn aside, abalienare, Num 32:7; and according to the Arab. na'a (to rise heavily),^[99]
III to lean one's self upon, to oppose any one; it might also signify directly, “hostile risings;” but according to the Hebr. it signifies grounds and occasions for hostile aversion. Moreover, Elihu here recapitulates what Job has in reality often in meaning said, e.g., Job 10:13-17; and Job 33:10 are his own words, Job 13:24, ותחשׁבני לאויב לך; Job 19:11, ויחשׁבני לו כצריו; Job 30:21, תהפך לאכזר לי. In like manner, Job 33:11 is a verbatim quotation from Job 13:27; ישׁם is poetic contracted fut. for ישׂים rof .. It is a principal trait of Job's speeches which Elihu here makes prominent: his maintenance of his own righteousness at the expense of the divine justice. In Job 33:12 he first of all refutes this צשּׁק נפשׁו מאלהים in general. The verb צדק does not here signify to be righteous, but to be in the right (as Job 11:2; Job 13:18) - the prevailing signification in Arabic (sadaqa, to speak the truth, be truthful). זאת (with Munach, not Dechâ) is acc. adv.: herein, in this case, comp. on Job 19:26. רבה מן is like Deu 14:24 (of the length of the way exceeding any one's strength), but used, as nowhere else, of God's superhuman greatness; the Arabic version has the preposition Arab. ‛an in this instance for מן. God is too exalted to enter into a defence of Himself against such vainglorying interwoven with accusations against Him. And for this reason Elihu will enter the lists for God.

Verses 13-18

Job 33:13-18 13 Why hast thou contended against Him,
That He answereth not concerning all His doings? 14 Yet no-in one way God speaketh,
And in two, only one perceiveth it not. 15 In the dream, in a vision of the night,
When deep sleep falleth upon men,
In slumberings upon the bed: 16 Then He openeth the ear of men,
And sealeth admonition for them, 17 That He may withdraw man from mischief,
And hide pride from man; 18 That He may keep back his soul from the pit,
And his life from the overthrow of the sword.
Knowing himself to be righteous, and still considering himself treated as an enemy by God, Job has frequently inquired of God, Why then does He treat him thus with enmity, Job 7:20, and why has He brought him into being to be the mark of His attack? Job 10:18. He has longed for God's answer to these questions; and because God has veiled Himself in silence, he has fallen into complain against Him, as a ruler who governs according to His own sovereign arbitrary will. This is what Elihu has before his mind in Job 33:13. ריב (elsewhere in the book of Job with עם or the acc. of the person with whom one contends) is here, as Jer 12:1 and freq., joined with אל and conjugated as a contracted Hiph. (ריבות instead of רבתּ, Ges. §73, 1); and ענה with the acc. signifies here: to answer anything (comp. Job 32:12; Job 40:2, and especially Job 9:3); the suff. does not refer back to אנושׁ of the preceding strophe (Hirz., Hahn), but to God. דּבריו are the things, i.e., facts and circumstances of His rule; all those things which are mysterious in it He answers not, i.e., He answers concerning nothing in this respect (comp. כל לא, Job 34:27), He gives no kind of account of them (Schnurr., Ges., and others). כּי, Job 33:14, in the sense of imo, is attached to this negative thought, which has become a ground of contention for Job: yet no, God does really speak with men, although not as Job desires when challenged and in His own defence. Many expositors take באחת and בּשׁתּים after lxx, Syr., and Jer., in the signification semel, secundo (thus also Hahn, Schlottm.); but semel is אחת, whereas באחת is nowhere equivalent to בפעם אחת, for in Num 10:4 it signifies with one, viz., trumpet; Pro 28:18, on one, viz., of the many ways; Jer 10:8, in one, i.e., in like folly (not: altogether, at once, which כּאחד, Syr. bachdo, signifies); then further on it is not twice, but two different modes or means of divine attestation, viz., dreams and sicknesses, that are spoken of; wherefore it is rightly translated by the Targ. una loquela, by Pagn. uno modo, by Vatabl., Merc., una via. The form of the declaration: by one - by two, is that of the so-called number-proverbs, like Job 5:19. In diverse ways or by different means God speaks to mortal man - he does not believe it, it is his own fault if he does perceive it. לא ישׁוּרנּה, which is correctly denoted as a separate clause by Rebia mugrasch, is neither with Schlottm. to be regarded as a circumstantial clause (without one's ... ), nor with Vatablus and Hahn as a conditional clause (if one does not attend to it), nor with Montanus and Piscator as a relative clause (to him who does not observe it), but with Tremellius as a co-ordinate second predicative clause without a particle (one might expect אך): he (mortal man) or one observes it not (שׁוּר with neut. suff. exactly like Job 35:13).

Verses 15-18

Elihu now describes the first mode in which God speaks to man: He Himself comes forward as a witness in man's sleep, He makes use of dreams or dream-like visions, which come upon one suddenly within the realm of nocturnal thought (vid., Psychol. S. 282f.), as a medium of revelation - a usual form of divine revelation, especially in the heathen world, to which positive revelation is wanting. The reading בּחזיון (Codd., lxx, Syr., Symm., Jer.), as also the accentuation of the בחלום with Mehupach Legarme, proceeds from the correct assumption, that vision of the night and dream are not coincident notions; moreover, the detailing Job 33:15, is formed according to Job 4:13. In this condition of deep or half sleep, revelat aurem hominum, a phrase used of the preparation of the ear for the purpose of hearing by the removal of hindrances, and, in general, of confidential communication, therefore: He opens the ear of men, and seals their admonition, i.e., the admonition that is wholesome and necessary for them. Elihu uses חתם בּ here and Job 37:7 as חתם בּעד is used in Job 9:7 : to seal anything (to seal up), comp. Arab. ḥı̂m, σφραγίζειν, in the sense of infallible attestation and confirmation (Joh 6:27), especially (with Arab. b) of divine revelation or inspiration, distinct in meaning from Arab. chtm, σφραγίζειν, in the proper sense. Elihu means that by such dreams and visions, as rare overpowering facts not to be forgotten, God puts the seal upon the warning directed to them which, sent forth in any other way, would make no such impression. Most ancient versions (also Luther) translate as though it were יחתּם (lxx ἐξεφόβησεν αὐτούς). מסר is a secondary form to מוּסר, Job 36:10, which occurs only here. Next comes the fuller statement of the object of the admonition or warning delivered in such an impressive manner. According to the text before us, it is to be explained: in order that man may remove (put from himself) mischief from himself (Ges. §133, 3); but this inconvenient change of subject is avoided, if we supply a מ to the second, and read אדם ממעשׂה, as lxx ἀποστρέψαι ἄνθρωπον ἀπὸ ἀδικίας αὐτοῦ (which does not necessarily presuppose the reading ממעשׂהו), Targ. ab opere malo; Jer. not so good; ab his quae fecit. מעשׂה signifies facinus, an evil deed, as 1Sa 20:19, and פּעל, Job 36:9, evil-doing. The infin. constr. now passes into the v. fin., which would be very liable to misconstruction with different subjects: and in order that He (God) may conceal arrogance from man, i.e., altogether remove from him, unaccustom him to, render him weary of. the sin of pride (גּוה from גּוה = גּאה, as Job 22:29, according to Ges., Ew., Olsh., for גּאוה = גּאוה). Here everything in thought and expression is peculiar. Also חיּה, Job 33:18 (as Job 33:22, Job 33:28), for חיּים rof ,) (Job 33:30) does not occur elsewhere in the book of Job, and the phrase עבר בּשּׁלח here and Job 36:12 (comp. עבר בּשּׁחת, Job 33:28) nowhere else in the Old Testament. שׁלח (Arab. silâh, a weapon of offence, opp. metâ‛, a weapon of defence) is the engine for shooting, from שׁלח, emmittere, to shoot; and עבר בשׁלח is equivalent to נפל בעד השׁלח ot tnelaviuqe s, Joe 2:8, to pass away by (precipitate one's self into) the weapon for shooting. To deliver man from sin, viz., sins of carnal security and imaginary self-importance, and at the same time from an early death, whether natural or violent, this is the disciplinary design which God has in view in connection with this first mode of speaking to him; but there is also a second mode.

Verses 19-22

Job 33:19-22 19 He is chastened also with pain upon his bed,
And with the unceasing conflict of his limbs; 20 And his life causeth him to loathe bread,
And his soul dainty meat. 21 His flesh consumeth away to uncomeliness,
And his deranged limbs are scarcely to be seen. 22 Then his soul draweth near to the grave,
And his life to the destroyers.
Another and severer lesson which God teaches man is by painful sickness: he is chastened with pain (בּ of the means) on his bed, he and the vigorous number of his limbs, i.e., he with this hitherto vigorous (Raschi), or: while the multitude of his limbs is still vigorous (Ew). Thus is the Keri ורב to be understood, for the interpretation: and the multitude of his limbs with unceasing pain (Arnh. after Aben-Ezra), is unnatural. But the Chethib is far more commendable: and with a constant tumult of his limbs (Hirz. and others). Job 33:19 might also be taken as a substantival clause: and the tumult of his limbs is unceasing (Umbr., Welte); but that taking over of בּ from במכאוב is simpler and more pleasing. ריב (opposite of שׁלום, e.g., Psa 38:4) is an excellent description of disease which consists in a disturbance of the equilibrium of the powers, in the dissolution of their harmony, in the excitement of one against another (Psychol. S. 287). אתן for איתן belongs to the many defective forms of writing of this section. In Job 33:20 we again meet a Hebraeo-Arabic hapaxlegomenon. זהם from זהם. In Arab. zahuma signifies to stink, like the Aram. זהם (whence זוּהם, dirt and stench), zahama to thrust back, restrain, after which Abu Suleiman Daûd Alfâsi, in his Arabic Lexicon of the Hebrew, interprets: “his soul thrusts back (תזהם נפסה) food and every means of life,”^[100] beside which the suff. of וזהמתּוּ is taken as an anticipation of the following object (vid., on Job 29:3): his life feels disgust at it, at bread, and his soul at dainty meat. The Piel has then only the intensive signification of Kal (synon. תּעב, Psa 107:18), according to which it is translated by Hahn with many before him. But if the poet had wished to be so understood, he would have made use of a less ambiguous arrangement of the words, וזהמתו לחם חיתו. We take זהם with Ew. §122, b, as causative of Kal, in which signification the Piel, it is true, occurs but rarely, yet it does sometimes, instead of Hiph.; but without translating, with Hirz., חיה by hunger and נפשׁ by appetite, which gives a confused thought. Schlottm. appropriately remarks: “It is very clearly expressed, as the proper vital power, the proper ψυχή, when it is inwardly consumed by disease, gives one a loathing for that which it otherwise likes as being a necessary condition of its own existence.” Thus it is: health produces an appetite, sickness causes nausea; the soul that is in an uninjured normal state longs for food, that which is severely weakened by sickness turns the desire for dainties into loathing and aversion.

Verse 21

The contracted future form יכל, again, like ישׂם, Job 33:11, is poetic instead of the full form: his flesh vanishes מראי, from sight, i.s. so that it is seen no longer; or from comeliness, i.e., so that it becomes unsightly; the latter (comp. 1Sa 16:12 with Isa 53:2, ולא־מראה) might be preferred. In Job 33:21 the Keri corrects the text to ושׁפּוּ, et contrita sunt, whereas the Chethib is to be read וּשׁפי, et contritio. The verb שׁפה, which has been explained by Saadia from the Talmudic,^[101] signifies conterere, comminuere; Abulwalîd (in Ges. Thes.) interprets it here by suhifet wa-baradet, they are consumed and wasted away, and explains it by כּתּתוּ. The radical notion is that of scraping, scratching, rubbing away (not to be interchanged with Arab. sf', ספה, which, starting from the radical notion of sweeping away, vanishing, comes to have that of wasting away; cognate, however, with the above Arab. sḥf, whence suhâf, consumption, prop. a rasure of the plumpness of the body). According to the Keri, Job 33:21 runs: and his bones (limbs) are shattered (fallen away), they are not seen, i.e., in their wasting away and shrivelling up they have lost their former pleasing form. Others, taking the bones in their strict sense, and שׁפה in the signification to scrape away = lay bare, take לא ראו as a relative clause, as Jer. has done: ossa quae tecta fuerant nudabuntur (rather nudata sunt), but this ought with a change of mood to be לא ראו...וישׁפּוּ. To the former interpretation corresponds the unexceptionable Chethib: and the falling away of his limbs are not seen, i.e., (per attractionem) his wasting limbs are diminished until they are become invisible. ראוּ is one of the four Old Testament words (Gen 43:26; Ezr 8:18; Lev 23:17) which have a Dagesh in the Aleph; in all four the Aleph stands between two vowels, and the dageshing (probably the remains of a custom in the system of pointing which has become the prevailing one, which, with these few exceptions, has been suffered to fall away) is intended to indicate that the Aleph is here to be carefully pronounced as a guttural (to use an Arabic expression, as Hamza), therefore in this passage ru-'û.^[102]
Thus, then, the soul (the bearer of the life of the body) of the sick man, at last succumbing to this process of decay, comes near to the pit, and his life to the ממתים, destroying angels (comp. Psa 78:49; 2Sa 24:16), i.e., the angels who are commissioned by God to slay the man, if he does not anticipate the decree of death by penitence. To understand the powers of death in general, with Rosenm., or the pains of death, with Schlottm. and others, does not commend itself, because the Elihu section has a strong angelological colouring in common with the book of Job. The following strophe, indeed, in contrast to the ממיתים, speaks of an angel that effects deliverance from death.

Verses 23-24

Job 33:23-24 23 If there is an angel as mediator for him,
One of a thousand,
To declare to man what is for his profit: 24 He is gracious to him, and saith:
Deliver him, that he go not down to the pit -
I have found a ransom.
The former case, Job 33:15, was the easier; there a strengthening of the testimony of man's conscience by a divine warning, given under remarkable circumstances, suffices. This second case, which the lxx correctly distinguishes from the former (it translates Job 33:19, πάλιν δὲ ἤλεγξεν αὐτὸν ἐν μαλακίᾳ ἐπὶ κοίτης), is the more difficult: it treats not merely of a warning against sin and its wages of death, but of a deliverance from the death itself, to which the man is almost abandoned in consequence of sin. This deliverance, as Elihu says, requires a mediator. This course of thought does not admit of our understanding the מלאך of a human messenger of God, such as Job has before him in Elihu (Schult., Schnurr., Boullier, Eichh., Rosenm., Welte), an “interpreter of the divine will, such as one finds one man among a thousand to be, a God-commissioned speaker, in one word: a prophet” (von Hofmann in Schriftbew. i. 335f.). The מלך appears not merely as a declarer of the conditions of the deliverance, but as a mediator of this deliverance itself. And if the ממתים, Job 33:22, are angels by whom the man is threatened with the execution of death, the מלאך who comes forward here for him who is upon the brink of the abyss cannot be a man. We must therefore understand מלאך not as in Job 1:14, but as in Job 4:18; and the more surely so, since we are within the extra-Israelitish circle of a patriarchal history. In the extra-Israelitish world a far more developed doctrine of angels and demons is everywhere found than in Israel, which is to be understood not only subjectively, but also objectively; and within the patriarchal history after Gen 16, that (אלהים) מלאך יהוה appears, who is instrumental in effecting the progress of the history of redemption, and has so much the appearance of the God of revelation, that He even calls himself God, and is called God. He it is whom Jacob means, when (Gen 48:15.), blessing Joseph, he distinguishes God the Invisible, God the Shepherd, i.e., Leader and Ruler, and “the Angel who delivered (הגּאל) me from all evil;” it is the Angel who, according to Psa 34:8, encampeth round about them that fear God, and delivereth them; ”the Angel of the presence” whom Isaiah in the Thephilla, ch. lxiii. 7ff., places beside Jehovah and His Holy Spirit as a third hypostasis. Taking up this perception, Elihu demands for the deliverance of man from the death which he has incurred by his sins, a superhuman angelic mediator. The “Angel of Jehovah” of primeval history is the oldest prefigurement in the history of redemption of the future incarnation, without which the Old Testament history would be a confused quodlibet of premises and radii, without a conclusion and a centre; and the angelic form is accordingly the oldest form which gives the hope of a deliverer, and to which it recurs, in conformity to the law of the circular connection between the beginning and end, in Mal 3:1.
The strophe begins without any indication of connection with the preceding: one would expect ואם or אז אם, as we felt the absence of אך fo e in Job 33:14, and לכן in Job 32:17. We might take מלאך מליץ together as substantive and epitheton; the accentuation, however, which marks both מלאך and מליץ with Rebia magnum (in which case, according to Bär's Psalterium, p. xiv., the second distinctive has somewhat less value than the first), takes מלאך as subj., and מליץ as predicate: If there is then for him (עליו, pro eo, Ew. §217, 9) an angel as מליץ, i.e., mediator; for מליץ signifies elsewhere an interpreter, Gen 42:23; a negotiator, 2Ch 32:31; a God-commissioned speaker, i.e., prophet, Isa 43:27; - everywhere (if it is not used as in Job 16:20, in malam parte) the shades of the notion of this word are summarized under the general notion of internuncius, and therefore of mediator (as the Jewish name of the mediating angel מטטרון, probably equivalent to mediator, not μετάθρονος, which is no usable Greek word). The Targ. translates by פרקליטא, παράκλητος (opp. קטיגור, κατήγορος, κατήγωρ). Therefore: if an angel undertakes the mediatorial office for the man, and indeed one of a thousand, i.e., not any one whatever of the thousands of the angels (Deu 33:2; Psa 68:18; Dan 7:10, comp. Tobit 12:15, εἶς ἐκ τῶν ἑπτὰ), but one who soars above the thousands, and has not his equal among them (as Ecc 7:28). Hirz. and Hahn altogether falsely combine: one of the thousands, whose business it is to announce ... . The accentuation is correct, and that forced mode of connection is without reason or occasion. It is the function of the מלאך itself as מליץ, which the clause which expresses the purpose affirms: if an angel appears for the good of the man as a mediator, to declare to him ישׁרו, his uprightness, i.e., the right, straight way (comp. Pro 14:2), in one word: the way of salvation, which he has to take to get free of sin and death, viz., the way of repentance and of faith (trust in God): God takes pity on the man ... . Here the conclusion begins; Rosenm. and others erroneously continue the antecedent here, so that what follows is the intercession of the angel; the angel, however, is just as a mediator who brings about the favour of God, and therefore not the חנן himself. He renders pardon possible, and brings the man into the state for receiving it.
Therefore: then God pardons, and says to His angel: Deliver him from the descent to the pit, I have found a ransom. Instead of פּדעהוּ, it would be admissible to read פּרעהוּ, let him free (from פרע, Arab. frg), if the angel to whom the command is given were the angel of death. פּדע is a cognate form, perhaps dialectic, with hdfp'f, root פד (as יפע, יפה, Arab. wf‛, wfy, from the common root יף, וף).^[103]
The verb מצא (מטא) signifies to come at, Job 11:7, to attain something, and has its first signification here, starting from which it signifies the finding on the part of the seeker, and then when weakened finding without seeking. One is here reminded of Heb 9:12, αἰωνίαν λύτρωσιν εὑράμενος. כּפר (on this word, vid., Hebräerbrief, S. 385, 740), according to its primary notion, is not a covering = making good, more readily a covering = cancelling (from כּפר, Talmud. to wipe out, away), but, as the usual combination with על shows, a covering of sin and guilt before wrath, punishment, or execution on account of guilt, and in this sense λύτρον, a means of getting free, ransom-money. The connection is satisfied if the repentance of the chastened one (thus e.g., also von Hofm.) is understood by this ransom, or better, his affliction, inasmuch as it has brought him to repentance. But wherefore should the mediatorship of the angel be excluded from the notion of the כּפר. Just this mediatorship is meant, inasmuch as it puts to right him who by his sins had worked death, i.e., places him in a condition in which no further hindrance stands in the way of the divine pardon. If we connect the mediating angel, like the angel of Jehovah of the primeval history, with God Himself, as then the logos of this mediating angel to man can be God's own logos communicated by him, and he therefore as מליץ, God's speaker (if we consider Elihu's disclosure in the light of the New Testament), can be the divine Logos himself, we shall here readily recognise a presage of the mystery which is unveiled in the New Testament: “God was in Christ, and reconciled the world unto Himself.” A presage of this mystery, flashing through the darkness, we have already read in Job 17:3 (comp. Job 16:21; and, on the other hand, in order to see how this anticipation is kindled by the thought of the opposite, Job 9:33). The presage which meets us here is like another in Ps 107 - - a psalm which has many points of coincidence with the book of Job - where in Job 33:20 we find, “He sent His word, and healed them.”^[104]
At any rate, Elihu expresses it as a postulate, that the deliverance of man can only be effected by a superhuman being, as it is in reality accomplished by the man who is at the same time God, and from all eternity the Lord of the angels of light.
The following strophe (Job 33:25) now describes the results of the favour wrought out for man by the מלאך מליץ.

Verses 25-28

Job 33:25-28 25 His flesh swelleth with the freshness of youth,
He returneth to the days of his youth. 26 If he prayeth to Eloah, He showeth him favour,
So that he seeth His face with joy,
And thus He recompenseth to man his uprightness. 27 He singeth to men and saith: “I had sinned and perverted what was straight, “And it was not recompensed to me. 28 “He hath delivered my soul from going down into the pit, “And my life rejoiceth in the light.”
Misled by the change of the perf. and fut. in Job 33:25, Jer. translates Job 33:25 : consumta est caro ejus a suppliciis; Targ.: His flesh had been weakened (אתחלישׁ), or made thin (אתקלישׁ), more than the flesh of a child; Raschi: it had become burst (French אשקושא, in connection with which only פשׁ appears to have been in his mind, in the sense of springing up, prendre son escousse) from the shaking (of disease). All these interpretations are worthless; נער, peculiar to the Elihu section in the book of Job (here and Job 36:14), does not signify shaking, but is equivalent to נערים (Job 13:26; Job 31:18); and רטפשׁ is in the perf. only because the passive quadriliteral would not so easily accommodate itself to inflexion (by which all those asserted significations, which suit only the perf. sense, fall to the ground). The Chateph instead of the simple Sehevâ is only in order to give greater importance to the passive u. But as to the origin of the quadriliteral (on the four modes of the origin of roots of more than three radicals, vid., Jesurun, pp. 160-166), there is no reason for regarding it as a mixed form derived from two different verbs: it is formed just like פּרשׁז (from פּרשׁ, by Arabizing = פּרשׂ) with a sibilant termination from רטף = רטב, and therefore signifies to be (to have been made) over moist or juicy. However, there is yet another almost more commendable explanation possible. In Arab. ṭrfš signifies to recover, prop. to grow green, become fresh (perhaps from tarufa, as in the signification to blink, from tarafa). From this Arab. tarfasha, or even from a Hebr. טרפּשׁ,^[105]pinguefacere (which may with Fürst be regarded as springing from טפשׁ, to be fleshy, like כּרבּל, כּרסם), רטפשׁ might have sprung by transposition. In a remarkable manner one and the same idea is attained by all these ways: whether we regard וטפשׁ as a mixed form from רטב and טפשׁ, or as an extended root-form from one or other of these verbs, it is always according to the idea: a superabundance of fresh healthfulness. The מן or מנּער is chiefly regarded as comparative: more than youth, i.e., leaving this behind, or exceeding it, Ew. §221, a; but Job 33:25, according to which he who was hitherto sick unto death actually renews his youth, makes it more natural to take the מן as causal: it swells from youth or youthfulness. In this description of the renovation which the man experiences, it is everywhere assumed that he has taken the right way announced to him by the mediating angel. Accordingly, Job 33:26 is not intended of prayer that is heard, which resulted in pardon, but of prayer that may be heard continually, which results from the pardon: if he prays to Eloah (fut. hypotheticum as Job 22:27, vid., on Job 29:24), He receives him favourably (רצה, Arab. raḍiya, with ב, Arab. b, to have pleasure in any one, with the acc. eum gratum vel acceptum habere), and he (whose state of favour is now established anew) sees God's countenance (which has been hitherto veiled from him, Job 34:29) with rejoicing (as Psa 33:3 and freq.), and He (God) recompenses to the man his uprightness (in his prolonged course of life), or prop., since it is not ויּשׁלּם, but ויּשׁב, He restores on His part his relation in accordance with the order of redemption, for that is the idea of צדקה; the word has either a legal or a so-to-speak evangelical meaning, in which latter, used of God (as so frequently in Isaiah II), it describes His rule in accordance with His counsel and order of redemption; the primary notion is strict observance of a given rule.
In Job 33:27 the favoured one is again the subj. This change of person, without any indication of the same, belongs to the peculiarities of the Hebrew, and, in general, of the Oriental style, described in the Geschichte der jüd. Poesie, S. 189 [History of Jewish Poetry;] the reference of ויּרא, as Hiph., to God, which is preferred by most expositors, is consequently unnecessary. Moreover, the interpretation: He causes his (the favoured one's) countenance to behold joy (Umbr., Ew.), is improbable as regards the phrase (נראה) ראה פני ה, and also syntactically lame; and the interpretation: He causes (him, the favoured one) to behold His (the divine) countenance with joy (Hirz., Hahn, Schlottm., and others), halts in like manner, since this would be expressed by ויּראהוּ (ויּראנּוּ). By the reference to psalmody which follows in Job 33:27 (comp. Job 36:24), it becomes natural that we should understand Job 33:26 according to such passages in the Psalms as Psa 90:2; Psa 67:2; Psa 17:15. ישׂר is a poetically contracted fut. after the manner of a jussive, for ישׁוּר; and perhaps it is a dialectic form, for the Kal שׁוּר = שׁיר occurs only besides in 1Sa 18:6 as Chethîb. With על (comp. Pro 25:20) it signifies to address a song to any one, to sing to him. Now follows the psalm of the favoured one in outline; Job 33:28 also belongs to it, where the Keri (Targ. Jer.), without any evident reason whatever, gets rid of the 1 pers. (lxx, Syr.). I had sinned - he says, as he looks back ashamed and thankful - and perverted what was straight (comp. the confession of the penitent, Psa 106:6), ולא שׁוה לי, et non aequale factum s. non aequatum est mihi,^[106] i.e., it has not been recompensed to me according to my deserts, favour instead of right is come upon me. שׁוה (Arab. sawâ) is intended neutrally, not so that God would be the subj. (lxx καὶ οὐκ ἄξια ἤτασέ με ὧν ἥμαρτον). Now follows, Job 33:28, the positive expression of the favour experienced. The phrase עבר בשׁחת, after the analogy of עבר בשׁלח above, and also חיּה for חיּים, are characteristic of the Elihu section. Beautiful is the close of this psalm in nuce: “and my life refreshes itself (ראה בּ as Job 20:17 and freq.) in the light,” viz., in the light of the divine countenance, which has again risen upon me, i.e., in the gracious presence of God, which I am again become fully conscious of.

Verses 29-33

Job 33:29-33 29 Behold, God doeth all
Twice, thrice with man, 30 To bring back his soul from the pit,
That it may become light in the light of life. 31 Listen, O Job, hearken to me;
Be silent and let me speak on. 32 Yet if thou hast words, answer me;
Speak, for I desire thy justification. 33 If not, hearken thou to me;
Be silent and I will teach thee wisdom.
After having described two prominent modes of divine interposition for the moral restoration and welfare of man, he adds, Job 33:29, that God undertakes (observe the want of parallelism in the distich, Job 33:29) everything with a man twice or thrice (asyndeton, as e.g., Isa 17:6, in the sense of bis terve) in order to bring back his soul from the pit (שׁחת, here for the fifth time in this speech, without being anywhere interchanged with שׁאול or another synonym, which is remarkable), that it, having hitherto been encompassed by the darkness of death, may be, or become, light (לאור, inf. Niph., syncopated from להאור, Ew. §244, b) in the light of life (as it were bask in the new and restored light of life) - it does not always happen, for these are experiences of no ordinary kind, which interrupt the daily course of life; and it is not even repeated again and again constantly, for if it is without effect the first time, it is repeated a second or third time, but it has an end if the man trifles constantly with the disciplinary work of grace which designs his good. Finally, Elihu calls upon Job quietly to ponder this, that he may proceed; nevertheless, if he has words, i.e., if he thinks he is able to advance any appropriate objections, he is continually to answer him (השׁיב with acc. of the person, as Job 33:5), for he (Elihu) would willingly justify him, i.e., he would gladly be in the position to be able to acknowledge Job to be right, and to have the accusation dispensed with. Hirz. and others render falsely: I wish thy justification, i.e., thou shouldst justify thyself; in this case נפשׁך ought to be supplied, which is unnecessary: חפץ, without a change of subject, has the inf. constr. here without ל, as it has the inf. absol. in Job 13:3, and צדּק signifies to vindicate (as Job 32:2), or acknowledge to be in the right (as the Piel of צדק, Job 33:12), both of which are blended here. The lxx, which translates θέλω γὰρ δικαιωθῆναί σε, has probably read צדקך (Psa 35:27). If it is not so (אם־אין as Gen 30:1), viz., that he does not intend to defend himself with reference to his expostulation with God on account of the affliction decreed for him, he shall on his part (אתּה) listen, shall be silent and be further taught wisdom.Quasi hac ratione Heliu sanctum Iob convicerit! exclaims Beda, after a complete exposition of this speech. He regards Elihu as the type of the false wisdom of the heathen, which fails to recognise and persecutes the servant of God: Sunt alii extra ecclesiam, qui Christo ejusque ecclesiae similiter adversantur, quorum imaginem praetulit Balaam ille ariolus, qui et Elieu sicut patrum traditio habet (Balaam and Elihu, one person - a worthless conceit repeated in the Talmud and Midrash), qui contra ipsum sanctum Iob multa improbe et injuriose locutus est, in tantum ut etiam displiceret in una ejus et indisciplinata loquacitas.^[107]
Gregory the Great, in his Moralia, expresses himself no less unfavourably at the conclusion of this speech:^[108]Magna Eliu ac valde fortia protulit, sed hoc unusquisque arrogans habere proprium solet, quod dum vera ac mystica loquitur subito per tumorem cordis quaedam inania et superba permiscet. He also regards Elihu as an emblem of confident arrogance, yet not as a type of a heathen philosopher, but of a believing yet vain and arrogant teacher. This tone in judging of Elihu, first started by Jerome, has spread somewhat extensively in the Western Church. In the age of the Reformation, e.g., Victorin Strigel takes this side: Elihu is regarded by him as exemplum ambitiosi oratoris qui plenus sit ostentatione et audacia inusitate sine mente. Also in the Greek Eastern Church such views are not wanting. Elihu says much that is good, and excels the friends in this, that he does not condemn Job; Olympiodorus adds, πλὴν οὐκ ἐνόησε τοῦ δικαίου τῆν διάνοιαν, but he has not understood the true idea of the servant of God!^[109]
In modern times, Herder entertains the same judgment. Elihu's speech, in comparison with the short, majestic, solemn language of the Creator, he calls “the weak rambling speech of a boy.” “Elihu, a young prophet” - he says further on his Geist der Ebr. Poesie, where he expounds the book of Job as a composition - “arrogant, bold, alone wise, draws fine pictures without end or aim; hence no one answers him, and he stands there merely as a shadow.”^[110]
Among the latest expositors, Umbreit (Edition 2, 1832) consider's Elihu's appearance as “an uncalled-for stumbling in of a conceited young philosopher into the conflict that is already properly ended; the silent contempt with which one allows him to speak is the merited reward of a babbler.” In later years Umbreit gave up this depreciation of Elihu.^[111]
Nevertheless Hahn, in his Comm. zu Iob (1850), has sought anew to prove that Elihu's speeches are meant indeed to furnish a solution, but do not really do so: on the contrary, the poet intentionally represents the character of Elihu as that “of a most conceited and arrogant young man, boastful and officious in his undeniable knowingness.” The unfavourable judgments have been carried still further, inasmuch as an attempt has even been made to regard Elihu as a disguise for Satan in the organism of the drama;^[112] but it may be more suitable to break off this unpleasant subject than to continue it.
In fact this dogmatic criticism of Elihu's character and speeches produces a painful impression. For, granted that it might be otherwise, and the poet really had designed to bring forward in these speeches of Elihu respecting God's own appearing an incontrovertible apology for His holy love, as a love which is at work even in such dispensations of affliction as that of Job: what offence against the deep earnestness of this portion of Holy Scripture would there be in this degradation of Elihu to an absurd character, in that depreciation of him to a babbler promising much and performing little! But that the poet is really in earnest in everything he puts into Elihu's mouth, is at once shown by the description, Job 33:13-30, which forms the kernel of the contents of the first speech. This description of the manifold ways of the divine communication to man, upon a contrite attention to which his rescue from destruction depends, belongs to the most comprehensive passages of the Old Testament; and I know instances of the powerful effect which it can produce in arousing from the sleep of security and awakening penitence. If one, further, casts a glance at the historical introduction of Elihu, Job 32:1-5, the poet there gives no indication that he intends in Elihu to bring the odd character of a young poltroon before us. The motive and aim of his coming forward, as they are there given, are fully authorized. If one considers, further, that the poet makes Job keep silence at the speeches of Elihu, it may also be inferred therefrom that he believes he has put answers into Elihu's mouth by which he must feel himself most deeply smitten; such truths as Job 32:13-22, drawn from the depths of moral experience, could not have been put forth if Job's silence were intended to be the punishment of contempt.
These counter-considerations also really affect another possible and milder apprehension of the young speaker, inasmuch as, with von Hofmann, the gravitating point of the book of Job is transferred to the fact of the Theophany as the only satisfactory practical solution of the mystery of affliction: it is solved by God Himself coming down and acknowledging Job as His servant. Elihu - thus one can say from this point of view - is not one of Job's friends, whose duty it was to comfort him; but the moral judgment of man's perception of God is made known by this teacher, but without any other effect than that Job is silent. There is one duty towards Job which he has not violated, for he has not to fulfil the duty of friendship: The only art of correct theorizing is to put an opponent to silence, and to have spoken to the wind is the one punishment appropriate to it. This milder rendering also does not satisfy; for, in the idea of the poet, Elihu's speeches are not only a thus negative, but the positive preparation for Jehovah's appearing. In the idea of the poet, Job is silent because he does not know how to answer Elihu, and therefore feels himself overcome.^[113]
And, in fact, what answer should he give to this first speech? Elihu wishes to dispute Job's self-justification, which places God's justice in the shade, but not indeed in the friends' judging, condemnatory manner: he wishes to dispute Job's notion that his affliction proceeds from a hostile purpose on the part of God, and sets himself here, as there, a perfectly correct task, which he seeks to accomplish by directing Job to regard his affliction, not indeed as a punishment from the angry God, but as a chastisement of the God who desires his highest good, as disciplinary affliction which is intended to secure him against hurtful temptation to sin, especially to pride, by salutary humiliation, and will have a glorious issue, as soon as it has in itself accomplished that at which it aims.
It is true one must listen very closely to discover the difference between the tone which Elihu takes and the tone in which Eliphaz began his first speech. But there is a difference notwithstanding: both designate Job's affliction as a chastisement (מוסר), which will end gloriously, if he receives it without murmuring; but Eliphaz at once demands of him humiliation under the mighty hand of God; Elihu, on the contrary, makes this humiliation lighter to him, by setting over against his longing for God to answer him, the pleasing teaching that his affliction in itself is already the speech of God to him, - a speech designed to educate him, and to bring about his spiritual well-being. What objection could Job, who has hitherto maintained his own righteousness in opposition to affliction as a hostile decree, now raise, when it is represented to him as a wholesome medicine reached forth to him by the holy God of love? What objection could Job now raise, without, in common, offensive self-righteousness, falling into contradiction with his own confession that he is a sinful man, Job 14:4, comp. Job 13:26? Therefore Elihu has not spoken to the wind, and it cannot have been the design of the poet to represent the feebleness of theory and rhetoric in contrast with the convincing power which there is in the fact of Jehovah's appearing.
But would it be possible, that from the earliest times one could form such a condemnatory, depreciating judgment concerning Elihu's speeches, if it had not been a matter of certainty with them? If of two such enlightened men as Augustine and Jerome, the former can say of Elihu: ut primas partes modestiae habuit, ita et sapientiae, while the latter, and after his example Bede, can consider him as a type of a heathen philosophy hostile to the faith, or of a selfishly perverted spirit of prophecy: they must surely have two sides which make it possible to form directly opposite opinions concerning them. Thus is it also in reality. On the one side, they express great, earnest, humiliating truths, which even the holiest man in his affliction must suffer himself to be told, especially if he has fallen into such vainglorying and such murmuring against God as Job did; on the other side, they do not give such sharply-defined expression to that which is intended characteristically to distinguish them from the speeches of the friends, viz., that they regard Job not as רשׁע, and his affliction not as just retribution, but as a wholesome means of discipline, that all misunderstanding would be excluded, as all the expositors who acknowledge themselves unable to perceive an essential difference between Elihu's standpoint and the original standpoint of the friends, show. But the most surprising thing is, that the peculiar, true aim of Job's affliction, viz., his being proved as God's servant, is by no means thoroughly clear in them. From the prologue we know that Job's affliction is designed to show that there is a piety which also retains its hold on God amid the loss of all earthly goods, and even in the face of death in the midst of the darkest night of affliction; that it is designed to justify God's choice before Satan, and bring the latter to ruin; that it is a part of the conflict with the serpent, whose head cannot be crushed without its sting being felt in the heel of the conqueror; in fine, expressed in New Testament language, that it falls under the point of view of the cross (σταυρός), which has its ground not so much in the sinfulness of the sufferer, as in the share which is assigned to him in the conflict of good with evil that exists in the world. It cannot be supposed that the poet would, in the speeches of Elihu, set another design in opposition to the design of Job's affliction expressed in the prologue; on the contrary, he started from the assumption that the one design does not exclude the other, and in connection with the imperfectness of the righteousness even of the holiest man, the one is easily added to the other; but it was not in his power to give expression to both grounds of explanation of Job's affliction side by side, and thus to make this intermediate section “the beating heart”^[114] of the whole. The aspect of the affliction as a chastisement so greatly preponderates, that the other, viz., as a trial or proving, is as it were swallowed up by it. One of the old writers^[115] says, “Elihu proves that it can indeed be that a man may fear and honour God from the heart, and consequently be in favour with God, and still be heavily visited by God, either for a trial of faith, hope, and patience, or for the revelation and improvement of the sinful blemishes which now and then are also hidden from the pious.” According to this, both aspects are found united in Elihu's speeches; but in this first speech, at least, we cannot find it.
There is another poet, whose charisma does not come up to that of the older poet, who in this speech pursues the well-authorized purpose not only of moderating what is extreme in Job's speeches, but also of bringing out what is true in the speeches of the friends.^[116]
While the book of Job, apart from these speeches, presents in the Old Testament way the great truth which Paul, Rom 8:1, expresses in the words, οὐδέν κατάκριμα τοῖς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, this other poet has given expression at the same time, in the connection of the drama, to the great truth, 1Co 11:32, κρινόμενοι ὑπὸ τοῦ δυρίου παιδευόμεθα, ἵνα μὴ σὺν τῷ κόσμῳ κατακριθῶμεν. That it is another poet, is already manifest from his inferior, or if it is preferred, different, poetic gift. True, A. B. Davidson has again recently asserted, that by supporting it by such observations, the critical question is made “a question of subjective taste.” But if these speeches and the other parts of the book are said to have been written by one poet, there is an end to all critical judgment in such questions generally. One cannot avoid the impression of the distance between them; and if it be suppressed for a time, it will nevertheless make itself constantly felt. But do the prophecies of Malachi stand lower in the scale of the historical development of revelation, because the Salomonic glory of prophetic speech which we admire in Isaiah is wanting in them? Just as little do we depreciate the spiritual glory of these speeches, when we find the outward glory of the rest of the book wanting in them. They occupy a position of the highest worth in the historical development of revelation and redemption. They are a perfecting part of the canonical Scriptures. In their origin, also, they are not much later;^[117] indeed, I venture to assert that they are by a contemporary member even of the Chokma-fellowship from which the book of Job has its rise. For they stand in like intimate relation with the rest of the book to the two Ezrahite Psalms, 88, 89; they have, as to their doctrinal contents, the fundamental features of the Israelitish Chokma in common; they speak another and still similar Aramaizing and Arabizing language (hebraicum arabicumque sermonem et interdum syrum, as Jerome expresses it in his Praef. in l. Iobi); in fact, we shall further on meet with linguistic signs that the poet who wrote this addition has lived together with the poet of the book of Job in one spot beyond the Holy Land, and speaks a Hebrew bearing traces of a like dialectic influence.

Chap. 34

Verses 1-4

Job 34:1-4 1 Then began Elihu and said: 2 Hear, ye wise men, my words,
And ye experienced ones, give ear to me! 3 For the ear trieth words,
As the palate tasteth by eating. 4 Let us find out what is right,
Let us explore among ourselves what is good.
After his first speech Elihu has made a brief pause; now since Job is silent, he begins anew. ויען ויאמר, lxx correctly, here as in all other instances where the phrase occurs: ὑπολαβὼν λέγει, taking up the word he said. The wise and the knowing (Arab. ‛ulamâ), whose attention he bespeaks, are not Job and the three (Umbr., Hahn), who are indeed a party, and as such a subject for the arbitrative appearance of Elihu; also not every one capable of forming a judgment (Hirz.); but those in the circle of spectators and listeners which, as is assumed, has assembled round the disputants (Schlottm.). In Job 33:4 Elihu does not expressly mean his own ear, but that of the persons addressed: he establishes his summons to prove what he says by the general thought brought over from Job 12:11, and as there (comp. Job 5:7; Job 11:12), clothed in the form of the emblematic proverb, - that as there is a bodily, so there is also a mental organ of sense which tries its perceptions. לאכל is not intended as expressing a purpose (ad vescendum), but as a gerundive (vescendo). The phrase בּחר משׁפּט, occurring only here, signifies neither to institute a search for the purpose of decision (Schult. and others), since בחר does not signify to decide upon anything, nor to investigate a cause (Hahn), which would be נבחנה, but to test and choose what is right, δοκιμάζειν καὶ τὸ καλὸν κατέχειν, 1Th 5:21, after which the parallel runs: cognoscamus inter nos (i.e., in common) quid bonum.

Verses 5-9

Job 34:5-9 5 For Job hath said: “I am guiltless, “And God hath put aside my right. 6 “Shall I lie in spite of my right, “Incurable is mine arrow without transgression.” 7 Where is there a man like Job,
Who drinketh scorning like water, 8 And keepeth company with the workers of iniquity,
And walketh with wicked men, 9 So that he saith: “A man hath no profit “From entering into fellowship with God”?!
That in relation to God, thinking of Him as a punishing judge, he is righteous or in the right, i.e., guiltless (צדקתּי with Pathach in pause, according to Ew. §93, c, from צדק = צדק, but perhaps, comp. Pro 24:30; Psa 102:26, because the Athnach is taken only as of the value of Zakeph), Job has said verbatim in Job 13:18, and according to meaning, Job 23:10; Job 27:7, and throughout; that He puts aside his right (the right of the guiltless, and therefore not of one coming under punishment): Job 27:2. That in spite of his right (על, to be interpreted, according to Schultens' example, just like Job 10:7; Job 16:17), i.e., although right is on his side, yet he must be accounted a liar, since his own testimony is belied by the wrathful form of his affliction, that therefore the appearance of wrong remains inalienably attached to him, we find in idea in Job 9:20 and freq. Elihu makes Job call his affliction חצּי, i.e., an arrow sticking in him, viz., the arrow of the wrath of God (on the objective suff. comp. on Job 23:2), after Job 6:4; Job 16:9; Job 19:11; and that this his arrow, i.e., the pain which it causes him, is incurably bad, desperately malignant without (בּלי as Job 8:11) פּשׁע, i.e., sins existing as the ground of it, from which he would be obliged to suppose they had thrust him out of the condition of favour, is Job's constant complaint (vid., e.g., Job 13:23.). Another utterance of Job closely connected with it has so roused Elihu's indignation, that he prefaces it with the exclamation of astonishment: Who is a man like Job, i.e., where in all the world (מי as 2Sa 7:23) has this Job his equal, who ... . The attributive clause refers to Job; “to drink scorn (here: blasphemy) like water,” is, according to Job 15:16, equivalent to to give one's self up to mockery with delight, and to find satisfaction in it. ארח לחברה, to go over to any one's side, looks like a poeticized prose expression. ללכת is a continuation of the ארח, according to Ew. §351, c, but not directly in the sense "and he goes,” but, as in the similar examples, Jer 17:10; Jer 44:19; 2Ch 7:17, and freq., in the sense of: “he is in the act of going;” comp. on Job 36:20 and Hab 1:17. The utterance runs: a man does not profit, viz., himself (on the use of סכן of persons as well as of things, vid., on Job 22:2), by his having joyous and familiar intercourse (בּרצתו, as little equivalent to בּרוּץ as in Psa 50:18) with God. Job has nowhere expressly said this, but certainly the declaration in Job 9:22, in connection with the repeated complaints concerning the anomalous distribution of human destinies (vid., especially Job 21:7, Job 24:1), are the premises for such a conclusion. That Elihu, in Job 34:7, is more harsh against Job than the friends ever were (comp. e.g., the well-measured reproach of Eliphaz, Job 15:4), and that he puts words into Job's moth which occur nowhere verbatim in his speeches, is worked up by the Latin fathers (Jer., Philippus Presbyter, Beda,^[118]
Gregory) in favour of their unfavourable judgment of Elihu; the Greek fathers, however, are deprived of all opportunity of understanding him by the translation of the lxx (in which μυκτηρισμόν signifies the scorn of others which Job must swallow down, comp. Pro 26:6), which here perverts everything.

Verses 10-11

Job 34:10-11 10 Therefore, men of understanding, hearken to me!
Far be it from god to do evil,
And the Almighty to act wrongfully. 11 No indeed, man's work He recompenseth to him,
And according to man's walk He causeth it to be with him. “Men of heart,” according to Psychol. S. 249, comp. 254, is equivalent to noee'mones or noeeroi' (lxx συνετοὶ καρδίας). The clause which Elihu makes prominent in the following reply is the very axiom which the three defend, perfectly true in itself, but falsely applied by them: evil, wrong, are inconceivable on the part of God; instead of וּלשׁדּי it is only ושׁדּי in the second member of the verse, with the omission of the praep. - a frequent form of ellipsis, particularly in Isaiah (Isa 15:8; Isa 28:6; Isa 48:14; Isa 61:7, comp. Eze 25:15). Far removed from acting wickedly and wrongfully, on the contrary He practises recompense exactly apportioned to man's deeds, and ever according to the walk of each one (ארח like דּרך or דּרכי, e.g., Jer 32:19, in an ethical sense) He causes it to overtake him, i.e., to happen to him (המציא only here and Job 37:13). The general assertion brought forward against Job is now proved.

Verses 12-15

Job 34:12-15 12 Yea verily God acteth not wickedly,
And the Almighty perverteth not the right. 13 Who hath given the earth in charge to Him?
And who hath disposed the whole globe? 14 If He only set His heart upon Himself,
If He took back His breath and His inspiration to Himself: 15 All flesh would expire together,
And man would return to dust.
With אף אמנם (Yea verily, as Job 19:4, “and really”) the counter-assertion of Job 34:11 is repeated, but negatively expressed (comp. Job 8:3). הרשׁיע signifies sometimes to act as רשׁע, and at others to be set forth and condemned as a רשׁע; here, as the connection requires, it is the former. Job 34:13 begins the proof. Ewald's interpretation: who searcheth, and Hahn's: who careth for the earth beside Him, are hazardous and unnecessary. פּקד with על of the person and the acc. of the thing signifies: to enjoin anything as a duty on any one, to entrust anything to any one, Job 36:23; Num 4:27; 2Ch 36:23; therefore: who has made the earth, i.e., the care of it, a duty to Him? ארצה (Milel) is not to be refined into the meaning “to the earth” (as here by Schultens and a few others, Isa 9:1 by Luzzatto: he hath smitten down, better: dishonoured, to the earth with a light stroke), but is poetically equivalent to ארץ, as לילה (comp. modern Greek ἡ νύχθα) is in prose equivalent to ליל. Job 34:13 is by no means, with Ew. and Hahn, to be translated: who observes (considers) the whole globe, שׂים as Job 34:23; Job 4:20; Job 24:12 - the expression would be too contracted to affirm that no one but God bestowed providential attention upon the earth; and if we have understood Job 34:13 correctly, the thought is also inappropriate. A more appropriate thought is gained, if עליו is supplied from Job 34:13: who has enjoined upon Him the whole circle of the earth (Saad., Gecat., Hirz., Schlottm.); but this continued force of the עליו into the second independent question is improbable in connection with the repetition of מי. Therefore: who has appointed, i.e., established (שׂם as Job 38:5; Isa 44:7), - a still somewhat more suitable thought, going logically further, since the one giving the charge ought to be the lord of him who receives the commission, and therefore the Creator of the world. This is just God alone, by whose רוּח and נשׁמה the animal world as well as the world of men (vid., Job 32:8; Job 33:4) has its life, Job 34:14 : if He should direct His heart, i.e., His attention (שׂים לב אל, as Job 2:3), to Himself (emphatic: Himself alone), draw in (אסף as Psa 104:29; comp. for the matter Ecc 12:7, Psychol. S. 406) to Himself His inspiration and breath (which emanated from Him or was effected by Him), all flesh would sink together, i.e., die off at once (this, as it appears, has reference to the taking back of the animal life, רוח), and man would return (this has reference to the taking back of the human spirit, נשׁמה) to dust (על instead of אל, perhaps with reference to the usual use of the על־עפר, Job 17:16; Job 20:11; Job 21:26).
Only a few modern expositors refer אליו, as Targ. Jer. and Syr., to man instead of reflexively to God; the majority rightly decide in favour of the idea which even Grotius perceived: si sibi ipsi tantum bonus esse (sui unius curam habere) vellet. אם followed by the fut. signifies either si velit (lxx ει ̓ βούλοιτο), as here, or as more frequently, si vellet, Psa 50:12; Psa 139:8, Oba 1:4, Isa 10:22; Amo 9:2-4. It is worthy of remark that, according to Norzi's statement, the Babylonian texts presented ישׁיב, Job 34:14, as Chethîb, ישׂים as Kerî (like our Palestine text, Dan 11:18), which a MS of De Rossi, with a Persian translation, confirms; the reading gives a fine idea: that God's heart is turned towards the world, and is unclosed; its ethical condition of life would then be like its physical ground of life, that God's spirit dwells in it; the drawing back of the heart, and the taking back to Himself of the spirit, would be equivalent to the exclusion of the world from God's love and life. However, ישׂים implies the same; for a reference of God's thinking and willing to Himself, with the exclusion of the world, would be just a removal of His love. Elihu's proof is this: God does not act wrongly, for the government of the world is not a duty imposed upon Him from without, but a relation entered into freely by Him: the world is not the property of another, but of His free creative appointment; and how unselfishly, how devoid of self-seeking He governs it, is clear from the fact, that by the impartation of His living creative breath He sustains every living thing, and does not, as He easily might, allow them to fall away into nothingness. There is therefore a divine love which has called the world into being and keeps it in being; and this love, as the perfect opposite of sovereign caprice, is a pledge for the absolute righteousness of the divine rule.

Verses 16-20

Job 34:16-20 16 And oh understand now, hear this;
Hearken to the sound of my words. 17 Would one who hateth right also be able to subdue?
Or wilt thou condemn the All-just? 18 Is it becoming to say to a king: Worthless One!?
Thou evil-doer! to princes? 19 To Him who accepteth not the person of rulers,
And regardeth not the noble before the poor:
For they are all the work of His hands. 20 In a moment they die, and at midnight
The people are overthrown and perish,
And they put aside the mighty - not by the hand of man.
This strophe contains several grammatical rarities. At first sight it appears that Job 34:16 ought to be translated: “and if there is understanding (viz., to thee = if thou hast), then hear this.” But בּינה is accented as Milel and with Mercha, and can therefore not be a substantive (Hirz., Hahn, and others); for the retreat of the accent would be absolutely incomprehensible, and instead of a conjunctive, a distinctive, viz., Dechî, ought to be expected. Several of the old expositors, therefore, interpret with Nolde: quod quum ita sit, intellige; but this elliptical ואם, well as it might also be used for Job 21:4, is unsupportable; the Makkeph between the two words is also against it, which rather arises from the assumption that בּינה is the imperat., and אם as an exception, like Gen 23:13, is an optative particle joined to the imper. 2 instead of to the fut.: “and if thou shouldst observe” (= ואם־תּבין). To translate Job 34:17 with Schultens: num iram osor judicii frenabit, is impracticable on account of the order of the words, and gives a thought that is inappropriate here. אף is a particle, and the fut. is potentialis: is it also possible that an enemy of right should govern? (חבשׁ, imperio coercere, as אצר 1Sa 9:17, אסר Psa 105:22); right and government are indeed mutually conditioned, without right everything would fall into anarchy and confusion. In Job 34:17 this is applied to the Ruler of the world: or (ואם, an, as Job 8:3; Job 21:4; Job 40:9) wilt thou condemn the mighty just One, i.e., the All-just? As Elihu calls God שׂגּיא כח, Job 37:23, as the Almighty, and as the Omniscient One, תּמים דּעים, Job 37:16, so here as the All-just One, צדּיק כּבּיר. The two adjectives are put side by side ἀσυνδέτως, as is frequently the case in Arabic, and form one compound idea, Ew. §270, d.

Verse 18

The interrogative ה is joined to the inf., not, however, as Job 40:2 (num litigare cum Deo castigator, scil. vult), with the inf. absol., but with the inf. constr.; the form אמר for אמר occurs also in Pro 25:7, and is also otherwise not rare, especially in combination with particles, e.g., בּאכל, Num 26:10, Olsh. §160, b.^[119]
It is unnecessary to suppose that the inf. constr., which sometimes, although rarely, does occur (Ges. §131, rem. 2), is used here instead of the inf. absol.; it is thus, as after טּוב, e.g., Jdg 9:2 (המשׁל), Pro 24:7; Psa 133:1, and Psa 40:6 after אין, used as n. actionis, since ha in a pregnant sense is equivalent to num licet (הטוב), if one does not prefer, with Olsh., to suppose an aposiopesis: ”(dare one be so bold as) to say to a king: Thou worthless one! Thou evil-doer! to princes?” The reading האמר is an unnecessary lightening of the difficulty. It were a crimen laesae, if one reproached a king with being unjust, and therefore thereby denied him the most essential requisite of a ruler; and now even Him (Merc. correctly supplies tanto minus ei) who does not give the preference to the person (נשׂא פּני as Job 13:8; Job 32:21) of princes, and does not (with preference) regard (on נכּר vid., on Job 21:29, also here Piel, and according to the statement of the Masora, Milel, for an acknowledged reason which can be maintained even in remarkable instances, like Deu 10:5 in ויהיו, Eze 32:26 in מחללי, whereas 1Sa 23:7 is Milra) the rich before (לפני in the sense of prae) the poor! therefore the King of kings, who makes no partial distinction, because the king and the beggar are the work of His hands: they stand equally near to Him as being His creatures, and He is exalted above both alike as their Creator, this order and partiality are excluded; - what a nota bene against the doctrine of the decretum absolutum, which makes the love of the Creator a partial love, and turns this love, which in its very nature is perfect love, into caprice! In Job 34:20 Elihu appeals to human history in favour of this impartiality of the Ruler of the world. It may there appear as though God with partiality suffered rulers and peoples in authority in the world to do as they please; but suddenly they die away, and in fact in the middle of the night (here Mercha-mahpach), the individuals of a great people (thus must עם be understood in accordance with the prominently-placed plur. predicate, Ges. §146, 1) tremble and perish; and they remove (ויסירוּ instead of the passive, as Job 4:20 and frequently) the mighty - לא־ביד. It is not the hand of man which does this, but an invisible higher power (which, if it is called yd, only bears this name per anthropomorphismum); comp. Dan 2:34, לא בידין; Dan 8:25, בּאפס יד; and also Job 20:26, like the New Testament use of ου ̓ χειροποίητος. The subj. of Job 34:20 are the previously mentioned princes. The division according to the accents may be received with hesitation, since the symmetry of the sticks, which it restores, is not unfrequently wanting in the Elihu section. Job 34:20 refers back to the possessors of power, and in the interval, Job 34:20 describes the fate of those who belong to the people which has become subservient to their lust of conquest, for עם cannot signify “in crowds” (Ew., Hahn); it is therefore, and especially when mentioned as here between princes and rulers, the people, and in fact, in distinction from gwy, the people together forming a state.

Verses 21-23

Job 34:21-23 21 For His eyes are upon the ways of each one,
And He seeth all his steps. 22 There is no darkness nor shadow of death
Wherein the workers of iniquity might hide themselves. 23 For He needeth not long to regard a man
That he may enter into judgment with God.
As the preceding strophe showed that God's creative order excludes all partiality, so this strophe shows that His omniscience qualifies Him to be an impartial judge. He sees everything, nothing can escape His gaze; He sees through man without being obliged to wait for the result of a judicial investigation. שׂים with על does not here signify: to lay upon (Saad., Gecat.), but as Job 37:15, and as with אל (Job 34:14) or בּ (Job 23:6); to direct one's attention (supply לבּו, Job 1:8) towards anything; the fut. has here a modal signification; עוד is used as e.g., Gen 46:29 : again and again, continuously; and in the clause expressive of purpose it is אל־אל (instead of אליו, a very favourite combination used throughout the whole book, Job 5:8; Job 8:5; Job 13:3, and so on) from the human standpoint: He, the all-seeing One, needs not to observe him long that he should enter into judgment with God - He knows him thoroughly before any investigation takes place, which is not said without allusion to Job's vehement longing to be able to appear before God's tribunal.

Verses 24-28

Job 34:24-28 24 He breaketh the mighty in pieces without investigation
And setteth others in their place. 25 Thus He seeth through their works,
And causeth their overthrow by night, thus they are crushed. 26 He smiteth them after the manner of evil-doers
In the sight of the public. 27 For for such purpose are they fallen away from Him
And have not considered any of His ways, 28 To cause the cry of the poor to come up to Him,
And that He should hear the cry of the needy.
He makes short work (לא־חקר for בּלא, as Job 12:24; Job 38:26 : without research, viz., into their conduct, which is at once manifest to Him; not: in an incomprehensible manner, which is unsuitable, and still less: innumerabiles, as Jer., Syr.) with the mighty (כּבּירים, Arab. kibâr, kubarâ), and in consequence of this (fut. consec.) sets up (constituit) others, i.e., better and worthier rulers (comp. אהר, Job 8:19; Isa 55:1-13 :15), in their stead. The following לכן is not equivalent to לכן אשׁר, for which no satisfactory instance exists; on the contrary, לכן here, as more frequently, introduces not the real consequence (Job 20:2), but a logical inference, something that directly follows in and with what precedes (corresponding to the Greek ἄρα, just so, consequently), comp. Job 42:3; Isa 26:14; Isa 61:7; Jer 2:33; Jer 5:2; Zec 11:7 (vid., Köhler in loc.). Thus, then, as He hereby proves, He is thoroughly acquainted with their actions (מעבּד, nowhere besides in the book of Job, an Aramaizing expression for מעשׂה). This abiding fact of divine omniscience, inferred from the previously-mentioned facts, then serves again in its turn, in Job 34:25, as the source of facts by which it is verified. לילה is by no means an obj. The expositions: et inducit noctem (Jer.), He walks in the night in which He has veiled Himself (Umbr.), convertit eos in noctem (Syr., Arab.), and such like, all read in the two words what they do not imply. It is either to be translated: He throws them by night (לילה as Job 27:20) upon the heaps (הפך as Pro 12:7), or, since the verb has no objective suff.: He maketh a reformation or overthrow during the night, i.e., creates during the night a new order of things, and they who stood at the head of the former affairs are crushed by the catastrophe.

Verse 26

The following תּחת רשׁעים cannot signify: on the place of the evil-doers, i.e., in the place where evil-doers are punished (Hirz., Hahn, and others), for תּחת (תּחתּי) only has this signification with the suff. (vid., on Hab 3:16); but not otherwise than: in the evil-doers' stead, taking them and treating them as such, as Jer. has correctly translated: quasi impios (comp. Isa 10:4, Jerome, cum interfectis). The place first mentioned afterwards is not exactly the usual place of judgment, but any place whatever where all can see it. There He smites those who hitherto held positions of eminence, as of unimpeachable honour, like the common criminal; ספק, Arab. ṣfq, complodere, and then ictu resonante percutere, as the likewise cognate Arab. sf’ signifies first to box the ear (as Arab. sfq = ṣfq), then so to strike that it smacks. As little as לכן, Job 34:25, was = לכן אשׁר, just so little is אשׁר על־כּן, Job 34:27, = על־כן אשׁר (vid., on the other hand what is said on Gen 18:5 concerning כּי־על־כּן). Elihu wishes to say that they endure such a destiny of punishment, because they therefore, i.e., in order to suffer such, have turned aside from following after God, and have not thought on all His ways, i.e., guidings, by which He manifested Himself to them: they have thus sought to cause the cry of the poor to come (Jer. well renders: ut pervenire facerent ad eum) before Him (עליו, perhaps with the idea of urging forward = לפניו or בּאזניו), and that He may hear the cry of the lowly (construction exactly like Job 33:17), i.e., have sought to bring forth His avenging justice by injustice that cries aloud to heaven.

Verses 29-32

Job 34:29-32 29 If He, however, maketh peace, who will then condemn?
And if He hideth His countenance - who then can behold Him? -
Both concerning numbers and individuals together: 30 That godless men reign not,
That they be not nets to the people. 31 For one, indeed, saith to God, “I have been proud, I will not do evil; 32 “What I see not, show Thou me; “If I have done wrong, I will do it no more”!? -
If God makes peace (ישׁקיט as Psa 94:13, comp. Isa 14:7, הארץ שׁקטה כל־, viz., after the overthrow of the tyrant) in connection with such crying oppression of the poor, who will then condemn Him without the rather recognising therein His comprehensive justice? The conjecture ירעשׁ^[120] is not required either here or 1Sa 14:47 (where הרשׁיע signifies to punish the guilty); ירשׁע is also not to be translated turbabit (Rosenm.), since רשׁע (Arab. rs‛, rsg) according to its primitive notion does not signify “to be restless, to rage,” but “to be relaxed, hollow” (opposite of צדק, Arab. ṣdq, to be hard, firm, tight). Further: If God hides His countenance, i.e., is angry and punishes, who can then behold Him, i.e., make Him, the veiled One, visible and claim back the favour withdrawn? The Waw of וּמי, if one marks off the periods of the paratactic expression, is in both cases the Waw of conclusion after hypothetical antecedents, and. Job 34:29 refers to Job's impetuous challenging of God. Thus exalted above human controversy and defiance, God rules both over the mass and over individuals alike. יחד gives intensity of the equality thus correlatively (et-et) expressed (Targ., Syr.); to refer it to אדם as generalizing (lxx, Jer. et super omnes homines), is forbidden by the antithesis of peoples and individuals. To the thought, that God giveth rest (from oppressors) and hides His countenance (from the oppressors and in general those who act wrongly), two co-ordinate negative final clauses are attached: in order that godless men may not rule (ממּלך, as e.g., 2Ki 23:33, Keri), in order that they may no longer be (מ( e = מהיות, under the influence of the notion of putting aside contained in the preceding final clause, therefore like Isa 7:8 מעם, Isa 24:2 מעיר, Jer 48:2 מגוי, and the like) snares of the people, i.e., those whose evil example and bad government become the ruin of the community.
In Job 34:31 the view of those who by some jugglery concerning the laws of the vowel sounds explain האמר as imper. Niph. (= האמר), be it in the sense of להאמר, dicendum est (Rosenm., Schlottm., and others, after Raschi), or even in the unheard-of reflexive signification: express thyself (Stick., Hahn), is to be rejected. The syncopated form of the infin. בּהרג, Eze 26:15, does not serve as a palliation of this adventurous imperative. It is, on the contrary, אמר with ה interrog., as Eze 28:9 האמר, and probably also העמוּר Mic 2:7 (vid., Hitz.). A direct exhortation to Job to penitence would also not be in place here, although what Elihu says is levelled against Job. The כּי is confirmatory. Thus God acts with that class of unscrupulous men who abuse their power for the destruction of their subjects: for he (one of them) says (or: has said, from the standpoint of the execution of punishment) to God, etc. Ew. differently: “for one says thus to God even: I expiate what I do not commit,” by understanding the speech quoted of a defiance which reproachfully demands an explanation. It is, however, manifestly a compendious model confession. And since Elihu with כי establishes the execution of punishment from this, that it never entered the mind of the עדם חנף thus to humble himself before God, so נשׂאתי here cannot signify: I have repented (put up with and had to bear what I have deserved); on the contrary, the confession begins with the avowal: I have exalted myself (נשׂא, se efferre, in Hos 13:1; Psa 89:10), which is then followed by the vow: I will not (in the future) do evil (חבל synon. עוה, as Neh 1:7, and probably also supra, Job 24:9), and the entreaty, Job 34:32 : beside that which I behold (elliptical object-clause, Ew. §333, b), i.e., what lies beyond my vision (= נסתּרות or עלמים, Psa 19:13; Psa 90:8, unacknowledged sins), teach me; and the present vow has reference to acknowledged sins and sins that have still to be acknowledged: if I have done wrong, I will do it no more. Thus speaking - Elihu means - those high ones might have anticipated the punishment of the All-just God, for favour instead of wrath cannot be extorted, it is only reached by the way of lowly penitence.

Verses 33-37

Job 34:33-37 33 Shall He recompense it as thou wilt? For thou hast found fault,
So that thou hast to determine, not I,
And what thou knowest speak out! 34 Men of understanding will say to me,
And a wise man who listeneth to me: 35 “Job speaketh without knowledge, “And his words are without intelligence.” 36 O would that Job were proved to the extreme
On account of his answers after the manner of evil men; 37 For he addeth transgression to his sin,
Among us he clappeth
And multiplieth his speeches against God.
The question put to Job, whether then from him or according to his idea (עם in מעמּך as Job 23:10; Job 27:11, which see) shall God recompense it (viz., as this “it” is to be understood according to Job 34:32: man's evil-doing and actions in general), Elihu proves from this, that Job has despised (shown himself discontented with it) the divine mode of recompense, so that therefore (this second כּי signifies also nam, but is, because extending further on account of the first, according to the sense equivalent to ita ut) he has to choose (seek out) another mode of recompense, not Elihu (who is perfectly satisfied with the mode with which history furnishes us); which is then followed by the challenge (דּבּר not infin., but as Job 33:32): what (more corresponding to just retribution) thou knowest, speak out then! Elihu on his part knows that he does not stand alone against Job, the censurer of the divine government of the world, but that men of heart (understanding) and (every) wise man who listens to him will coincide with him in the opinion that Job's talk is devoid of knowledge and intelligence (on the form of writing השׂכּיל as Jer 3:15, vid., Ges. §53, rem. 2).
In Job 34:36 we will for the present leave the meaning of אבי undecided; יבּחן is certainly intended as optative: let Job be tried to the extreme or last, i.e., let his trial by affliction continue until the matter is decided (comp. Hab 1:4), on account of the opposition among men of iniquity, i.e., after the manner of such (on this Beth of association comp. בּקּשׁשׁים, Job 36:14), for to חטּאת, by which the purpose of his affliction is to be cleared up, he adds פּשׁע, viz., the wickedness of blasphemous speeches: among us (therefore without fear) he claps (viz., his hands scornfully together, יספּוק only here thus absolute instead of ישׂפּק כּפּיו fo dae, Job 27:23, comp. בשׂפק Job 36:18 with ספקו Job 20:22)^[121] and multiplies (ירב, fut. apoc. Hiph. as Job 10:17, and instead of the full fut., as ישׂר, Job 33:27) his speeches against God, i.e., exceeds himself in speeches which irreverently dictate to and challenge God.
But we now ask, what does that אבי, Job 34:36, signify? According to the accentuation with Rebia, it appears to be intended to signify pater mi (Jer.), according to which Saad. (jâ rabbı̂) and Gecat. (munchiı̂, my Creator) translate it. This would be the only passage where an Old Testament saint calls God אבי; elsewhere God is called the Father of Israel, and Israel as a people, or the individual comprehending himself with the nation, calls Him אבינו. Nevertheless this pater mi for Elihu would not be inappropriate, for what the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Heb 12:7, says to believers on the ground of Pro 3:11 : εἰς παιδείαν ὑπομένετε, ye suffer for the purpose of paternal discipline, is Elihu's fundamental thought; he also calls God in Job 32:22; Job 36:3, which a like reference to himself, עשׂני and פעלי - this ejaculatory “my Father!” especially in conjunction with the following wish, remains none the less objectionable, and only in the absence of a more agreeable interpretation should we, with Hirz., decide in its favour. It would be disproportionately repulsive if Job 34:36 still belonged to the assenting language of another, and Elihu represented himself as addressed by אבי (Wolfson, Maur.). Thus, therefore, אבי must be taken somehow or other interjectionally. It is untenable to compare it with אבוי, Pro 23:29, for אוי ואבוי (Arab. âh wa-âwâh) is “ah! and alas!” The Aramaic בייא בייא, vae vae (Buxtorf, col. 294), compared by Ges. to בּי, signifies just the same. The Targ. translates צבינא, I wish; after which Kimchi, among moderns, Umbr., Schlottm., Carey, and others derive אבי from אבה, a wish (after the form קצה, הזה), but the participial substantival-form badly suits this signification, which is at once improbable according to the usage of the language so far as we at present know it. This interpretation also does not well suit the בי, which is to be explained at the same time. Ewald, § 358, a, regards אבי as the fuller form of בּי, and thinks אבי is dialectic = לבי = לוי = לוּ, but this is an etymological leger-demain. The two Schultens (died 1750 and 1793) were on the right track when they traced back אבי to בוא, but their interpretation: rem eo adducam ut (אבי = אביא, as it is certainly not unfrequently written, e.g., 1Ki 21:29, with the assumption of a root בי cognate with בא), is artificial and without support in the usage of the language and in the syntax. Körber and Simonis opened up the right way, but with inadequate means for following it out, by referring (vid., Ges. Thes. s.v. בּי) to the formula of a wish and of respect, bawwâk allah, which, however, also is bajjâk. The Kamus interprets bajjâk, though waveringly, by bawwâk, the meaning of which (may he give thee a resting-place) is more transparent. In an annotated Codex of Zamachschari hajjâk allah wa-bajjâk is explained: God preserve thy life and grant thee to come to a place of rest, bawwaaka (therefore Arab. bawâ = bawa'a) menzilan. That אבי (as also בּי) is connected with this bajjâk since the latter is the Piel-form of an old verb bajja (vid., supra, p. 559), which with the forms Arab. bâ'a (whence Arab. bı̂‛at, a sheltering house) and Arab. bw’ (bwâ) has one root similar in signification with בוא, the following contributions of Wetzstein will show.
In elucidation of the present passage he observes: The expressions abı̂tebı̂, jebı̂; nebı̂, tebû, jebû, are so frequent in Damascus, that they very soon struck me, and on my first inquiry I always received the same answer, that they are a mutilation of Arab. ‘bgy, abghi, I desire, etc. [vid. supra, p. 580], until one day a fugitive came into the consulate, and with these words, abı̂ wâlidêk, seized me in that part of the body where the Arabs wear the girdle (zunnâr), a symbolic action by which one seeks some one's protection. Since the word here could not be equivalent to abghi (“I desire” thy parents), I turned to the person best acquainted with the idiom of the country, the scribe Abderrahmân el-Mîdâni, which father had been a wandering minstrel in the camps for twenty years; and he explained to me that abghi only signifies “I desire;” on the contrary, abı̂, “I implore importunately, I pray for God's sake,” and the latter belongs to a defective verb, Arab. bayya, from which, except the forms mentioned, only the part. anâ bâj, “I come as a suppliant,” and its plur. nahn bâjin, is used. The poet Musa Rârâ from Krêje in the south of Hauran, who lived with me six months in Damascus in order to instruct me in the dialect of his district, assured me that among the Beduins also the perf. forms bı̂t, bı̂nâ (I have, we have entreated), and the fut. forms tabı̂n (thou, woman ... ), jaben (they, the women ... ), and taben (ye women ... ), are used. In the year 1858, in the course of a journey in his native country, I came to Dîmâs, whither they had brought two strange Beduins who had been robbed of their horses in that desert (Sahra Dîmâs), and one of them had at the same time received a mortal gunshot-wound. As I can to these men, who were totally forsaken, the wounded man began to express his importunate desire for a surgeon with the words jâ shêch nebı̂ ‛arabak, “Sir, we claim the protection of thy Arabs,” i.e., we adjure thee by thy family. Naturally abı̂ occurs most frequently. It generally has its obj. in the acc., often also with the praepos. Arab. ‛ly, exactly like Arab. dchl (to enter, to flee anywhere and hide), which is its correct synonym and usual substitute in common life. It is often used without an obj., and, indeed, very variously. With women it is chiefly the introduction to a question prompted by curiosity, as: abı̂ (ah, tell me), have you really betrothed your daughter? Or the word is accompanied by a gesture by the five fingers of the right hand, with the tips united, being stretched out towards the hasty or impatient listener, as if one wished to show some costly object, when abı̂ signifies as much as: I pray thee wait till I have shown thee this precious thing, i.e., allow me to make one more remark to thee in reference to the matter. Moreover, בּי (probably not corrupted from אבי, but a derived nomen concretum in the sense of dachı̂l or mustagı̂r, one seeking protection, protégé, after the form אי, צי, from בוה = בוא) still exists unaltered in Hauran and in the steppe. The Beduin introduces an important request with the words anâ bı̂ ahlak, I am a protégé of thy family, or anâ bı̂ ‛irdak, I trust to thine honour, etc.; while in Damascus they say, anâ dachı̂l ahlak, harı̂mak, aulâdak, etc. The Beduin women make use of this bı̂ in a weakened signification, in order to beg a piece of soap or sugar, and anâ bı̂ lihjetak, I pray by thy beard, etc., is often heard.
If now we combine that אבי of Elihu with abghi (from Arab. bgâ, Hebr. בּעה, Aram. בּעא, fut. יבעי, as בּי with בּעי) or with abî = אבא, from the verb bajja = בוא (בי),^[122] it always remains a remarkable instance in favour of the Arabic colouring of the Elihu section similar to the rest of the book, - a colouring, so to speak, dialectically Hauranitish; while, on the other hand, even by this second speech, one cannot avoid the impression of a great distance between it and the rest of the book: the language has a lofty tone, without its special harshness, as there, being the necessary consequence of a carefully concentrated fulness of thought; moreover, here in general the usual regularity of the strophe-lines no longer prevails, and also the usual symmetrical balance of thought in them.
If we confine our attention to the real substance of the speech, apart from the emotional and rough accessories, Elihu casts back the reproach of injustice which Job has raised, first as being contradictory to the being of God, Job 34:10.; then he seeks to refute it as contradicting God's government, and this he does (1) apagogically from the unselfish love with which God's protecting care preserves the breath of every living thing, while He who has created all things might bring back all created things to the former non-existence, Job 34:12-15; (2) by induction from the impartial judgment which He exercises over princes and peoples, and from which it is inferred that the Ruler of the world is also all-just, Job 34:16-20. From this Elihu proves that God can exercise justice, and from that, that He is omniscient, and sees into man's inmost nature without any judicial investigation, Job 34:21-28; inaccessible to human accusation and human defiance, He rules over peoples and individuals, even over kings, and nothing turns His just punishment aside but lowly penitence blended with the prayer for the disclosure of unperceived sin, Job 34:29-32. For in His retributive rule God does not follow the discontented demands of men arrogant and yet devoid of counsel, Job 34:33. It is worthy of recognition, that Elihu does not here coincide with what has been already said (especially Job 12:15), without applying it to another purpose; and that his theodicy differs essentially from that proclaimed by the friends. It is not derived from mere appearance, but lays hold of the very principles. It does not attempt the explanation of the many apparent contradictions to retributive justice which outward events manifest, as agreeing with it; it does not solve the question by mere empiricism, but from the idea of the Godhead and its relation to the world, and by such inner necessity guarantees to the mysteries still remaining to human shortsightedness, their future solution.

Chap. 35

Verses 1-4

Job 35:1-4 1 Then began Elihu, and said: 2 Dost thou consider this to be right,
Sayest thou: my righteousness exceedeth God's, 3 That thou sayest, what advantage is it to thee,
What doth it profit me more than my sin? 4 I will answer thee words,
And thy companions with thee.
The neutral זאת, Job 35:2, refers prospectively to כּי־תאמר, Job 35:3: this that thou sayest. חשׁב with acc. of the obj. and ל of the predicate, as Job 33:10, comp. Job 13:24, and freq. The second interrogative clause, Job 35:2, is co-ordinate with the first, and the collective thought of this ponderous construction, Job 35:2, Job 35:3, is this: Considerest thou this to be right, and thinkest thou on this account to be able to put thy righteousness above the divine, that, as thou maintainest, no righteousness on the side of God corresponds to this thy righteousness, because God makes no distinction between righteousness and the sin of man, and allows the former to go unrewarded? צדקי (for which Olsh. wishes to read צדקתּי, as Job 9:27 אמרתי for אמרי) forms with מאל a substantival clause: justitia mea est prae Deo (prae divina); מן comparative as Job 32:2, comp. on the matter Job 34:5, not equivalent to ἀπό as Job 4:17. כי־תאמר is first followed by the oratio obliqua: what it (viz., צדקך) advantageth thee, then by the or. directa (on this change vid., Ew. §338, a): what profit have I (viz., בצדקי), prae peccato meo; this מן is also comparative; the constantly ambiguous combination would be allowable from the fact that, according to the usage of the language, “to obtain profit from anything” is expressed by הועיל בּ, not by הועיל מן. Moreover, prae peccato meo is equivalent to plus quam inde quod pecco, comp. Psa 18:24, מעוני, Hos 4:8 אל־עונם. We have already on Job 34:9 observed that Job has not directly said (he cites it, Job 21:15, as the saying of the ungodly) what Elihu in Job 35:3 puts into his mouth, but as an inference it certainly is implied in such utterances as Job 9:22. Elihu's polemic against Job and his companions (רעיך are not the three, as lxx and Jer. translate, but the אנשׁי און, to whom Job is likened by such words as Job 34:8, Job 34:36) is therefore not unauthorized; especially since he assails the conclusion together with its premises. In the second strophe the vindication of the conclusion is now refuted.

Verses 5-8

Job 35:5-8 5 Look towards heaven and see,
And behold the ethereal heights: they are high above thee. 6 If thou sinnest, what dost thou effect with Him?
And if thy transgressions are many, what doest thou to Him? 7 If thou art righteous, what dost thou give Him,
Or what doth He take from thy hand? 8 To man like thee thy godlessness availeth,
And to thee, a son of man, thy righteousness.
Towards heaven he is to direct his gaze, to obtain from the height of heaven a notion of the exaltation of God who dwells above the heavens. The combination הבּיט וראה is like Psa 80:15 and freq. שׁחקים (שׁחק, Arab. sḥq, to rub in pieces, make thin, therefore the opposite of עבים) are the thin transparent strata of the atmosphere above the hanging clouds. מן after גּבהּ denotes the height that is on the opposite side to the beholder. From the exaltation of God it is then further inferred that it is impossible to exercise any human influence upon Him, by which He might suffer. The pointing wavers here between תּפעל (the common fut. form) and תּפעל(as a contraction of תּפעל after the form אזעם, Num 23:8). Human wrong or right doing neither diminishes nor increases His blessedness; injury or advantage is only on the side of man, from whom it proceeds. Others, whom his conduct affect, are not included in Job 35:8 : righteous or ungodly doing, Elihu means to say, as such and with its consequences, belongs solely to the doer himself, the man “like thee” (לאישׁ with Munach, כּמוך with Munach), the son of man, i.e., man, capable of evil as of good, and who always, after deciding in favour of the latter or the former, determines his fortune or misfortune, in distinction from God, who ever remains unchangeably the same in His perfect righteousness. What Elihu here says we have already heard from Eliphaz, Job 22:2., and Job even expresses himself similarly in Job 7:20; but to Elihu's mind it all becomes for Job new and powerful motives to quiet submission, for what objection should Job raise in justification of his complaints concerning his affliction against such sentiments as these, that goodness bears its reward and evil its punishment in itself, and that God's reward of goodness is not a work of indebtedness, nor His punishment of evil a work of necessity? Before such truth he must really hold his peace.

Verses 9-13

Job 35:9-13 9 By reason of the multitude of oppressions they raise a cry,
They call for help by reason of the arm of the great, 10 But none saith: Where is Eloah my Creator,
Who giveth songs of praise in the night, 11 Who teacheth us by the beasts of the earth,
And maketh us wise by the fowls of heaven? 12 Then they cry, yet He answereth not,
Because of the pride of evil men. 13 Vanity alone God heareth not,
And the Almighty observeth it not.
In Job 35:9 the accentuation of מרוב with Dechî, according to which Dachselt interprets: prae multitudine (oppressionum) oppressi clamabunt, is erroneous; it is to be written מרב, as everywhere else, and this (according to Codd. and the editions of Jablonski, Majus, Michaelis, and others) is to be accented with Munach, which is followed by עשׁוּקים with a vicarious Munach: prae multitudine oppressionum (עשׁוקים like Ecc 4:1, and probably also Amo 3:9) edunt clamorem (Hiph. in the intensive Kal signification, as e.g., הזנה, to commit fornication, Hos 4:10). On זרוע, Job 35:9; רבּים are the great or lords (Arab. arbâb). The plur. with a general subj. is followed by the sing. in Job 35:10: and no one says (exactly as in האמר, Job 34:31). Elihu weakens the doubt expressed by Job in Job 24:12, that God allows injustice to prevail, and oppressed innocence remains without vindication. The failure of the latter arises from the fact of the sufferers complaining, but not seeking earnestly the only true helper, God their maker (עשׂים, intensive plur., as Isa 22:11; Isa 54:5; Psa 149:2), who gives (to which may be compared a passage of the Edda: “Wuodan gives songs to the Scalds”) songs (זמרות, from the onomatopoetic זמר) in the night, i.e., who in the night of sorrow puts songs of praise concerning the dawning light of help into the mouth of the sufferers. The singing of the glory of the nightly heavens (Stick., Hahn) is to be as little thought of as the music of the spheres; the night is, as Job 34:20, Job 34:25, the time of unexpectedly sudden change.
In Job 35:11 most expositors (last of all Schlottm.) take the two מן as comparative. Elihu would then, since he feels the absence of the asking after this God on the part of the sufferers, mean the conscious relation in which He has placed us to Himself, and in accordance with which the sufferer should not merely instinctively complain, but humbly bow himself and earnestly offer up prayer. But according to Job 12:7 (comp. Pro 6:6, וחכם), it is to be translated: who teaches (מלּפנוּ = מאלּפנוּ, comp. 2Sa 22:40, Psalter i. 160) us from the beasts of the earth (so that from them as a means of instruction teaching comes to us), and makes us wise from the birds of heaven. The fut. interchanging with the part. better accords with this translation, according to which Job 35:11 is a continuation of the assertion of a divine instruction, by means of the animal creation; the thought also suits the connection better, for of the many things that may be learned from the animal creation, prayer here comes under consideration, - the lions roar, Psa 104:21; the thirsty cattle cry to God, Joe 1:20; the ravens call upon God, Psa 147:9. It we now determine the collective thought of Job 35:10, that affliction does not drive most men to God the almighty Helper, who will be humbly entreated for help: it is more natural to take שׁם (vid., on Job 23:7) in the sense of then (τότε), than, with reference to the scene of oppression, in the sense of there (lxx, Jer.: ibi). The division of the verse is correct, and H. B. Starcke has correctly interpreted: Tunc clamabunt (sed non respondebit) propter superbiam (insolentiam) malorum. מפּני is not to be connected with יענה in the sense of non exaudiet et servabit, by which constr. praegnans one would expect מן, Psa 22:22, instead of מפני, nor in the sense of non exaudiet propter (Hirz., Schlottm.), for the arrogant רעים are not those who complain unheard: but, as the connection shows, those from whom the occasion of complaint proceeds. Therefore: not allowing themselves to be driven to God by oppression, they cry then, without, however, being heard of God, by reason of the arrogance of evil men which they have to endure. Job 35:13 gives the reason of their obtaining no answer: Only emptiness (i.e., mere motion of the lips without the true spirit of prayer) God heareth not, and the Almighty observeth it not. Hahn wrongly denies אך the significations certo and verumtamen; but we prefer the restrictive signification (sheer emptiness or hollowness) which proceeds from the affirmative primary signification^[123] here, to the adversative (nevertheless emptiness), since the adversative thought, verumtamen non exaudit, has found its expression already in ולא יענה.

Verses 14-16

Job 35:14-16 14 Although thou sayest, thou seest Him not:
The cause lieth before Him, and thou mayest wait for Him. 15 Now, then, if His wrath hath not yet punished,
Should He not be well acquainted with sullenness? 16 While Job openeth his mouth without reason,
Without knowledge multiplieth words.
The address is not direct to Job exclusively, for it here treats first of the acts of injustice which prevail among men and remain apparently unpunished; but to Job, however, also, so far as he has, Job 23:8-10, comp. Job 19:7; Job 30:20, thus complained concerning his prayer being unanswered. אף כּי signifies elsewhere quanto minus, Job 4:19, or also quanto magis, Pro 15:11, but nowhere quanto minus si (Hirz., Hlgst.) or quanto magis si (Hahn), also not Eze 15:5, where it signifies etiamne quum. As it can, however, naturally signify etiam quum, it can also signify etiamsi, etsi, as here and Neh 9:18. This quamvis dicas (opineris) is followed by the oratio obliqua, as Job 35:3. The relation of the matter - says the conclusion, Job 35:14 - is other than thou thinkest: the matter to be decided lies before Him, is therefore well known to Him, and thou mightest only wait for Him (חולל instead of יחל or הוחיל only here, comp. Psa 37:7, והתחולל לו); the decision, though it pass by, will not fail. In Job 35:15, Job 35:15 is taken by most modern commentators as antecedent to Job 35:16, in which case, apart from the distortions introduced, two interpretations are possible: (1) However now, because His (God's) wrath does not visit ... Job opens his mouth; (2) However now, because He (God) does not visit his (Job's) wrath (comp. on this reference of the אפּו to Job, Job 18:4; Job 36:13, Job 36:18)...Job opens, etc. That a clause with a confirmatory כי is made to precede its principal clause is not without example, Gen 3:14, Gen 3:17; but in connection with this arrangement the verb is accustomed always, in the principal clause or in the conclusion, to stand prominent (so that consequently we should expect ויפצה איוב), although in Arabic this position of the words, ואיוב יפצה, and in fact Arab. fâyûb instead of wâyûb (in connection with a difference of the subj. in the antecedent and in the conclusion, vid., De Sacy, Gramm. Arabe, §1201, 2), is regular. Therefore for a long time I thought that Job 35:15 was to be taken interrogatively: And now (ועתּה as logical inference and conclusion, which is here its most probable function, Ew. §353, b) should His wrath not punish (פּקד as absolute as Job 31:14), and should He not take notice, etc., כּי interrogative as 1Sa 24:20; 1Sa 28:1; 1Ki 11:22, as הכי (is it so that, or: should it be so that), Job 6:22, and freq., in connection with which, what is said on Gen 21:7 concerning the modal use of the praet. might be compared on the two praett. But by this rendering the connection of Job 35:16 with what precedes is awkward. Ewald has given the correct rendering (apart from the misunderstanding of פּשׁ): Therefore, because His wrath has not yet punished, He does not know much about foolishness! Job 35:15 requires to be taken as the conclusion to Job 35:15, yet not as an exclamation, but as an interrogative. The interrogative use of ולא is not unusual, 2Sa 20:1; Eze 16:43, Eze 16:47, Eze 16:56; Eze 32:27; and just as here, this interrogative ולא is found after a hypothetical antecedent clause, 1Sa 20:9; Exo 8:22.
In connection with this interrogative rendering of Job 35:15, it still remains questionable whether it refers to Job's sin, or sin which prevails among men. The theme of this third speech of Elihu requires the latter reference, although perhaps not without a side-glance at Job's won arrogant behaviour. The translation shows how suitably Job 35:16 is connected with what precedes: Job 35:16 is a circumstantial clause, or, if one is not willing to take it as a subordinate clause, but prefers to take it as standing on a level with Job 35:15, an adversative clause attached with Waw, as is frequently the case: but (nevertheless) Job ... ; פּצה פּה of opening the mouth in derision, as Lam 2:16; Lam 3:46; הבל is the acc. of closer definition to it (= בּהבל), and the הכבּיר, which occurs only here and Job 36:31, signifies without distinction magnificare and multiplicare: Job multiplies high emotional words. As this יכבּיר is, so to speak, Hebraeo-Arabic (Arab. akbara), so is Job 35:15 full of Arabisims: (1) The combination אין פּקד, which has not its like in the Hebrew language (whether it be originally intended as relative or not: non est quod visitaverit, Ew. §321, b), corresponds to the popular Arabic use of lys for lâ, Ges. Thes. i. 82, b; probably אין has the value of an intensive negation (Carey: not at all). (2) The combination ידע בּ, to know about anything, to take knowledge of anything (differently Job 12:9, but comp. Job 24:12 on the idea), is like the Arab. construction of the verb (alima with bi (concerning) or bianna (because that) of the obj.; מאד (on this vid., on Psa 31:12) belongs not to בפשׁ (which is indeed possible), but, according to Psa 139:14, to ידע. (3) פּשׁ is especially to be explained from the Arabic. The signification a multitude (Jewish expositors, after פּוּשׁ, Niph. se diffundere, Nah 3:18) is not suitable; the signification evil (lxx, Jer., and others: פשׁ = פשׁע) presents a forcibly mutilated word, and moreover one devoid of significance in this connection; whereas the Arab. fšš (but not in its derivatives, fashsh, empty-headed; fâshûsh, empty-headedness, imbecility, with its metaphorical sense) indicates a development of signification which leads to the desired end, especially in the Syro-Arabic usage most natural here. The Arab. verb fšš (פשׁשׁ, cogn. Arab. fšr, frš, to extend, expandere) is used originally of water (fashsh el-mâ): to overflow its dam, to overflow its banks, whence a valley by the lake of el-Hîgâne, into which the waters of the lake flow after the winter rains, is called el-mefeshsh; then of a leathern bottle: to run out (tarf mefshûsh, an emptied bottle), of a tumour (waram): to disperse, disappear, and tropically of anger (el-chulq): to break forth, vent itself on anything, hence the phrase: dost thou make me a mefeshshe (an object for the venting) of thine anger? From this Arab. fšš (distinct from Arab. fašmed. Waw, to swim on the surface, trop. to be above, not to allow one's self to be kept down, and med. Je, comp. פושׁ, Hab 1:8, Jer 50:11, Mal 4:2, signifies to be proud) is פּשׁ, formed after the forms בּד, מד, מס, a synon. of זדון, or even of עברה in the signification of excessive haughtiness, pride that bursts forth violently.^[124]
Thus, even at the close of this third speech of Elihu, the Arabic, and in fact Syro-Arabic colouring, common to this section with the rest of the book, is confirmed; while, on the other hand, we miss the bold, original figures which up to Job 31:1 followed like waves one upon another, and we perceive a deficiency of skill, as now and then between Koheleth and Solomon. The chief thought of the speech we have also heard already from the three friends and Job himself. That the piety of the pious profits himself without involving God in any obligation to him, Eliphaz has already said, Job 22:2.; and that prayer that is heard in time of need and the unanswered cry of the godly and the ungodly are distinct, Job said, Job 27:9. Elihu, however, deprives these thoughts of their hitherto erroneous application. If piety gives nothing to God which He ought to reward, Job dare not regard his affliction, mysterious as it is to him, as unjust; and if the godly do not directly experience the avenging wrath of God on the haughtiness of their oppressors, the question, whether then their prayer for help is of the right kind, is more natural than the complain of a want of justice in God's government of the world. Job is silent also after this speech. It does not contain the right consolation; it contains, however, censure which he ought humbly to receive. It touches his heart. But whether it touches the heart of the idea of the book, is another question.

Chap. 36

Verses 1-4

Job 36:1-4 1 Then Elihu continued and said: 2 Suffer me a little, and I will inform thee,
For there is something still to be said for Eloah. 3 I will fetch my knowledge from afar,
And to my Creator will I ascribe right. 4 For truly my words are not lies,
One perfect in knowledge stands before thee.
Elihu's preceding three speeches were introduced by ויּען; this fourth, in honour of the number three, is introduced only as a continuation of the others. Job is to wait yet a little while, for he still has (= עוד לּי), or: there still are, words in favour of Eloah; i.e., what may be said in vindication of God against Job's complaints and accusations is not yet exhausted. This appears to be the only instance of the Aramaic כּתּר being taken up as Hebr.; whereas הוּה, nunciare (Arab. wḥâ, I, IV), is a poetic Aramaism occurring even in Psa 19:3 (comp. on the construction Job 32:6); and זעיר (a diminutive form, after the manner of the Arab. zu‛air) belongs in Isa 28:10, Isa 28:13 to the popular language (of Jerusalem), but is here used poetically. The verb נשׂא, Job 36:3, is not to be understood according to נשׂא משׁל, but according to 1Ki 10:11; and למרחוק signifies, as also Job 39:29; Isa 37:26, e longinquo, viz., out of the wide realm of history and nature. The expression נתן צדק follows the analogy of (עז) נתן כבוד. דּעה, Job 36:4, interchanges with the דּע which belongs exclusively to Elihu, since Elihu styles himself תּמים דּעות, as Job 37:16 God תּמים דּעים (comp. 1Sa 2:3, אל דּעות). תמים in this combination with דעות cannot be intended of purity of character; but as Elihu there attributes absolute perfection of knowledge in every direction to God, so here, in reference to the theodicy which he opposes to Job, he claims faultlessness and clearness of perception.

Verses 5-7

Job 36:5-7 5 Behold, God is mighty, and yet doth not act scornfully,
Mighty in power of understanding. 6 He preserveth not the life of the ungodly,
And to the afflicted He giveth right. 7 He withdraweth not His eyes from the righteous,
But with kings on the throne
He establisheth them for ever, and they are exalted.
The obj. that must be mentally supplied to ימאס ולא is, as in Job 42:6, to be derived from the connection. The idea of the verb is, as in Job 8:20 : He is exalted, without however looking down disdainfully (non despicit) from His height, or more definitely: without setting Himself above the justice due to even the meanest of His creatures - great in power of heart (comp. Job 34:33 אנשׁי לבב, Arab. ûlû-l-elbâb), i.e., understanding (νοῦς πνεῦμα), to see through right and wrong everywhere and altogether. Job 36:6, Job 36:7 describe how His rule among men evinces this not merely outward but spiritual superiority coupled with condescension to the lowly. The notion of the object, ואת־מלכים לכּסּא (as Isa 9:11 the subject), becomes the more distinctly prominent by virtue of the fut. consec. which follows like a conclusion, and takes it up again. Ewald thinks this explanation contrary to the accents and the structure of the sentence itself; but it is perfectly consistent with the former, and indisputably syntactic (Ges. §129, 2, b, and Ew. himself, §344, b). Psa 9:5, comp. Psa 132:12, Isa 47:1, shows how לכסא is intended (He causes them to sit upon the throne). Job 5:11; 1Sa 2:8; Psa 113:7. are parallel passages.

Verses 8-10

Job 36:8-10 8 And if they are bound with chains,
Holden in cords of affliction: 9 Then He declareth to them their doing
And their transgressions, that they have been vainglorious; 10 Then He openeth their ear to warning,
And commandeth them to turn from iniquity.
The subj. is in no case the רשׁעים (Hahn), but the צדיקים, or those who are as susceptible to discipline as it is needful to them, just as in Ps 107, which in general presents many instances for an extensive comparison with the speeches of Elihu. The chains, Job 36:8, are meant literally, and the bands, Job 36:8, figuratively; the Psalmist couples both in אסירי עני וברזל, Psa 107:10. The conclusion begins with Job 36:9, and is repeated in another application, Job 36:10. פּעל in the sense of maleficium, as Arab. fa‛alat, recalls מעשׂה, facinus, Job 33:17. כּי, Job 36:9, as in Job 36:10, an objective quod. It is not translated, however, quod invaluerint (Rosenm.), which is opposed to the most natural sense of the Hithpa., but according to Job 15:25 : quod sese extulerint. מוּסר, παιδεία, disciplina, interchanges here with the more rare מסר used in Job 33:16; there we have already also met with the phrase גּלה אזן, to uncover the ear, i.e., to open. אמר כּי corresponds to the Arab. amara an (bi-an), to command that. The fundamental thought of Elihu here once again comes unmistakeably to view: the sufferings of the righteous are well-meant chastisements, which are to wean them from the sins into which through carnal security they have fallen - a warning from God to penitence, designed to work their good.

Verses 11-12

Job 36:11-12 11 If they hear and yield,
They pass their days in prosperity
And their years in pleasure. 12 And if they hear not,
They pass away by the bow
And expire in lack of knowledge.
Since a declaration of the divine will has preceded in Job 36:10, it is more natural to take ויעבדוּ in the sense of obsequi, to do the will of another (as 1Ki 12:7, comp. מעבּד from עבד in the generalized sense of facere), than, with Umbr., in the sense of colere scil. Deum (as Isa 19:23, Arab. ‛âbid, one who reveres God, a godly person). Instead of יבלּוּ, Isa 65:22 (on which the Masora observes לית, i.e., “nowhere else”) and Job 21:13 Chethîb, 'it is here without dispute יכלּוּ (Targ. ישׁלּמוּן, peragent, as Eze 43:27). נעימים is, as Psa 16:6, a neutral masc.: amoena. On עבר בשׁלח, to precipitate one's self into the weapon, i.e., to incur peremptory punishment, comp. Job 33:18. On בבלי דעת comp. Job 35:16; Job 4:21. Impenitence changes affliction, which is intended to be a means of rescue, into total destruction; yet there are some who will not be warned and affrighted by it.

Verses 13-15

Job 36:13-15 13 Yet the hypocrites in heart cherish wrath,
They cry not when He hath chained them. 14 Thus their soul dieth in the vigour of youth,
And their life is like that of the unclean. 15 Yet He delivereth the sufferer by his affliction,
And openeth their ear by oppression.
He who is angry with God in his affliction, and does not humbly pray to Him, shows thereby that he is a חנף, one estranged from God (on the idea of the root, vid., i. 216), and not a צדיק. This connection renders it natural to understand not the divine wrath by אף: θησαυρίζουσιν ὀργήν (Rosenm. after Rom 2:5), or: they heap up wrath upon themselves (Wolfson, who supplies עליהם), but the impatience, discontent, and murmuring of man himself: they cherish or harbour wrath, viz., בּלבּם (comp. Job 22:22, where שׁים בלב signifies to take to heart, but at the same time to preserve in the heart). Used thus absolutely, שׂים signifies elsewhere in the book, to give attention to, Job 4:20; Job 24:12; Job 34:23, or (as Arab. wḍ‛) to lay down a pledge; here it signifies reponunt s. recondunt (with an implied in ipsis), as also Arab. šâm, fut. i, to conceal with the idea of sinking into (immittentem), e.g., the sword in the sheath. With תּמת, for ותּמת (Isa 50:2) or ותמת, the punishment which issues forth undistinguished from this frustration of the divine purpose of grace follows ἀσυνδέτως, as e.g., Hos 7:16. חיּה interchanges with נפשׁ, as Job 33:22, Job 33:28; נער (likewise a favourite word with Elihu) is intended just as Job 33:25, and in the Psa 88:16, which resembles both the Elihu section and the rest of the book. The Beth of בּקּדשׁים has the sense of aeque ac (Targ. היך), as Job 34:36, comp. תּחת, Job 34:26. Jer. translates inter effeminatos; for קדשׁים (heathenish, equivalent to קדושׁים, as כּמרים, heathenish, equivalent to כּהנים) are the consecrated men, who yielded themselves up, like the women in honour of the deity, to passive, prematurely-enervating incontinence (vid., Keil on Deu 23:18), a heathenish abomination prevailing now and again even in Israel (1Ki 14:24; 1Ki 15:12; 1Ki 22:47), which was connected with the worship of Astarte and Baal that was transferred from Syria, and to which allusion is here made, in accordance with the scene of the book. For the sufferer, on the other hand, who suffers not merely of necessity, but willingly, this his suffering is a means of rescue and moral purification. Observe the play upon the words יחלּץ and בּלחץ. The Beth in both instances is, in accordance with Elihu's fundamental thought, the Beth instrum.

Verses 16-18

Job 36:16-18 16 And He even bringeth thee out of the jaws of distress
To a broad place, whose ground hath no straitness,
And the adorning of thy table shall be full of fatness. 17 Yet thou art become full of the judging of the evil-doer:
Judging and judgment lay hold on one another! 18 For let not anger indeed entice thee to scorning,
And let not the greatness of the ransom mislead thee.
With Job 36:16 Elihu passes over to the application to Job of what he said in the preceding strophe. Since it is usual to place אף (like גּם and אך) at the beginning of the sentence, although not belonging to the member of the sentence which immediately follows, ואף הסיתך for והסית אף אתך cannot be remarkable. The praet. הסיתך is not promissory, but Elihu says with what design God has decreed the present suffering for Job. הסית מן is like 2Ch 18:31 : out of distress (צר for צר by Rebia magnum), which has him in its jaws, and threatens to swallow him, God brings him away to great prosperity; a thought which Elihu expresses in the imagery of the Psalms of a broad place and a bountiful table (comp. e.g., Psa 4:2; Psa 23:5). רחב is locative, and לא־מוּצק תּחתּיה is either a relative clause: whose beneath (ground) is not straitened, no-straitness (in which case מוּצק would not be constr. from the n. hophal. מוּצק, Isa.Isa 9:1, but absol. after the form מחנק, Job 7:15, Ew. §160, c, Anm. 4), Saad. Arab. lâ ḍı̂q fı̂ mûḍ‛hâ (cujus in loco non angustiae); or it is virtually an adj.: without (לא = בּלא, as Job 34:24), comp. on Job 12:24) straitness of what is beneath them, eorum quae sub se habet (comp. on Job 28:5). רחב is fem., like רחוב, Dan 9:25. A special clause takes the place of the locative, Job 36:16 : and the settling or spreading, i.e., the provision (from נוּח, to come down gradually, to seat one's self) of thy table shall be full of fatness. מלא (whether it be adj. or verb) is treated by attraction, according to the gender of the governed noun; and it is unnecessary, with Rosenm. and others, to derive נחת from נחת (Aram. for ירד).
In Job 36:17, דּין is intended of Job's negative judgment concerning God and His dealings (comp. Psa 76:9, where it signifies a judicial decision, and Pro 22:10, where it signifies a wrangling refusal of a fair decision). Job 36:17 is not a conditional clause (Hahn), in which case the praet. hypothet. would have a prominent position, but an adversative predicative clause: but (nevertheless) thou art full of the judging of the evil-doer (evil judging); after which, just as ἀσυνδέτως as Job 36:14, the sad issue in which this judging after the manner of evil-doers results is expressed: such judging and judgment border closely upon one another. Röd., Dietr., and Schlottm. have wrongly reproduced this idea, discerned by Ges., when they translate: judgment and sentence (guilt and punishment) shall seize thee. יתמכוּ, prehendunt scil. se (Ebr.: put forth the hand), is used like the Aram. סמך, to draw nearer, fasten together (Rabb. סמוּך, near at hand), Arab. tamâsaka (from Arab. msk = סמך, as e.g., hanash = נחשׁ). In Job 36:18 we leave the signification thick milk or cream (חמה = חמאה, as Job 29:6) to those who persuade themselves that cream can be metaphorically equivalent to superfluity (Ew., Hirz., Vaih., Hlgst.). Renan's translation: N'espère pas détourner la colère de Dieu par une amende, we also leave as a simple puzzle to its discoverer, who, with this one exception, is destitute of thoughts proper to the book of Job. In general, the thought, “do not imagine by riches, by a great ransom, to be able to satisfy the claims of God,” is altogether out of place here. Moreover, חמה, which, as e.g., דּאגה, Pro 12:25 (Ew. §174, g), is construed as masc., cannot be understood of God's wrath, since the poet by הסית will not at one time have ascribed to God a well-meant incitation, at another an enticement in malam partem. That which allures is Job's own חמה, and that not the excitement of his affliction (Hahn), but of his passion; comp. אף, Job 36:13. שׂפק is, however, to be explained according to Job 34:37, comp. Job 27:23 (clapping of hands = derision); and כּפר signifies reconciliation or expiation, as Job 33:24. Elihu admonishes Job not to allow himself to be drawn by the heat of passion into derision, or to deride; nor to be allured from the right way by the ransom which is required of him as the price of restoration to happiness, viz., humble submission to the divine chastisement, as though this ransom were exceeding great. The connection is clear: an adverse verdict (דּין) and condemnation (משׁפּט) are closely connected; for (כּי) hastiness of temper, let it not (פּן( ton ti ) lead thee astray ... thou wouldst not escape the judgment of God!

Verses 19-21

Job 36:19-21 19 Shall thy crying place thee beyond distress,
And all the efforts of strength? 20 Long not for the night to come,
Which shall remove people from their place! 21 Take heed, incline not to evil;
For this thou hast desired more than affliction.
Those expositors who found in Job 36:18 the warning, that Job should not imagine that he would be able to redeem himself from judgment by a large ransom, go on to explain: will He esteem thy riches? (Farisol, Rosenm., Umbr., Carey, Ebr., and others); or: will thy riches suffice? (Hirz., Schlottm.); or some other way (Ew.). But apart from the want of connection of this insinuation, which is otherwise not mentioned in the book, and apart from the violence which must be done to היערך to accommodate it to it, שׁוּע, although it might, as the abstract of שׁוע, Job 34:19, signify wealth (comp. Arab. sa‛at, amplitudo), is, however, according to the usage of the language (vid., Job 30:24), so far as we can trace it, a secondary form of שׁוע (שׁועה), a cry for help; and Job 35:9., Job 36:13, and other passages, also point to this signification. What follows is still less appropriate to this thought of ransom; Hirz. translates: Oh, not God and all the treasures of wealth! But בּצר is nowhere equivalent to בּצר, Job 22:24; but צר, Job 36:16, signifies distress; and the expression לא בצר, in a condition devoid of distress, is like לא בחכמה, Job 4:21, and לא ביד, Job 34:20. Finally, אמּיץ כּח signifies mighty in physical strength, Job 9:4, Job 9:19, and מאמצּי־כח strong proofs of strength, not “treasures of wealth.” Stick. correctly interprets: “Will thy wild raging cry, then, and all thine exertions, as a warrior puts them forth in the tumult of battle to work his way out, put thee where there is an open space?” but the figure of a warrior is, with Hahn, to be rejected; ערך is only a nice word for שׁית שׂים, to place, set up, Job 37:19.

Verse 20

Elihu calls upon Job to consider the uselessness of his vehement contending with God, and then warns him against his dreadful provocation of divine judgment: ne anheles (Job 7:2) noctem illam (with the emphatic art.) sublaturam populos loco suo. לעלות is equivalent to futuram (ההוה or העתידה) ut tollat = sublaturam (vid., on Job 5:11, לשׂוּם, collocaturus; Job 30:6, לשׁכּן, habitandum est), syncopated from להעלות, in the sense of Psa 102:25; and תּחתּם signifies, as Job 40:12 (comp. on Hab 3:16), nothing but that just where they are, firmly fixed without the possibility of escape, they are deprived of being. If whole peoples are overtaken by such a fate, how much less shall the individual be able to escape it! And yet Job presses forward on to the tribunal of the terrible Judge, instead of humbling himself under His mighty hand. Oh that in time he would shrink back from this absolute wickedness (און), for he has given it the preference before עני, quiet, resigned endurance. בּחר על signifies, 2Sa 19:39, to choose to lay anything on any one; here as בחר בּ, elsewhere to extend one's choice to something, to make something an object of choice; perhaps also under the influence of the phrase התענּג על, and similar phrases. The construction is remarkable, since one would sooner have expected על־עני זה בחרת, hanc elegisti prae toleratione.

Verses 22-25

Job 36:22-25 22 Behold, God acteth loftily in His strength;
Who is a teacher like unto Him? 23 Who hath appointed Him His way,
And who dare say: Thou doest iniquity!? 24 Remember that thou magnify His doing,
Which men have sung. 25 All men delight in it,
Mortal man looketh upon it from afar.
Most modern expositors, after the lxx δυνάστης, give אמת the signification lord, by comparing the Arab. mar-un (imru-un), Syr. mor (with the art. moro) or more (with the art. morjo), Chald. מרא, Talmud. מר (comp. Philo, ii. 522, ed. Mangey: οὃτως, viz., μάριν φασὶ τὸν κύριον ὀνομάζεστηαι παρὰ Σύροις), with it; but Rosenm., Arnh., Löwenthal, Wolfson, and Schlottm., after the Targ., Syr., and Jer., rightly abide by the signification: teacher. For (1) אמת (from הורה, Psa 25:8, Psa 25:12; Psa 32:8) has no etymological connection with mr (of מרא, Arab. maru'a, opimum, robustum esse); (2) it is, moreover, peculiar to Elihu to represent God as a teacher both by dreams and dispensations of affliction, Job 33:14, Job 34:32, and by His creatures, Job 35:11; and (3) the designation of God as an incomparable teacher is also not inappropriate here, after His rule is described in Job 36:22 as transcendently exalted, which on that very account commands to human research a reverence which esteems itself lightly. Job 36:23 is not to be translated: who overlooketh Him in His way? (פּקד with על of the personal and acc. of the neutral obj.), which is without support in the language; but: who has prescribed to Him (פקד על as Job 34:13) His way? i.e., as Rosenm. correctly interprets: quis ei praescripsit quae agere deberet, He is no mandatory, is responsible to no one, and under obligation to no one, and who should dare to say (quis dixerit; on the perf. comp. on Job 35:15): Thou doest evil? - man shall be a docile learner, not a self-satisfied, conceited censurer of the absolute One, whose rule is not to be judged according to the laws of another, but according to His own laws. Thus, then, shall Job remember (memento = cura ut) to extol (תשׂגּיא, Job 12:23) God's doings, which have been sung (comp. e.g., Psa 104:22) by אנשׁים, men of the right order (Job 37:24); Jer. de quo cecinerunt viri. שׁרר nowhere has the signification intueri (Rosenm., Umbr.); on the other hand, Elihu is fond of direct (Job 33:27; Job 35:10) and indirect allusions to the Psalms. All men - he continues, with reference to God's פּעל, working - behold it, viz., as בו implies, with pleasure and astonishment; mortals gaze upon it (reverentially) from afar, - the same thought as that which has already (Job 26:14) found the grandest expression in Job's mouth.

Verses 26-29

Job 36:26-29 26 Behold, God is exalted-we know Him not entirely;
The number of His years, it is unsearchable. 27 For He draweth down the drops of water,
They distil as rain in connection with its mist, 28 Which the clouds do drop,
Distil upon the multitude of men. 29 Who can altogether understand the spreadings of the clouds,
The crash of His tabernacle?
The Waw of the quasi-conclusion in Job 36:26 corresponds to the Waw of the train of thought in Job 36:26 (Ges. §145, 2). מספּר שׁניו is, as the subject-notion, conceived as a nominative (vid., on Job 4:6), not as in similar quasi-antecedent clauses, e.g., Job 23:12, as an acc. of relation. שׂגּיא here and Job 37:23 occurs otherwise only in Old Testament Chaldee. In what follows Elihu describes the wondrous origin of rain. “If Job had only come,” says a Midrash (Jalkut, §518), “to explain to us the matter of the race of the deluge (vid., especially Job 22:15-18), it had been sufficient; and if Elihu had only come to explain to us the matter of the origin of rain (מעשׂה ירידת גשׁמים), it had been enough.” In Gesenius' Handwörterbuch, Job 36:27 is translated: when He has drawn up the drops of water to Himself, then, etc. But it is יגרע, not גּרע; and גּרע neither in Hebr. nor in Arab. signifies attrahere in sublime (Rosenm.), but only attrahere (root גר) and detrahere; the latter signification is the prevailing one in Hebr. (Job 15:8; Job 36:7). With כּי the transcendent exaltation of the Being who survives all changes of creation is shown by an example: He draws away (draws off, as it were) the water-drops, viz., from the waters that are confined above on the circle of the sky, which pass over us as mist and cloud (vid., Genesis, S. 107); and these water-drops distil down (זקק, to ooze, distil, here not in a transitive but an intransitive signification, since the water-drops are the rain itself) as rain, לאדו, with its mist, i.e., since a mist produced by it (Gen 2:6) fills the expanse (רקיע), the downfall of which is just this rain, which, as Job 36:28 says, the clouds (called שׁחקים on account of its thin strata of air, in distinction from the next mist-circle) cause to flow gently down upon the multitude of men, i.e., far and wide over the mass of men who inhabit the district visited by the rain; both verbs are used transitively here, both נזל as Isa 45:8, and רעף, as evidently Pro 3:20. אף אם, Job 36:29, commences an intensive question: moreover, could one understand = could one completely understand; which certainly, according to the sense, is equivalent to: how much less (אף כּי). אם is, however, the interrogative an, and אף אם corresponds to האף in the first member of the double question, Job 34:17; Job 40:8. מפרשׂי are not the burstings, from פּרשׂ = פּרס, frangere, findere, but spreadings, as Eze 27:7 shows, from פּרשׂ, expandere, Psa 105:39, comp. supra on Job 36:9. It is the growth of the storm-clouds, which collect often from a beginning ”small as a man's hand” (1Ki 18:44), that is intended; majestic omnipotence conceals itself behind these as in a סכּה (Psa 18:12) woven out of thick branches; and the rolling thunder is here called the crash (תּשׁאות, as Job 39:7, is formed from שׁוא, to rumble, whence also שׁואה, if it is not after the form גּולה, migration, exile, from שׁאה morf ,, vid., on Job 30:3) of this pavilion of clouds in which the Thunderer works.

Verses 30-33

Job 36:30-33 30 Behold, He spreadeth His light over Himself,
And the roots of the sea He covereth. 31 For thereby He judgeth peoples,
He giveth food in abundance. 32 Both hands He covereth over with light,
And directeth it as one who hitteth the mark. 33 His noise announceth Him,
The cattle even that He is approaching.
A few expositors (Hirz., Hahn, Schlottm.) understand the celestial ocean, or the sea of the upper waters, by ים, Job 36:30; but it is more than questionable (vid., on Job 9:8) whether ים is used anywhere in this sense. Others as (Umbr., Ew.) the masses of water drawn up to the sky out of the depths of the sea, on which a Persian passage cited by Stick. (who, however, regards the Waw of ושׁרשׁי as Waw adaequationis) from Schebisteri may be compared: “an exhalation rises up out of the sea, and comes down at God's command upon the deserts.” In both cases כּסּה would be equivalent to כסה עליו, obtegit se, which in and of itself is possible. But he who has once witnessed a storm in the neighbourhood of the sea, will decide in favour of one of the three following explanations: (1.) He covereth the uprooted ground of the sea (comp. Psa 18:15.) with the subsiding waves (Blumenf.); but then Job 36:30 would require to be understood of the light of the brightening sky following the darkness of the storm, which is improbable in respect of Job 36:32. (2.) While the sky is brilliantly lighted up by the lightning, the abysses of the ocean are veiled in a so much deeper darkness; the observation is correct, but not less so another, that the lightning by a thunder-storm, especially when occurring at night, descends into the depths of the sea like snares that are cast down (פּחים, Psa 11:6), and the water is momentarily changed as it were into a sea of flame; accordingly it may be explained, (3.) Behold, He spreadeth over Himself His light (viz., the light which incessantly illumines the world), and the roots of the sea, i.e., the sea down to its depths, He covers with it, since He makes it light through and through (Stuhlm. Wolfs.). Thus, as it appears, Jerome also interprets: Et (si voluerit) fulgurare lumine suo desuper, cardines quoque maris operiet.^[125]
This, that He makes the light of the lightning His manifestation (פּרשׂ עליו), and that He covers the earth down to the roots of the sea beneath with this light, is established in Job 36:31 from the design, partly judicial, partly beneficial, which exists in connection with it. בּם refers as neuter (like בּהם, Job 22:21) to the phenomena of the storm; מכבּיר (with the adverbial ל like לרב, Job 26:3), what makes great = a making great, abundance (only here), is n. hiphil. after the form משׁהית, perdens = perditio. In Job 36:32 God is represented under a military figure as a slinger of lightnings: He covers light over both hands, i.e., arms both completely with light (comp. סכסך and Arab. škk, totum se operire armis), and directs it (עליה referring to אור as fem. like Jer 13:16, and sometimes in the Talmud). But what is the meaning of בּמפגּיע? Hahn takes מפגיע as n. hiphil. like מכביר: an object of attack; but what then becomes of the original Hiphil signification? It ought to be בּמפגּע (Job 7:20), as Olsh. wishes to read it. Ew., Hirz., and others, after the example of Theod. (lxx), Syr., Jer., translate: against the adversary; מפגיע ;yrasre signifies indeed the opposite in Isa 49:16 : intercessor (properly, one who assails with prayers); however, it would be possible for this word, just as פגע c. acc. (which signifies usually a hostile meeting, Exo 5:3 and freq., but sometimes also a friendly, Isa 47:3; Isa 64:4), to be an ἐναντιόσημον. We prefer to abide by the usage of the language as we have it, according to which הפגיע signifies facere ut quid incurset s. petat, Isa 53:6; מפגיע therefore is one who hits, in opposition to one who misses the mark. The Beth is the Beth essentiae (vid., on Job 23:13), used here like Exo 6:3; Psa 55:19; Isa 40:10. With both hands He seizes the substance of the lightning, fills them with it so that they are completely covered by it, and gives it the command (appoints it its goal), a sure aimer!

Verse 33

Targ., Syr., Symm., Theod. (from which Job 36:32 is supplied in the lxx),^[126]
Jer., Luther, and others destroy the idea, since they translate רעו = רעהוּ, “his friend (companion).” Among moderns, only Umbr. and Schlottm. adopt this signification; Böttch. and Welte, after the example of Cocceius, Tingstad, and others, attempt it with the signification “thought = determination;” but most expositors, from Ew. to Hahn, decide in favour of the rendering as simple as it is consistent with the usage of the language and the connection: His noise (רעו as Exo 32:17) gives tidings concerning Him (announces Him). In Job 36:33 Theod. (lxx), Syr., and Jer. point מקנה like our text, but translate possessio, with which we can do nothing. It seems that in the three attempts of the Targ. to translate Job 36:33, the translators had קנאה and קנּא before their mind, according to which Hahn translates: the arousing of anger (announces) the comer, which assumes מקנה instead of מקנה; and Schlottm.: fierce wrath (goes forth) over evil (according to Symm. ζῆλον περὶ ἀδικίας), which assumes the reading עולה (עולה), ἀδικία, adopted also by Syr., Theod. (lxx). Schultens even renders similarly: rubedinem flammantem nasi contra elatum, and Tingstad:zelum irae in iniquitatem. But it is not probable that the language was acquainted with a subst. מקנה, exciting, although in Eze 8:3 המּקנה is equivalent to המּקניא, so that one might more readily be tempted (vid., Hitz. in loc.) to read מקנה אף, ”one who excites anger against evil,” it one is not willing to decide with Berg, and recently Bleek, in favour of (מקנּה) מקנּא אף בּעולה, excandescens (zelans) ira= contra iniquitatem. But does the text as it stands really not give an appropriate idea? Aben-Ezra and Duran have understood it of the foreboding of an approaching thunder-storm which is manifested by cattle, מקנה. Accordingly Ew. translates: His thunder announces Him, the cattle even, that He is approaching; and peculiarly new (understanding יגיד not of a foreboding but of a thankful lowing) is Ebrard's rendering; also the cattle at fresh sprouting grass. But such a change of the position of אף is without precedent. Hirz. and Ges.: His rumble (rumble of thunder) announces Him to the herds, Him, and indeed as Him who rises up (approaches). But this new interpunction destroys the division of the verse and the syntax. Better Rosenm. like Duran: pecus non tantum pluviam proximam, sed et antequam nubes in sublime adscenderint adscensuras praesagit, according to Virgil, Georg. i. 374f.:illum (imbrem) surgentem vallibus imisAeriae fugere grues.
But עליו refers to God, and therefore על־עולה also, viz., Him who leads forth the storm-clouds (Jer 10:13; Jer 51:16; Psa 135:7), and Himself rising up in them; or, what עלה frequently signifies, coming on as to battle. It is to be interpreted: His thunder-clap announces Him (who is about to reveal Himself as a merciful judge), the cattle even (announce) Him at His first rising up, since at the approach of a storm they herd together affrighted and seek shelter. The speakers are Arabian, and the scene is laid in the country: Elihu also refers to the animal world in Job 35:11; this feature of the picture, therefore, cannot be surprising.

Chap. 37

Verses 1-5

Job 37:1-5 1 Yea, at this my heart trembleth
And tottereth from its place. 2 Hear, O hear the roar of His voice,
And the murmur that goeth out of His mouth. 3 He sendeth it forth under the whole heaven,
And His lightning unto the ends of the earth. 4 After it roareth the voice of the thunder,
He thundereth with the voice of His majesty,
And spareth not the lightnings, when His voice is heard. 5 God thundereth with His voice marvellously,
Doing great things, incomprehensible to us.
Louis Bridel is perhaps right when he inserts after Job 36 the observation: L'éclair brille, la tonnerre gronde. לזאת does not refer to the phenomenon of the storm which is represented in the mind, but to that which is now to be perceived by the senses. The combination שׁמעוּ שׁמוע can signify both hear constantly, Isa 6:9, and hear attentively, Job 13:17; here it is the latter. רגז of thunder corresponds to the verbs Arab. rḥz and rjs, which can be similarly used. The repetition of קול fo noititeper eh five times calls to mind the seven קולות (ἑπτὰ βρονταί) in Psa 29:1-11. The parallel is הגה, Job 37:2, a murmuring, as elsewhere of the roar of the lion and the cooing of the dove. The suff. of ישׁרהוּ refers to the thunder which rolls through the immeasurable breadth under heaven; it is not perf. Piel of ישׁר (Schlottm.), for “to give definite direction” (2Ch 32:30) is not appropriate to thunder, but fut. Kal of שׁרה, to free, to unbind (Ew., Hirz. and most others). What Job 37:3 says of thunder, Job 37:3 says of light, i.e., the lightning: God sends it forth to the edges, πτέρυγες, i.e., ends, of the earth. אחריו, Job 37:4, naturally refers to the lightning, which is followed by the roar of the thunder; and יעקּבם to the flashes, which, when once its rumble is heard, God does not restrain (עקּב = עכּב of the Targ., and Arab. ‛aqqaba, to leave behind, postpone), but causes to flash forth in quick succession. Ewald's translation: should He not find (prop. non investigaverit) them (the men that are to be punished), gives a thought that has no support in this connection. In Job 37:5 נפלאות, mirabilia, is equivalent to mirabiliter, as Dan 8:24, comp. Psa 65:6; Psa 139:14. ולא נדע is intended to say that God's mighty acts, with respect to the connection between cause and effect and the employment of means, transcend our comprehension.

Verses 6-10

Job 37:6-10 6 For He saith to the snow: Fall towards the earth,
And to the rain-shower
And the showers of His mighty rain. 7 He putteth a seal on the hand of every man,
That all men may come to a knowledge of His creative work. 8 The wild beast creepeth into a hiding-place,
And in its resting-place it remaineth. 9 Out of the remote part cometh the whirlwind,
And cold from the cloud-sweepers. 10 From the breath of God cometh ice,
And the breadth of the waters is straitened.
Like אבי, Job 34:36, and פּשׁ, Job 35:15, הוא, Job 37:6 (is falsely translated “be earthwards” by lxx, Targ., and Syr.), also belongs to the most striking Arabisms of the Elihu section: it signifies delabere (Jer. ut descendat), a signification which the Arab. hawâ does not gain from the radical signification placed first in Gesenius-Dietrich's Handwörterbuch, to breathe, blow, but from the radical signification, to gape, yawn, by means of the development of the meaning which also decides in favour of the primary notion of the Hebr. הוּה, according to which, what was said on Job 6:2; Job 30:13 is to be corrected.^[127].
From this variously applied primary signification is developed the generally known and usual Arab. hawâ, loose and free, without being held or holding to anything one's self, to pass away, fly, swing, etc., libere ferri, labi, in general in every direction, as the wind, or what is driven hither and thither by the wind, especially however from above downwards, labi, delabi, cadere, deorsum ruere. From this point, like many similar, the word first passes into the signification of sound (as certainly also שׁאה, שא): as anything falling has a full noise, and so on, δουπεῖν, rumorem, fragorem edere (fragor from frangi), hence hawat udhnuhu jawı̂jan of a singing in the ears.
Finally, the mental Arab. hawan (perf. hawija, imperf. jahwâ with the acc.), animo ad or in aliquid ferri, is attached to the notion of passing and falling through space (though by no means to hiare, or the supposed meaning “to breathe, blow”). It is used both emotionally of desire, lust, appetites, passions, and strong love, and intellectually of free opinions or assertions springing from mere self-willed preference, caprices of the understanding. - Fl.)
The ל of לשּׁלג influences Job 37:6 also. The Hebr. name for rain, גּשׁם (cogn. with Chald. גשׁם, Arab. gism, a body), denotes the rain collectively. The expression Job 37:6 is exceeded in Job 37:6, where מטרות does not signify rain-drops (Ew.), but, like the Arab. amtâr, rain-showers. The wonders of nature during the rough season (חרף, סתיו, Sol 2:11), between the autumnal and vernal equinoxes, are meant; the rains after the autumnal equinox (the early rain), which begin the season, and the rains before the vernal equinox (the late rain, Zec 10:1), which close it, with the falls of snow between, which frequently produce great desolation, especially the proper winter with its frosty winds and heavy showers, when the business of the husbandmen as of the nomads is brought to a stand-still, and every one retreats to his house or seeks a sheltering corner.
This is the meaning of Job 37:7 : He sealeth up (חתם בּ as Job 33:16) the hand of all men that they cannot, viz., on account of the cold out of doors, be opened for work, that all people of His work (i.e., thanking Him for their origin as His handiwork, Job 34:19) may come to the perception (of Him who doeth all things). The expression is remarkable, and by the insertion of a m may be as easily cleared up as Job 33:17 : לדעת כּל־אנשׁים מעשׂהוּ, in order that each and every one may acknowledge His work; after which even Jer. translates: ut noverint singuli opera sua. The conjecture אנשׁים עשׂהוּ (Schultens junior, Reiske, Hirz.) is inferior to the former (Olsh.) by its awkward synecdoche num. The fut. consec. in Job 37:8 continues the description of what happens in consequence of the cold rainy season; the expression calls to mind Psa 104:22, as Job 34:14. does Psa 104:29. The winter is also the time of the stormy and raw winds. In Job 37:9 Elihu means the storms which come across from the great wide desert, Job 1:19, therefore the south (Isa 21:1; Zec 9:14), or rather south-east winds (Hos 13:15), increasing in violence to storms. החדר (properly the surrounded, enclosed space, never the storehouse, - so that Psa 135:7 should be compared, - but adytum, penetrale, as Arab. chidr, e.g., in Vita Timuri ii. 904: after the removal of the superincumbent earth, they drew away sitr chidrihâ, the curtain of its innermost part, i.e., uncovered its lowest depth) is here the innermost part of the south (south-east), - comp. Job 9:9 חדרי תימן, and Job 23:9 יעטף ימין (so far as יעטף there signifies si operiat se), - especially of the great desert lying to the south (south-east), according to which ארץ חדרך, Zec 9:1, is translated by the Targ. דרומא ארעא. In opposition to the south-east wind, מזרים, Job 37:9, seems to mean the north winds; in and of itself, however, the word signifies the scattering or driving, as also in the Koran the winds are called the scatterers, dhârijât, Sur. li. 1.^[128]
In מזרים, Reiske, without any ground for it, traces the Arab. mirzam (a name of two stars, from which north wind, rain, and cold are derived); the Targ. also has one of the constellations in view: מכּוּת מזרים (from the window, i.e., the window of the vault of heaven, of the mezarim); Aq., Theod. ἀπὸ μαζούρ (= מזרות, Job 38:32); lxx ἀπὸ δὲ τῶν ἀκρωτηρίων, we know not wherefore. Concerning מנּשׁמת־אל (with causal מן) with reference to the wind, vid., on Job 4:15. יתּן, it gives, i.e., comes to light, is used as in Gen 38:28; Pro 13:10. The idea of מוּצק (not fusum from יצק, but coarctatum from צוּק) cannot be doubtful in connection with the antithesis of רחב, comp. Job 36:16, the idea is like Job 38:30 (comp. Mutenebbi: “the flood is bound by bands of ice”); the בּ of בּמוּצק is, as Job 36:32, the Beth essentiae, used far more extensively in Hebr. than in Arab. as an exponent of the predicate: the breadth of the water is (becomes) straitened (forcibly drawn together).

Verses 11-13

Job 37:11-13 11 Also He loadeth the clouds with water,
He spreadeth far and wide the cloud of His light, 12 And these turn themselves round about,
Directed by Him, that they execute
All that He hath commanded them
Over the wide earth. 13 Whether for a scourge, or for the good of His earth,
Or for mercy, He causeth it to discharge itself.
With אף extending the description, Elihu, in the presence of the storm that is in the sky, continually returns to this one marvel of nature. The old versions connect בּרי partly with בּר, electus (lxx, Syr., Theod.) or frumentum (Symm., Jer.), partly with בּרה = בּרר in the signification puritas, serenitas (Targ.); but בּרי is, as Schultens has already perceived, the Hebr.-Arabic רי, Arab. rı̂yun, rı̂j-un (from רוה = riwj), abundant irrigation, with בּ; and יטריח does not signify, according to the Arab. atraha, “to hurl down,” so that what is spoken of would be the bursting of the clouds (Stick.),^[129] but, according to טרח, a burden (comp. Arab. taraha ala, to load), “to burden;” with fluidity (Ew., Hirz., Hahn, Schlottm.), better: fulness of water, He burdens the clouds (comp. rawij-un as a designation of cloud as the place of rain). ענן אורו, His cloud of light, is that that is charged with lightning, and הפיץ has here its Hebr.-Arab. radical signification effundere, diffundere, with a preponderance of the idea not of scattering, but of spreading out wide (Arab. faid, abundance). והוּא, Job 37:12, refers to the cloud pregnant with lightning; this turns round about (מסבּות, adv. as מסב, round about, 1Ki 6:29) seeking a place, where it shall unburden itself by virtue of His (God's) direction or disposing (תחבּוּלת, a word belonging to the book of Proverbs; lxx, Cod. Vat. and Alex., untranslated: εν θεεβουλαθωθ, Cod. Sinait. still more monstrous), in order that they (the clouds full of lightning) may accomplish everything that He commands them over the surface of the earth; ארצה as Job 34:13, and the combination תּבל ארצה as Pro 8:31, comp. ארץ ותבל, Psa 90:2. The reference of the pronominal suff. to men is as inadmissible here as in Job 37:4. In Job 37:13 two אם have certainly, as Job 34:29, two ו, the correlative signification sive ... sive (Arab. in...wa-in), in a third, as appears, a conditional, but which? According to Ew., Hirz., Hahn, Schlottm., and others, the middle one: if it (the rod) belongs to His land, i.e., if it has deserved it. But even the possessive suff. of לארצו shows that the ל is to be taken as dat. commodi: be it for a rod, be it for the good of His land; which is then followed by a conditional verbal clause: in case He mercifully causes it (the storm) to come, i.e., causes this His land to be overtaken by it (המציא here with the acc., the thing coming, whereas in Job 34:11 of the thing to be overtaken). The accentuation, indeed, appears to assume a threefold sive: whether He causeth it to discharge itself upon man for punishment, man for mercy, or His earth for good with reference to man. Then Elihu would think of the uninhabited steppe in connection with אם לארצו. Since a conditional אם by the side of two correlatives is hazardous, we decide finally with the lxx, Targ., and all the old versions, in favour of the same rendering of the threefold אם, especially since it corresponds to the circumstances of the case.

Verses 14-16

Job 37:14-16 14 Hearken unto this, O Job;
Stand still and consider the wonderful works of God! 15 Dost thou know when God designeth
To cause the light of His clouds to shine? 16 Dost thou understand the balancings of the clouds,
The wondrous things of Him who is perfect in knowledge?
Job is to stand still, instead of dictating to God, in order to draw from His wondrous acts in nature a conclusion with reference to his mystery of suffering. In Job 37:15 ידע בּ does not, as Job 35:15 (Ew. §217, S. 557), belong together, but בּ is the temporal Beth. שׂוּם is equivalent to שׂים לבּו (vid., on Job 34:23); עליהם does not refer to נפלאות (Hirz.) or the phenomena of the storm (Ew.), but is intended as neuter (as בּם Job 36:31, בּהם Job 22:21), and finds in Job 37:15 its distinctive development: “the light of His clouds” is their effulgent splendour. Without further support, ידע על is to have knowledge concerning anything, Job 37:16; מפלשׂי is also ἁπ. γεγρ.. It is unnecessary to consider it as wrongly written from מפרשׂי, Job 36:29, or as from it by change of letter (as אלמנות = ארמנות, Isa 13:22). The verb פּלּס signifies to make level, prepare (viz., a way, also weakened: to take a certain way, Pro 5:6), once: to weigh, Psa 58:3, as denom. from פּלס, a balance (and indeed a steelyard, statera), which is thus mentioned as the means of adjustment. מפלשׂי accordingly signifies either, as synon. of משׁקלי (thus the Midrash, vid., Jalkut, §522), weights (the relations of weight), or even equipoised balancings (Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, and others), Lat. quomodo librentur nubes in aëre.^[130] מפלאות is also a word that does not occur elsewhere; in like manner דּע belongs exclusively to Elihu. God is called תּמים דּעים (comp. Job 36:4) as the Omniscient One, whose knowledge is absolute as to its depth as well as its circumference.

Verses 17-20

Job 37:17-20 17 Thou whose garments became hot,
When the land is sultry from the south: 18 Dost thou with Him spread out the sky,
The strong, as it were molten, mirror? 19 Let us know what we shall say to Him! -
We can arrange nothing by reason of darkness. 20 Shall it be told Him that I speak,
Or shall one wish to be destroyed?
Most expositors connect Job 37:17 with Job 37:16 : (Dost thou know) how it comes to pass that ... ; but אשׁר after ידע signifies quod, Exo 11:7, not quomodo, as it sometimes occurs in a comparing antecedent clause, instead of כאשׁר, Exo 14:13; Jer 33:22. We therefore translate: thou whose ... , - connecting this, however, not with Job 37:16 (vid., e.g., Carey), but as Bolduc. and Ew., with Job 37:18 (where ה before תרקיע is then the less missed): thou who, when the land (the part of the earth where thou art) keeps rest, i.e., in sultriness, when oppressive heat comes (on this Hiph. vid., Ges. §53, 2) from the south (i.e., by means of the currents of air which come thence, without דּרום signifying directly the south wind), - thou who, when this happens, canst endure so little, that on the contrary the heat from without becomes perceptible to thee through thy clothes: dost thou now and then with Him keep the sky spread out, which for firmness is like a molten mirror? Elsewhere the hemispheric firmament, which spans the earth with its sub-celestial waters, is likened to a clear sapphire Exo 24:10, a covering Psa 104:2, a gauze Isa 40:22; the comparison with a metallic mirror (מוּצק here not from צוּק, Job 37:10; Job 36:16, but from יצק) is therefore to be understood according to Petavius: Coelum aëreum στερέωμα dicitur non a naturae propria conditione, sed ab effectu, quod perinde aquas separet, ac si murus esset solidissimus. Also in תרקיע lies the notion both of firmness and thinness; the primary notion (root רק) is to beat, make thick, stipare (Arab. rq‛, to stop up in the sense of resarcire, e.g., to mend stockings), to make thick by pressure. The ל joined with תרקיע is nota acc.; we must not comp. Job 8:8; Job 21:22, as well as Job 5:2; Job 19:3.
Therefore: As God is the only Creator (Job 9:8), so He is the all-provident Preserver of the world - make us know (הודיענוּ, according to the text of the Babylonians, Keri of הודיעני) what we shall say to Him, viz., in order to show that we can cope with Him! We cannot arrange, viz., anything whatever (to be explained according to ערך מלּין, Job 32:14, comp. “to place,” Job 36:19), by reason of darkness, viz., the darkness of our understanding, σκότος τῆς διανοίας; מפּני is much the same as Job 23:17, but different from Job 17:12, and חשׁך different from both passages, viz., as it is often used in the New Testament, of intellectual darkness (comp. Ecc 2:14; Isa 60:2). The meaning of Job 37:20 cannot now be mistaken, if, with Hirz., Hahn, and Schlottm., we call to mind Job 36:10 in connection with אמר כּי: can I, a short-sighted man, enshrouded in darkness, wish that what I have arrogantly said concerning and against Him may be told to God, or should one earnestly desire (אמר, a modal perf., as Job 35:15) that (an jusserit s. dixerit quis ut) he may be swallowed up, i.e., destroyed (comp. לבלעו, Job 2:3)? He would, by challenging a recognition of his unbecoming arguing about God, desire a tribunal that would be destructive to himself.

Verses 21-24

Job 37:21-24 21 Although one seeth now the sunlight
That is bright in the ethereal heights:
A wind passeth by and cleareth them up. 22 Gold is brought from the north, -
Above Eloah is terrible majesty. 23 The Almighty, whom we cannot find out,
The excellent in strength,
And right and justice He perverteth not. 24 Therefore men regard Him with reverence,
He hath no regard for all the wise of heart.
He who censures God's actions, and murmurs against God, injures himself - how, on the contrary, would a patiently submissive waiting on Him be rewarded! This is the connection of thought, by which this final strophe is attached to what precedes. If we have drawn the correct conclusion from Job 37:1, that Elihu's description of a storm is accompanied by a storm which was coming over the sky, ועתּה, with which the speech, as Job 35:15, draws towards the close, is not to be understood as purely conclusive, but temporal: And at present one does not see the light (אור of the sun, as Job 31:26) which is bright in the ethereal heights (בּהיר again a Hebr.-Arab. word, comp. bâhir, outshining, surpassing, especially of the moon, when it dazzles with its brightness); yet it only requires a breath of wind to pass over it, and to clear it, i.e., brings the ethereal sky with the sunlight to view. Elihu hereby means to say that the God who his hidden only for a time, respecting whom one runs the risk of being in perplexity, can suddenly unveil Himself, to our surprise and confusion, and that therefore it becomes us to bow humbly and quietly to His present mysterious visitation. With respect to the removal of the clouds from the beclouded sun, to which Job 37:21 refers, זהב, Job 37:22, seems to signify the gold of the sun; esh-shemsubi-tibrin, the sun is gold, says Abulola. Oriental and Classic literature furnishes a large number of instances in support of this calling the sunshine gold; and it should not perplex us here, where we have an Arabizing Hebrew poet before us, that not a single passage can be brought forward from the Old Testament literature. But מצּפון is against this figurative rendering of the זהב (lxx νέφη χρυσαυγοῦντα). In Eze 1:4 there is good reason for the storm-clouds, which unfold from their midst the glory of the heavenly Judge, who rideth upon the cherubim, coming from the north; but wherefore should Elihu represent the sun's golden light as breaking through from the north? On the other hand, in the conception of the ancients, the north is the proper region for gold: there griffins (grupe's) guard the gold-pits of the Arimaspian mountains (Herod. iii. 116); there, from the narrow pass of the Caucasus along the Gordyaean mountains, gold is dug by barbarous races (Pliny, h. n. vi. 11), and among the Scythians it is brought to light by the ants (ib. xxxiii. 4). Egypt could indeed provide itself with gold from Ethiopia, and the Phoenicians brought the gold of Ophir, already mentioned in the book of Job, from India; but the north was regarded as the fabulously most productive chief mine of gold; to speak more definitely: Northern Asia, with the Altai mountains.^[131]
Thus therefore Job 28:1, Job 28:6 is to be compared here.
What Job describes so grandly and minutely in Job 28:1, viz., that man lays bare the hidden treasures of the earth's interior, but that the wisdom of God still transcends him, is here expressed no less grandly and compendiously: From the north cometh gold, which man wrests from the darkness of the gloomy unknown region of the north (צפון, ζόφος, from צפן, cogn. טמן, טמר,^[132] upon Eloah, on the contrary is terrible majesty (not genitival: terror of majesty, Ew. §293, c), i.e., it covers Him like a garment (Psa 104:1), making Him inaccessible (הוד, glory as resounding praise, vid., on Job 39:20, like כבוד as imposing dignity). The beclouded sun, Job 37:21 said, has lost none of the intensity of its light, although man has to wait for the removing of the clouds to behold it again. So, when God's doings are mysterious to us, we have to wait, without murmuring, for His solution of the mystery. While from the north comes gold - Job 37:22 continues - which is obtained by laying bare the interior of the northern mountains, God, on the other hand, is surrounded by inaccessibly terrible glory: the Almighty - thus Job 37:23 completes the thought towards which Job 37:22 tends - we cannot reach, the Great in power, i.e., the nature of the Absolute One remains beyond us, the counsel of the Almighty impenetrable; still we can at all times be certain of this, that what He does is right and good: “Right and the fulness of justice (ורב־ according to the Masora, not ורב-) He perverteth not.” The expression is remarkable: ענּה משׁפּט is, like the Talmudic ענּה דּין, equivalent elsewhere to הטּה משׁפט; and that He does not pervert רב־צדקה, affirms that justice in its whole compass is not perverted by Him; His acts are therefore perfectly and in every way consistent with it: רב־צדקה is the abstract. to צדיק כביר, Job 34:17, therefore summa justitia. One may feel tempted to draw ומשׁפט to שׂגיא כח, and to read ורב according to Pro 14:29 instead of ורב, but the expression gained by so doing is still more difficult than the combination לא יענּה...ומשׁפט; not merely difficult, however, but putting a false point in place of a correct one, is the reading לא יענה (lxx, Syr., Jer.), according to which Hirz. translates: He answers, not, i.e., gives no account to man. The accentuation rightly divides Job 37:23 into two halves, the second of which begins with ומשׁפט - a significant Waw, on which J. H. Michaelis observes: Placide invicem in Deo conspirant infinita ejus potentia et justitia quae in hominibus saepe disjuncta sunt.
Elihu closes with the practical inference: Therefore men, viz., of the right sort, of sound heart, uncorrupted and unaffected, fear Him (יראוּהוּ verentur eum, not יראוּהוּ veremini eum); He does not see (regard) the wise of heart, i.e., those who imagine themselves such and are proud of their לב, their understanding. The qui sibi videntur (Jer.) does not lie in לב (comp. Isa 5:21), but in the antithesis. Stick. and others render falsely: Whom the aggregate of the over-wise beholds not, which would be יראנּוּ. God is the subj. as in Job 28:24; Job 34:21, comp. Job 41:26. The assonance of יראוהו and יראה, which also occurs frequently elsewhere (e.g., Job 6:21), we have sought to reproduce in the translation.
In this last speech also Elihu's chief aim (Job 36:2-4) is to defend God against Job's charge of injustice. He shows how omnipotence, love, and justice are all found in God. When judging of God's omnipotence, we are to beware of censuring Him who is absolutely exalted above us and our comprehension; when judging of God's love, we are to beware of interpreting His afflictive dispensations, which are designed for our well-being, as the persecution of an enemy; when judging of His justice, we are to beware of maintaining our own righteousness at the cost of the Divine, and of thus avoiding the penitent humbling of one's self under His well-meant chastisement. The twofold peculiarity of Elihu's speeches comes out in this fourth as prominently as in the first: (1) They demand of Job penitential submission, not by accusing him of coarse common sins as the three have done, but because even the best of men suffer for hidden moral defects, which must be perceived by them in order not to perish on account of them. Elihu here does for Job just what in Bunyan (Pilgrim's Progress) the man in the Interpreter's house does, when he sweeps the room, so that Christian had been almost choked with the dust that flew about. Then (2) they teach that God makes use of just such sufferings, as Job's now are, in order to bring man to a knowledge of his hidden defects, and to bless him the more abundantly if he will be saved from them; that thus the sufferings of those who fear God are a wholesome medicine, disciplinary chastenings, and saving warnings; and that therefore true, not merely feigned, piety must be proved in the school of affliction by earnest self-examination, remorseful self-accusation, and humble submission.
Elihu therefore in this agrees with the rest of the book, that he frees Job's affliction from the view which accounts it the evil-doer's punishment (vid., Job 32:3). On the other hand, however, he nevertheless takes up a position apart from the rest of the book, by making Job's sin the cause of his affliction; while in the idea of the rest of the book Job's affliction has nothing whatever to do with Job's sin, except in so far as he allows himself to be drawn into sinful language concerning God by the conflict of temptation into which the affliction plunges him. For after Jehovah has brought Job over this his sin, He acknowledges His servant (Job 42:7) to be in the right, against the three friends: his affliction is really not a merited affliction, it is not a result of retributive justice; it also had not chastisement as its design, it was an enigma, under which Job should have bowed humbly without striking against it - a decree, into the purpose of which the prologue permits us an insight, which however remains unexplained to Job, or is only explained to him so far as the issue teaches him that it should be to him the way to a so much the more glorious testimony on the part of God Himself.
With that criticism of Job, which the speeches of Jehovah consummate, the criticism which lies before us in the speeches of Elihu is irreconcilable. The older poet, in contrast with the false doctrine of retribution, entirely separates sin and punishment or chastisement in the affliction of Job, and teaches that there is an affliction of the righteous, which is solely designed to prove and test them. His thema, not Elihu's (as Simson^[133] with Hengstenberg thinks), is the mystery of the Cross. For the Cross according to its proper notion is suffering ἕνεκεν δικαιοσύνης (or what in New Testament language is the same, ἕνεκεν Χριστοῦ). Elihu, however, leaves sin and suffering together as inseparable, and opposes the false doctrine of retribution by the distinction between disciplinary chastisement and judicial retribution. The Elihu section, as I have shown elsewhere,^[134] has sprung from the endeavour to moderate the bewildering boldness with which the older poet puts forth his idea. The writer has felt in connection with the book of Job what every Christian must feel. Such a maintaining of his own righteousness in the face of friendly exhortations to penitence, as we perceive it in Job's speeches, is certainly not possible where “the dust of the room has flown about.” The friends have only failed in this, that they made Job more and more an evil-doer deservedly undergoing punishment. Elihu points him to vainglorying, to carnal security, and in the main to those defects from which the most godly cannot and dare not claim exemption. It is not contrary to the spirit of the drama that Job holds his peace at these exhortations to penitence. The similarly expressed admonition to penitence with which Eliphaz, Job 4:1, begins, has not effected it. In the meanwhile, however, Job is become more softened and composed, and in remembrance of his unbecoming language concerning God, he must feel that he has forfeited the right of defending himself. Nevertheless this silent Job is not altogether the same as the Job who, in Job 40 and 42, forces himself to keep silence, whose former testimony concerning himself, and whose former refusal of a theodicy which links sin and calamity together, Jehovah finally sets His seal to.
On the other hand, however, it must be acknowledged, that what the introduction to Elihu's speeches, Job 32:1-5, sets before us, is consistent with the idea of the whole, and that such a section as the introduction leads one to expect, may be easily understood really as a member of the whole, which carries forward the dramatic development of this idea; for this very reason one feels urged to constantly new endeavours, if possible, to understand these speeches as a part of the original form. But they are without result, and, moreover, many other considerations stand in our way to the desired goal; especially, that Elihu is not mentioned in the epilogue, and that his speeches are far behind the artistic perfection of the rest of the book. It is true the writer of these speeches has, in common with the rest of the book, a like Hebraeo-Arabic, and indeed Hauranitish style, and like mutual relations to earlier and later writings; but this is explained from the consideration that he has completely blended the older book with himself (as the points of contact of the fourth speech with Job 28:1 and the speeches of Jehovah, show), and that to all appearance he is a fellow-countryman of the older poet. There are neither linguistic nor any other valid reasons in favour of assigning it to a much later period. He is the second issuer of the book, possibly the first, who brought to light the hitherto hidden treasure, enriched by his own insertion, which is inestimable in its relation to the history of the perception of the plan of redemption.
We now call to mind that in the last (according to our view) strophe of Job's last speech. Job 31:35-37, Job desires, yea challenges, the divine decision between himself and his opponents. His opponents have explained his affliction as the punishment of the just God; he, however, is himself so certain of his innocence, and of his victory over divine and human accusation, that he will bind the indictment of his opponents as a crown upon his brow, and to God, whose hand of punishment supposedly rests upon him, will he render an account of all his steps, and go forth as a prince to meet Him. That he considers himself a צדיק is in itself not censurable, for he is such: but that he is מצדק נפשׁו מאלהים, i.e., considers himself to be righteous in opposition to God, who is no angry with him and punishes him; that he maintains his own righteousness to the prejudice of the Divine; and that by maintaining his own right, places the Divine in the shade, - all this is explainable as the result of the false idea which he entertains of his affliction, and in which he is strengthened by the friends; but there is need of censure and penitence. For since by His nature God can never do wrong, all human wrangling before God is a sinful advance against the mystery of divine guidance, under which he should rather humbly bow. But we have seen that Job's false idea of God as his enemy, whose conduct he cannot acknowledge as just, does not fill his whole soul. The night of temptation in which he is enshrouded, is broken in upon by gleams of faith, in connection with which God appears to him as his Vindicator and Redeemer. Flesh and spirit, nature and grace, delusion and faith, are at war within him. These two elements are constantly more definitely separated in the course of the controversy; but it is not yet come to the victory of faith over delusion, the two lines of conception go unreconciled side by side in Job's soul. The last monologues issue on the one side in the humble confession that God's wisdom is unsearchable, and the fear of God is the share of wisdom appointed to man; on the other side, in the defiant demand that God may answer for his defence of himself, and the vaunting offer to give Him an account of all his steps, and also then to enter His presence with the high feeling of a prince. If now the issue of the drama is to be this, that God really reveals Himself as Job's Vindicator and Redeemer, Job's defiance and boldness must be previously punished in order that lowliness and submission may attain the victory over them. God cannot acknowledge job as His servant before he penitently acknowledges as such the sinful weakness under which he has proved himself to be God's servant, and so exhibits himself anew in his true character which cherishes no known sin. This takes place when Jehovah appears, and in language not of wrath but of loving condescension, and yet earnest reproof, He makes the Titan quite puny in his own eyes, in order then to exalt him who is outwardly and inwardly humbled.

Chap. 38

Verses 1-3

Job 38:1-3 1 Then Jehovah answered Job out of the storm, and said: 2 Who then darkeneth counsel
With words without knowledge? 3 Gird up now thy loins as a man:
I will question thee, and inform thou me! “May the Almighty answer me!” Job has said, Job 31:35; He now really answers, and indeed out of the storm (Chethib, according to a mode of writing occurring only here and Job 40:6, מנהסערה, arranged in two words by the Keri), which is generally the forerunner of His self-manifestation in the world, of that at least by which He reveals Himself in His absolute awe-inspiring greatness and judicial grandeur. The art. is to be understood generically, but, with respect to Elihu's speeches, refers to the storm which has risen up in the meanwhile. It is not to be translated: Who is he who ... , which ought to be המחשׁיך, but: Who then is darkening; זה makes the interrogative מי more vivid and demonstrative, Ges. §122, 2; the part. מחשׁיך (instead of which it might also be יחשׁיך) favours the assumption that Job has uttered such words immediately before, and is interrupted by Jehovah, without an intervening speaker having come forward. It is intentionally עצה for עצתי (comp. עם for עמי, Isa 26:11), to describe that which is spoken of according to its quality: it is nothing less than a decree or plan full of purpose and connection which Job darkness, i.e., distorts by judging it falsely, or, as we say: places in a false light, and in fact by meaningless words.^[135]
When now Jehovah condescends to negotiate with Job by question and answer, He does not do exactly what Job wished (Job 13:22), but something different, of which Job never thought. He surprises him with questions which are intended to bring him indirectly to the consciousness of the wrong and absurdity of his challenge - questions among which “there are many which the natural philosophy of the present day can frame more scientifically, but cannot satisfactorily solve.”^[136]
Instead of כגבר (the received reading of Ben-Ascher), Ben-Naphtali's text offered כּג (as Eze 17:10), in order not to allow two so similar, aspirated mutae to come together.

Verses 4-7

Job 38:4-7 4 Where wast thou when I established the earth?
Say, if thou art capable of judging! 5 Who hath determined its measure, if thou knowest it,
Or who hath stretched the measuring line over it? 6 Upon what are the bases of its pillars sunk in,
Or who hath laid its corner-stone, 7 When the morning stars sang together
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
The examination begins similarly to Job 15:7. In opposition to the censurer of God as such the friends were right, although only negatively, since their conduct was based on self-delusion, as though they were in possession of the key to the mystery of the divine government of the world. ידע בּינה signifies to understand how to judge, to possess a competent understanding, 1Ch 12:32; 2Ch 2:12, or (ידע taken not in the sense of novisse, but cognoscere) to appropriate to one's self, Pro 4:1; Isa 29:24. כּי, Job 38:5, interchanges with אם (comp. Job 38:18), for כּי תדע signifies: suppose that thou knowest it, and this si forte scias is almost equivalent to an forte scis, Pro 30:4. The founding of the earth is likened altogether to that of a building constructed by man. The question: upon what are the bases of its pillars or foundations sunk (טבע, Arab. ṭb‛, according to its radical signification, to press with something flat upon something, comp. Arab. ṭbq, to lay two flat things on one another, then both to form or stamp by pressure, and to press into soft pliant stuff, or let down into, immergere, or to sink into, immergi), points to the fact of the earth hanging free in space, Job 26:7. Then no human being was present, for man was not yet created; the angels, however, beheld with rejoicing the founding of the place of the future human family, and the mighty acts of God in accordance with the decree of His love (as at the building of the temple, the laying of the foundation, Ezr 3:10, and the setting of the head-stone, Zec 4:7, were celebrated), for the angels were created before the visible world (Psychol. S. 63; Genesis, S. 105), as is indeed not taught here, but still (vid., on the other hand, Hofmann, Schriftbew. i. 400) is assumed. For בּני אלהים are, as in Job 1-2, the angels, who proceeded from God by a mode of creation which is likened to begetting, and who with Him form one πατριά (Genesis, S. 121). The “morning stars,” however, are mentioned in connection with them, because between the stars and the angels, which are both comprehended in צבא השׁמים (Genesis, S. 128), a mysterious connection exists, which is manifoldly attested in Holy Scripture (vid., on the other hand, Hofm. ib. S. 318). כּוכב בּקר is the morning star which in Isa 14:12 is called הילל (as extra-bibl. נגהּ) from its dazzling light, which exceeds all other stars in brightness, and בּן־שׁחר, son of the dawn, because it swims in the dawn as though it were born from it. It was just the dawn of the world coming into being, which is the subject spoken of, that gave rise to the mention of the morning star; the plur., however, does not mean the stars which came into being on that morning of the world collectively (Hofm., Schlottm.), but Lucifer with the stars his peers, as כּסילים, Isa 13:10, Orion and the stars his peers. Arab. suhayl (Canopus) is used similarly as a generic name for stars of remarkable brilliancy, and in general suhêl is to the nomads and the Hauranites the symbol of what is brilliant, glorious, and beautiful;^[137] so that even the beings of light of the first rank among the celestial spirits might be understood by כוכבי בקר. But if this ought to be the meaning, Job 38:7 and Job 38:7 would be in an inverted order. They are actual stars, whether it is intended of the sphere belonging to the earth or to the higher sphere comprehended in השׁמים, Gen 1:1. Joy and light are reciprocal notions, and the scale of the tones of joy is likened to the scale of light and colours; therefore the fulness of light, in which the morning stars shone forth all together at the founding of the earth, may symbolize one grandly harmonious song of joy.

Verses 8-11

Job 38:8-11 8 And who shut up the sea with doors,
When it broke through, issued from the womb, 9 When I put clouds round it as a garment,
And thick mist as its swaddling clothes, 10 And I broke for it my bound,
And set bars and doors, 11 And said: Hitherto come, and no further,
And here be thy proud waves stayed!?
The state of תהו ובהו was the first half, and the state of תהום the second half of the primeval condition of the forming earth. The question does not, however, refer to the תהום, in which the waters of the sky and the waters of the earth were as yet not separated, but, passing over this intermediate condition of the forming earth, to the sea, the waters of which God shut up as by means of a door and bolt, when, first enshrouded in thick mist (which has remained from that time one of its natural peculiarities), and again and again manifesting its individuality, it broke forth (גּיח of the foetus, as Psa 22:10) from the bowels of the, as yet, chaotic earth. That the sea, in spite of the flatness of its banks, does not flow over the land, is a work of omnipotence which broke over it, i.e., restraining it, a fixed bound (חק as Job 26:10; Pro 8:29; Jer 5:22, = גּבוּל, Psa 104:9), viz., the steep and rugged walls of the basin of the sea, and which thereby established a firm barrier behind which it should be kept. Instead of וּפה, Jos 18:8, Job 38:11 has the Chethib וּפא. חק is to be understood with ישׁית, and “one set” is equivalent to the passive (Ges. §137*): let a bound be set (comp. שׁת, Hos 6:11, which is used directly so) against the proud rising of thy waves.

Verses 12-15

Job 38:12-15 12 Hast thou in thy life commanded a morning,
Caused the dawn to know its place, 13 That it may take hold of the ends of the earth,
So that the evil-doers are shaken under it? 14 That it changeth like the clay of a signet-ring,
And everything fashioneth itself as a garment. 15 Their light is removed from the evil-doers,
And the out-stretched arm is broken.
The dawn of the morning, spreading out from one point, takes hold of the carpet of the earth as it were by the edges, and shakes off from it the evil-doers, who had laid themselves to rest upon it the night before. נער, combining in itself the significations to thrust and to shake, has the latter here, as in the Arab. nâ‛ûra, a water-wheel, which fills its compartments below in the river, to empty them out above. Instead of ידּעתּה שׁחר with He otians, the Keri substitutes ידּעתּ השׁחר. The earth is the subj. to Job 38:14: the dawn is like the signet-ring, which stamps a definite impress on the earth as the clay, the forms which floated in the darkness of the night become visible and distinguishable. The subj. to Job 38:14 are not morning and dawn (Schult.), still less the ends of the earth (Ew. with the conjecture: יתיבצו, "they become dazzlingly white”), but the single objects on the earth: the light of morning gives to everything its peculiar garb of light, so that, hitherto overlaid by a uniform darkness, they now come forth independently, they gradually appear in their variegated diversity of form and hue. In כּמו לבוּשׁ, לבוש is conceived as accusative (Arab. kemâ libâsan, or thauban), while in כלבושׁ (Psa 104:6, instar vestis) it would be genitive. To the end of the strophe everything is under the logical government of the ל of purpose in Job 38:13. The light of the evil-doers is, according to Job 24:17, the darkness of the night, which is for them in connection with their works what the light of day is for other men. The sunrise deprives them, the enemies of light in the true sense (Job 24:13), of this light per antiphrasin, and the carrying out of their evil work, already prepared for, is frustrated. The ע of רשׁעים, Job 38:13 and Job 38:15, is תלויה עין [Ayin suspensum,] which is explained according to the Midrash thus: the רשׁעים, now עשׁירים (rich), become at a future time רשׁים (poor); or: God deprives them of the עין (light of the eye), by abandoning them to the darkness which they loved.

Verses 16-21

Job 38:16-21 16 Hast thou reached the fountains of the sea,
And hast thou gone into the foundation of the deep? 17 Were the gates of death unveiled to thee,
And didst thou see the gates of the realm of shades? 18 Hast thou comprehended the breadth of the earth?
Speak, in so far as thou knowest all this! 19 Which is the way to where the light dwelleth,
And darkness, where is its place, 20 That thou mightest bring it to its bound,
And that thou mightest know the paths of its house? 21 Thou knowest it, for then wast thou born,
And the number of thy days is great! -
The root נב has the primary notion of obtruding itself upon the senses (vid., Genesis, S. 635), whence נבך in Arabic of a rising country that pleases the eye (nabaka, a hill, a hillside), and here (cognate in root and meaning נבע, Syr. Talmud. נבג, Arab. nbg, nbṭ, scatuirire) of gushing and bubbling water. Hitzig's conjecture, approved by Olsh., נבלי, sets aside a word that is perfectly clear so far as the language is concerned. On חקר vid., on Job 11:7. The question put to Job in Job 38:17, he must, according to his own confession, Job 26:6, answer in the negative. In order to avoid the collision of two aspirates, the interrogative ה is wanting before התבּננתּ, Ew. §324, b; התבנן עד signifies, according to Job 32:12, to observe anything carefully; the meaning of the question therefore is, whether Job has given special attention to the breadth of the earth, and whether he consequently has a comprehensive and thorough knowledge of it. כּלּהּ refers not to the earth (Hahn, Olsh., and others), but, as neuter, to the preceding points of interrogation. The questions, Job 38:19, refer to the principles of light and darkness, i.e., their final causes, whence they come forth as cosmical phenomena. ישׁכּן־אור is a relative clause, Ges. §123, 3, c; the noun that governs (the Regens) this virtual genitive, which ought in Arabic to be without the art. as being determined by the regens, is, according to the Hebrew syntax, which is freer in this respect, הדּרך (comp. Ges. §110, 2). That which is said of the bound of darkness, i.e., the furthest point at which darkness passes away, and the paths to its house, applies also to the light, which the poet perhaps has even prominently (comp. Job 24:13) before his mind: light and darkness have a first cause which is inaccessible to man, and beyond his power of searching out. The admission in Job 38:21 is ironical: Verily! thou art as old as the beginning of creation, when light and darkness, as powers of nature which are distinguished and bounded the one by the other (vid., Job 26:10), were introduced into the rising world; thou art as old as the world, so that thou hast an exact knowledge of its and thine own contemporaneous origin (vid., Job 15:7). On the fut. joined with אז htiw denioj . regularly in the signification of the aorist, vid., Ew. §134, b. The attraction in connection with מספּר is like Job 15:20; Job 21:21.

Verses 22-27

Job 38:22-27 22 Hast thou reached the treasures of the snow,
And didst thou see the treasures of the hail, 23 Which I have reserved for a time of trouble,
For the day of battle and war? 24 Which is the way where the light is divided,
Where the east wind is scattered over the earth? 25 Who divideth a course for the rain-flood
And the way of the lightning of thunder, 26 That it raineth on the land where no one dwelleth,
On the tenantless steppe, 27 To satisfy the desolate and the waste,
And to cause the tender shoot of the grass to spring forth?
The idea in Job 38:22 is not that - as for instance the peasants of Menîn, four hours' journey from Damascus, garner up the winter snow in a cleft of the rock, in order to convey it to Damascus and the towns of the coast in the hot months - God treasures up the snow and hail above to cause it to descend according to opportunity. אצרות (comp. Psa 135:7) are the final causes of these phenomena which God has created - the form of the question, the design of which (which must not be forgotten) is ethical, not scientific, is regulated according to the infancy of the perception of natural phenomena among the ancients; but at the same time in accordance with the poet's task, and even, as here, in the choice of the agents of destruction, not merely hail, but also snow, according to the scene of the incident. Wetzstein has in his possession a writing of Muhammed el-Chatîb el-Bosrâwi, in which he describes a fearful fall of snow in Hauran, by which, in February 1860, innumerable herds of sheep, goats, and camels, and also many human beings perished.^[138] עת־צר might, according to Job 24:1; Job 19:11, signify a time of judgment for the oppressor, i.e., adversary; but it is better to be understood according to Job 36:16; Job 21:30, a time of distress: heavy falls of snow and tempestuous hail-storms bring hard times for men and cattle, and sometimes decide a war as by a divine decree (Jos 10:11, comp. Isa 28:17; Isa 30:30; Eze 13:13).
In Job 38:24 it is not, as in Job 38:19, the place whence light issues, but the mode of the distribution of light over the earth, that is intended; as in Job 38:24, the laws according to which the east wind flows forth, i.e., spreads over the earth. אור is not lightning (Schlottm.), but light in general: light and wind (instead of which the east wind is particularized, vid., p. 533) stand together as being alike untraceable in their courses. הפיץ, se diffundere, as Exo 5:12; 1Sa 13:8, Ges. §53, 2. In Job 38:25 the descent of torrents of rain inundating certain regions of the earth is intended - this earthward direction assigned to the water-spouts is likened to an aqueduct coming downwards from the sky - and it is only in Job 38:25, as in Job 28:26, that the words have reference to the lightning, which to man is untraceable, flashing now here, now there. This guiding of the rain to chosen parts of the earth extends also to the tenantless steppe. לא־אישׁ (for בּלא) is virtually an adj. (vid., on Job 12:24). The superlative combination שׁאה וּמשׁאה (from שׁוא = שׁאה, to be desolate, and to give forth a heavy dull sound, i.e., to sound desolate, vid., on Job 37:6), as Job 30:3 (which see). Not merely for the purposes of His rule among men does God direct the changes of the weather contrary to human foresight; His care extends also to regions where no human habitations are found.

Verses 28-30

Job 38:28-30 28 Hath the rain a father,
Or who begetteth the drops of dew? 29 Out of whose womb cometh the ice forth,
And who bringeth forth the hoar-frost of heaven? 30 The waters become hard like stone,
And the face of the deep is rolled together.
Rain and dew have no created father, ice and hoar-frost no created mother. The parallelism in both instances shows that מי הוליד asks after the one who begets, and מי ילדו the one who bears (vid., Hupfeld on Psa 2:7). בּטן is uterus, and meton. (at least in Arabic) progenies uteri; ex utero cujus is מבטן מי, in distinction from מאי־זה בטן, ex quo utero. אגלי־טל is excellently translated by the lxx, Codd. Vat. and Sin., βώλους (with Omega) δρόσου; Ges. and Schlottm. correct to βόλους, but βῶλος signifies not merely a clod, but also a lump and a ball. It is the particles of the dew holding together (lxx, Cod. Alex.: συνοχὰς καὶ βω. δρ.) in a globular form, from אגל, which does not belong to גּלל, but to Arab. ‘jil, retinere, II colligere (whence agı̂l, standing water, ma'‛gal, a pool, pond); אגלי is constr., like עגלי from עגל. The waters “hide themselves,” by vanishing as fluid, therefore: freeze. The surface of the deep (lxx ἀσεβοῦς, for which Zwingli has in marg. ἀβύσσου) “takes hold of itself,” or presses together (comp. Arab. lekda, crowding, synon. hugûm, a striking against) by forming itself into a firm solid mass (continuum, Job 41:9, comp. Job 37:10). Moreover, the questions all refer not merely to the analysis of the visible origin of the phenomena, but to their final causes.

Verses 31-33

Job 38:31-33 31 Canst thou join the twistings of the Pleiades,
Or loose the bands of Orion? 32 Canst thou bring forth the signs of the Zodiac at the right time,
And canst thou guide the Bear with its children? 33 Knowest thou the laws of heaven,
Or dost thou define its influence on the earth?
That מעדגּות here signifies bindings or twistings (from עדן = ענד, Job 31:36) is placed beyond question by the unanimous translations of the lxx (δεσμόν) and the Targ. (שׁירי = σειράς), the testimony of the Masora, according to which the word here has a different signification from 1Sa 15:32, and the language of the Talmud, in which מעדנין, Kêlim, c. 20, signifies the knots at the end of a mat, by loosing which it comes to pieces, and Succa, 13b, the bands (formed of rushes) with which willow-branches are fastened together above in order to form a booth (succa); but מדאני, Sabbat, 33a, signifies a bunch of myrtle (to smell on the Sabbath). מעדנות כּימה is therefore explained according to the Persian comparison of the Pleiades with a bouquet of jewels, mentioned on Job 9:9, and according to the comparison with a necklace (‛ipd-eth-thurajja), e.g., in Sadi in his Gulistan, p. 8 of Graf's translation: “as though the tops of the trees were encircled by the necklace of the Pleiades.” The Arabic name thurajja (diminutive feminine of tharwân) probably signifies the richly-adorned, clustered constellation. But כּימה signifies without doubt the clustered group,^[139], and thereby urges them on. - Wetzst.
On πλειάδες, which perhaps also bear this name as a compressed group (figuratively γότρυς) of several stars (ὅτι πλείους ὁμοῦ κατὰ συναγωγήν εἰσι), vid., Kuhn's Zeitschr. vi. 282-285.) and Beigel (in Ideler, Sternnamen, S. 147) does not translate badly: ”Canst thou not arrange together the rosette of diamonds (chain would be better) of the Pleiades?”
As to כּסיל, we firmly hold that it denotes Orion (according to which the Greek versions translate Ὠρίων, the Syriac gaboro, the Targ. נפלא or נפילא, the Giant). Orion and the Pleiades are visible in the Syrian sky longer in the year than with us, and there they come about 17º higher above the horizon than with us. Nevertheless the figure of a giant chained to the heavens cannot be rightly shown to be Semitic, and it is questionable whether כסיל is not rather, with Saad., Gecat., Abulwalid, and others, to be regarded as the Suhêl, i.e., Canopus, especially as this is placed as a sluggish helper (כסיל, Hebr. a fool, Arab. the slothful one, ignavus) in mythical relation to the constellation of the Bear, which here is called עישׁ, as Job 9:9 עשׁ, and is regarded as a bier, נעשׁ (even in the present day this is the name in the towns and villages of Syria), which the sons and daughters forming the attendants upon the corpse of their father, slain by Gedî, the Pole-star. Understood of Orion, משׁכות (with which Arab. msk, tenere, detinere, is certainly to be compared) are the chains (Arab. masakat, compes), with which he is chained to the sky; understood of Suhêl, the restraints which prevent his breaking away too soon and reaching the goal.^[140] In order to give help to the Gedî in this danger, the Suhêl appears in the south, and struggles towards the north with a twinkling brightness, but he has risen too late; the night passes away ere he reaches his goal. Later I frequently heard this story, which is generally known among the Hauranites. - Wetzst.
We add the following by way of explanation. The Pleiades encircle the Pole-star as do all stars, since it stands at the axis of the sky, but they are nearer to it than to Canopus by more than half the distance. This star of the first magnitude culminates about three hours later than the Pleiades, and rises, at the highest, only ten moon's diameters above the horizon of Damascusa significant figure, therefore, of ineffectual endeavour.) מזּרות is not distinct from מזּלות, 2Ki 23:5 (comp. מזּרך, “Thy star of fortune,” on Cilician coins), and denotes not the twenty-eight menâzil (from Arab. nzl, to descend, turn in, lodge) of the moon,^[141] but the twelve signs of the Zodiac, which were likewise imagined as menâzil, i.e., lodging-houses or burûg, strongholds, in which one after another the sun lodges as it describes the circle of the year.^[142]
The usage of the language transferred lzm also to the planets, which, because they lie in the equatorial plane of the sun, as the sun (although more irregularly), run through the constellations of the Zodiac. The question in Job 38:32 therefore means: canst thou bring forth the appointed zodiacal sign for each month, so that (of course with the variation which is limited to about two moon's diameters by the daily progress of the sun through the Zodiac) it becomes visible after sunset and is visible before sunset? On Job 38:33 vid., on Gen 1:14-19. משׁטר is construed after the analogy of רדה בּ, עצר, משׁל; and שׁמים, as sing. (Ew. §318, b).

Verses 34-38

Job 38:34-38 34 Dost thou raise thy voice to the clouds
That an overflow of waters may cover thee? 35 Dost thou send forth lightnings, and they go,
And say to thee: Here we are? 36 Who hath put wisdom in the reins,
Or who hath given understanding to the cock? 37 Who numbereth the strata of the clouds with wisdom
And the bottles of heaven, who emptieth them, 38 When the dust flows together into a mass,
And the clods cleave together?
As Job 38:25 was worded like Job 28:26, so Job 38:34 is worded like Job 22:11; the ך of תכסך is dageshed in both passages, as Job 36:2, Job 36:18, Hab 2:17. What Jehovah here denies to the natural power of man is possible to the power which man has by faith, as the history of Elijah shows: this, however, does not come under consideration here. In proof of divine omnipotence and human feebleness, Elihu constantly recurs to the rain and the thunder-storm with the lightning, which is at the bidding of God. Most moderns since Schultens therefore endeavour, with great violence, to make טחות and שׂכרי mean meteors and celestial phenomena. Eichh. (Hirz., Hahn) compares the Arabic name for the clouds, tachâ (tachwa), Ew. Arab. ḍiḥḥ, sunshine, with the former; the latter, whose root is שׂכה (סכה), spectare, is meant to be something that is remarkable in the heavens: an atmospheric phenomenon, a meteor (Hirz.), or a phenomenon caused by light (Ew., Hahn), so that e.g., Umbr. translates: “Who hath put wisdom in the dark clouds, and given understanding to the meteor?” But the meaning which is thus extorted from the words in favour of the connection borders closely upon absurdity. Why, then, shall טחות, from טוּח, Arab. ṭı̂ych, oblinere, adipe obducere, not signify here, as in Psa 51:8, the reins (embedded in a cushion of fat), and in fact as the seat of the predictive faculty, like כּליות, Job 19:27, as the seat of the innermost longing for the future; and particularly since here, after the constellations and the influences of the stars have just been spoken of, the mention of the gift of divination is not devoid of connection; and, moreover, as a glance at the next strophe shows, the connection which has been hitherto firmly kept to is already in process of being resolved?
If טחות signifies the reins, it is natural to interpret שׂכוי also psychologically, and to translate the intellect (Targ. I, Syr., Arab.), or similarly (Saad., Gecat.), as Ges., Carey, Renan, Schlottm. But there is another rendering handed down which is worthy of attention, although not once mentioned by Rosenm., Hirz., Schlottm., or Hahn, according to which שׂכוי signifies a cock, gallum. We read in b. Rosch ha-Schana, 26a: ”When I came to Techûm-Kên-Nishraja, R. Simeon b. Lakish relates, the bride was there called נינפי and the cock שׂכוי, according to which Job 38:36 is to be interpreted: שׂכוי = תרנגול.” The Midrash interprets in the same way, Jalkut, §905, beginning: “R. Levi says: In Arabic the cock is called סכוא.” We compare with this, Wajikra rabba, c. 1: “סוכו is Arabic; in Arabia a prophet is called סכוא;” whence it is to be inferred that שׂכוי, as is assumed, describes the cock as a seer, as a prophet.
As to the formation of the word, it would certainly be without parallel (Ew., Olsh.) if the word had the tone on the penult., but Codd. and the best old editions have the Munach by the final syllable; Norzi, who has overlooked this, at least notes שׂכוי with the accent on the ult. as a various reading. It is a secondary noun, Ges. §86, 5, a so-called relative noun (De Sacy, Gramm. Arabe, §768): שׂכרי, speculator, from שׂכו (שׂכוּ, שׂכה), speculatio, as פּלאי, Jdg 13:18 (comp. Psa 139:6), miraculosus, from פּלא, a cognate form to the Chald. סכוי (סכואה), of similar meaning. In connection with this primary signification, speculator, it is intelligible how סכוי in Samaritan (vid., Lagarde on Proverbs, S. 62) can signify the eye; here, however, in a Hebrew poet, the cock, of which e.g., Gregory says: Speculator semper in altitudine stat, ut quidquid venturum sit longe prospiciat. That this signification speculator = gallus^[143] was generally accepted at least in the Talmudic age, the Beracha prescribed to him who hears the cock crow: “Blessed be He who giveth the cock (שׂכוי) knowledge to distinguish between day and night!” shows. In accordance with this, Targ. II translates: who has given understanding לתרנגול בּרא, gallo sylvestri (whereas Targ. I ללבּא, cordi, scil. hominis), to praise his Lord? and Jer.: (quis posuit in visceribus hominis sapientiam) et quis dedit gallo intelligentiam. This traditional rendering, condemned as talmudicum commentum (Ges.), we follow rather than the ”phenomenon” of the moderns who guess at a meaning. What is questioned in Cicero, de divin. ii. 26: Quid in mentem venit Callistheni dicere, Deos gallis signum dedisse cantandi, quum id vel natura vel casus efficere potuisset, Jehovah here claims for Himself. The weather-prophet κατ ̓ ἐξοχήν among animals appropriately appears in this astrologico-meteorological connection by the side of the reins as, according to the Semitic view, a medium of augury (Psychol. S. 268f.). The Koran also makes the cock the watchman who wakes up the heavenly hosts to their duty; and Masius, in his Studies of Nature, has shown how high the cock is placed as being prophetically (for divination) gifted, Moreover, the worship of cocks in the idolatry of the Semites was a service rendered to the stars: the Sabians offered cocks, probably (vid., Chwolsohn, ii. 87) as the white cock of Jezides, regarded by them as a symbol of the sun (Deutsch. Morgenländ. Zeitschr. 1862, S. 365f.).
In Job 38:37 Jerome translates: et concentum coelorum quis dormire faciet; נבלי, however, does not here signify harps, but bottles; and השׁכּיב is not: to lay to rest, but to lay down = to empty, pour out, which the Kal also, like the Arab. sakaba, directly signifies. בּצקת might be taken actively: when it pours, but according to 1Ki 22:35 the intransitive rendering is also possible: when the dust pours forth, i.e., flows together, למוּצק, to what is poured out, i.e., not: to the fluid, but in contrast: to a molten mass, i.e., as cast metal (to be explained not according to Job 22:16, but according to Job 37:18), for the dry, sandy, dusty earth is made firm by the downfall of the rain (Arab. ruṣidat, firmata est terra imbre, comp. Arab. lbbd, pluviam emisit donec arena cohaereret). רגבים, glebae, as Job 21:33, from רגב, Arab. rjb, in the primary signification, which as it seems must be supposed: to bring together, from which the significations branch off, to thicken, become firm (muraggab, supported), and to be seized with terror.

Verses 39-41

Job 38:39-41 39 Dost thou hunt for the prey of the lioness
And still the desire of the young lions, 40 When they couch in the dens,
Sit in the thicket lying in wait for prey? 41 Who provideth for the raven its food,
When its young ones cry to God,
They wander about without food?
On the wealth of the Old Testament language in names for the lion, vid., on Job 4:10. לביא can be used of the lioness; the more exact name of the lioness is לביּה, for לביא is = לבי, whence לבאים, lions, and לבאות, lionesses. The lioness is mentioned first, because she has to provide for her young ones (גּוּרים); then the lions that are still young, but yet are left to themselves, כּפירים. The phrase מלּא חיּה (comp. חיּה of life that needs nourishment, Job 33:20) is equivalent to מלּא נפשׁ, Pro 6:30 (Psychol. S. 204 ad fin.). The book of Psalms here furnishes parallels to every word: comp. on Job 38:39, Psa 104:21; on ישׁחוּ, Psa 10:10;^[144] on מעונות, lustra, Psa 104:22 (compared on Job 37:8 already); on סכּה, סך, which is used just in the same way, Psa 10:9; Jer 25:38. The picture of the crying ravens has its parallel in Psa 147:9. כּי, quum, is followed by the fut. in the signif. of the praes., as Psa 11:3. As here, in the Sermon on the Mount in Luk 12:24 the ravens, which by their hoarse croaking make themselves most observed everywhere among birds that seek their food, are mentioned instead of the fowls of heaven.

Chap. 39

Verses 1-4

Job 39:1-4 1 Dost thou know the bearing time of the wild goats of the rock?
Observest thou the circles of the hinds? 2 Dost thou number the months which they fulfil,
And knowest thou the time of their bringing forth? 3 They bow down, they let their young break through,
They cast off their pains. 4 Their young ones gain strength, grow up in the desert,
They run away and do not return.
The strophe treats of the female chamois or steinbocks, ibices (perhaps including the certainly different kinds of chamois), and stags. The former are called יעלים, from יעל, Arab. w‛l (a secondary formation from עלה, Arab. ‛lâ), to mount, therefore: rock-climbers. חולל is inf. Pil.: τὸ ὠδίνειν, comp. the Pul. Job 15:7. שׁמר, to observe, exactly as Ecc 11:4; 1Sa 1:12; Zec 11:11. In Job 39:2 the question as to the expiration of the time of bearing is connected with that as to the time of bringing forth. תּספּור, plene, as Job 14:16; לדתּנה (littâna, like עת = עדתּ) with an euphonic termination for לדתּן, as Gen 42:36; Gen 21:29, and also out of pause, Rth 1:19, Ges. §91, 1, rem. 2. Instead of תּפלּחנה Olsh. wishes to read תּפלּטנה, but this (synon. תמלטנה) would be: they let slip away; the former (synon. תבקענה): they cause to divide, i.e., to break through (comp. Arab. felâh, the act of breaking through, freedom, prosperity). On כּרע, to kneel down as the posture of one in travail, vid., 1Sa 4:19. “They cast off their pains” is not meant of an easy working off of the after-pains (Hirz., Schlottm.), but חבל signifies in this phrase, as Schultens has first shown, meton. directly the foetus, as Arab. ḥabal, plur. ahbâl, and ὠδίν, even of a child already grown up, as being the fruit of earlier travail, e.g., in Aeschylus, Agam. 1417f.; even the like phrase, ῥίψαι ὠδῖνα = edere foetum, is found in Euripides, Ion 45. Thus born with ease, the young animals grow rapidly to maturity (חלם, pinguescere, pubescere, whence חלום, a dream as the result of puberty, vid., Psychol. S. 282), grow in the desert (בּבּר, Targ. = בּחוּץ, vid., i. 329, note), seek the plain, and return not again למו, sibi h. e. sui juris esse volentes (Schult.), although it might also signify ad eas, for the Hebr. is rather confused on the question of the distinction of gender, and even in חבליהם and בניהם the masc. is used ἐπικοίνως. We, however, prefer to interpret according to Job 6:19; Job 24:16. Moreover, Bochart is right: Non hic agitur de otiosa et mere speculativa cognitione, sed de ea cognitione, quae Deo propria est, qua res omnes non solum novit, sed et dirigit atque gubernat.

Verses 5-8

Job 39:5-8 5 Who hath sent forth the wild ass free,
And who loosed the bands of the wild ass, 6 Whose house I made the steppe,
And his dwelling the salt country? 7 He scorneth the tumult of the city,
He heareth not the noise of the driver. 8 That which is seen upon the mountains is his pasture,
And he sniffeth after every green thing.
On the wild ass (not: ass of the forest).^[145]
In Hebr. and Arab. it is פּרא (ferâ or himâr el-wahsh, i.e., asinus ferus), and Aram. ערוד; the former describes it as a swift-footed animal, the latter as an animal shy and difficult to be tamed by the hand of man; “Kulan” is its Eastern Asiatic name. lxx correctly translates: τίς δὲ ἐστιν ὁ ἀφεὶς ὄνον ἄγριον ἐλεύθερον. חפשׁי is the acc. of the predicate (comp. Gen 33:2; Jer 22:30). Parallel with ערבה (according to its etymon perhaps, land of darkness, terra incognita) is מלחה, salt adj. or (sc. ארץ) a salt land, i.e., therefore unfruitful and incapable of culture, as the country round the Salt Sea of Palestine: that the wild ass even gladly licks the salt or natron of the desert, is a matter of fact, and may be assumed, since all wild animals that feed on plants have a partiality, which is based on chemical laws of life, for licking slat. On Job 39:8 Ew. observes, to render יתוּר as “what is espied” is insecure, “on account of the structure of the verse” (Gramm. S. 419, Anm.). This reason is unintelligible; and in general there is no reason for rendering יתוּר, after lxx, Targ., Jer., and others, as an Aramaic 3 fut. with a mere half vowel instead of Kametz before the tone = יתוּר, which is without example in Old Testament Hebrew (for יהוּא, Ecc 11:3, follows the analogy of יהי), but יתוּר signifies either abundantia (after the form יבוּל, לחוּם Job 20:23, from יתר, Arab. wtr, p. 571) or investigabile, what can be searched out (after the form יקוּם, that which exists, from תּוּר, Arab. târ, to go about, look about), which, with Olsh. §212, and most expositors, we prefer.

Verses 9-12

Job 39:9-12 9 Will the oryx be willing to serve thee,
Or will he lodge in thy crib? 10 Canst thou bind the oryx in the furrow with a leading rein,
Or will he harrow the valleys, following thee? 11 Wilt thou trust him because his strength is great,
And leave thy labour to him? 12 Wilt thou confide in him to bring in thy sowing,
And to garner thy threshing-floor?
In correct texts רים has a Dagesh in the Resh, and היאבה the accent on the penult., as Pro 11:21 ינּקה רע, and Jer 39:12 רּע מאוּמה. The tone retreats according to the rule, Ges. §29, 3, b; and the Dagesh is, as also when the second word begins with an aspirate,^[146]Dag. forte conj., which the Resh also takes, Pro 15:1 מענה־רּך, exceptionally, according to the rule, Ges. §20, 2, a. In all, it occurs thirteen times with Dagesh in the Old Testament - a relic of a mode of pointing which treated the ר (as in Arabic) as a letter capable of being doubled (Ges. §22, 5), that has been supplanted in the system of pointing that gained the ascendency. רים (Psa 22:22, רם) is contracted from ראם (Psa 92:11, plene, ראים), which (= ראם) is of like form with Arab. ri'm (Olsh. §154, a).^[147]
Such, in the present day in Syria, is the name of the gazelle that is for the most part white with a yellow back and yellow stripes in the face (Antilope leucoryx, in distinction from Arab. ‛ifrı̂, the earth-coloured, dirty-yellow Antilope oryx, and Arab. ḥmrı̂, himrı̂, the deer-coloured Antilope dorcas); the Talmud also (b. Zebachim, 113b; Bathra, 74b) combines ראימא and אורזילא or ארזילא, a gazelle (Arab. gazâl), and therefore reckons the reêm to the antelope genus, of which the gazelle is a species; and the question, Job 39:10, shows that an animal whose home is on the mountains is intended, viz., as Bochart, and recently Schlottm. (making use of an academic treatise of Lichtenstein on the antelopes, 1824), has proved, the oryx, which the lxx also probably understands when it translates μονοκέρως; for the Talmud. קרש, mutilated from it, is, according to Chullin, 59b, a one-horned animal, and is more closely defined as טביא דבי עילאי, “gazelle (antelope) of Be (Beth)-Illâi” (comp. Lewysohn, Zoologie des Talmuds, 1858, §146).
The oryx also appears on Egyptian monuments sometimes with two horns, but mostly with one variously curled; and both Aristotle^[148] and Pliny describe it as a one-horned cloven-hoof; so that one must assent to the supposition of a one-horned variety of the oryx (although as a fact of natural history it is not yet fully established), as then there is really tolerably certain information of a one-horned antelope both in Upper Asia and in Central Africa;^[149] and therefore there is sufficient ground for seeking the origin of the tradition of the unicorn in an antelope, - perhaps rather like a horse, - with one horn rising out of the two points of ossification over the frontal suture. The proper buffalo, Bos bubalus, cannot therefore be intended, because it only came from India to Western Asia and Europe at a more recent date, but also not any other species whatever of this animal (Carey and others), which is recognisable by its flat horns, which are also near together, and its forbidding, staring, bloodshot eyes; for it is tameable, and is (even in modern Syria) used as a domestic animal. On the other hand there are antelopes which somewhat resemble the horse, others the ox (whence βούβαλος, βούβαλις, is a name for the antelope), others the deer and the ass. Schultens erroneously considers ראם to be the buffalo, being misled by a passage in the Divan of the Hudheilites, which gives the ri'm the by-name of dhu chadam, i.e., oxen-like white-footed, which exactly applies to the A. oryx or even the A. leucoryx; for the former has white feet and legs striped lengthwise with black stripes, the latter white feet and legs. Just as little reason is there for imagining the rhinoceros after Aquila (and in part Jerome); ῥινοκέρως is nothing but an unhappy rendering of the μονοκέρως of the lxx. The question in Job 39:10, as already observed, requires an animal that inhabits the mountains.
On אבה, to be willing = to take up, receive. The “furrow (תּלם, sulcus, not porca, the ridge between the furrows) of his cord” is that which it is said to break up by means of the ploughshare, being led by a rein. אחריך refers to the leader, who goes just before or at the side; according to Hahn, to one who has finished the sowing which precedes the harrowing; but it is more natural to imagine the leader of the animal that is harrowing, which is certainly not left to itself. On כּי, Job 39:12, as an exponent of the obj. vid., Ew. §336, b. The Chethib here uses the Kal שׁוּב transitively: to bring back (viz., that which was sown as harvested), which is possible (vid., Job 42:10). גרנך, Job 39:12, is either a locative (into thy threshing-floor) or acc. of the obj. per synecd. continentis pro contento, as Rth 3:2; Mat 3:12. The position of the question from beginning to end assumes an animal outwardly resembling the yoke-ox, as the ראם is also elsewhere put with the ox, Deu 33:17; Psa 29:6; Isa 34:7. But the conclusion at length arrived at by Hahn and in Gesenius' Handwörterbuch, that on this very account the buffalo is to be understood, is a mistake: A. oryx and leucoryx are both (for this very reason not distinguished by the ancients) entirely similar to the ox; they are not only ruminants, like the ox, with a like form of the hoof, but also of a plump form, which makes them appear to be of the ox tribe.

Verses 13-18

Job 39:13-18 13 The wing of the ostrich vibrates joyously,
Is she pious, wing and feather? 14 No, she leaveth her eggs in the earth
And broodeth over the dust, 15 Forgetting that a foot may crush them,
And the beast of the field trample them. 16 She treateth her young ones harshly as if they were not hers;
In vain is her labour, without her being distressed. 17 For Eloah hath caused her to forget wisdom,
And gave her no share of understanding. 18 At the time when she lasheth herself aloft,
She derideth the horse and horseman.
As the wild ass and the ox-like oryx cannot be tamed by man, and employed in his service like the domestic ass and ox, so the ostrich, although resembling the stork in its stilt-like structure, the colour of its feathers, and its gregarious life, still has characteristics totally different from those one ought to look for according to this similarity. רננים, a wail, prop. a tremulous shrill sound (vid., Job 39:23), is a name of the female ostrich, whose peculiar cry is called in Arabic zimâr (זמר). נעלס (from עלס, which in comparison with עלץ, עלז, rarely occurs) signifies to make gestures of joy. אם, Job 39:13, is an interrogative an; חסידה, pia, is a play upon the name of the stork, which is so called: pia instar ciconiae (on this figure of speech, comp. Mehren's Rehtorik der Araber, S. 178). כּי, Job 39:14, establishes the negation implied in the question, as e.g., Isa 28:28. The idea is not that the hen-ostrich abandons the hatching of her eggs to the earth (עזב ל as Psa 16:10), and makes them “glow over the dust” (Schlottm.), for the maturing energy compensating for the sitting of the parent bird proceeds from the sun's heat, which ought to have been mentioned; one would also expect a Hiph. instead of the Piel תּחמּם, which can be understood only of hatching by her own warmth. The hen-ostrich also really broods herself, although from time to time she abandons the חמּם to the sun.^[150]
That which contrasts with the φιλοστοργία of the stork, which is here made prominent, is that she lays here eggs in a hole in the ground, and partly, when the nest is full, above round about it, while חסידה ברושׁים ביתה, Psa 104:17. רננים is construed in accordance with its meaning as fem. sing., Ew. §318, a. Since she acts thus, what next happens consistently therewith is told by the not aoristic but only consecutive ותּשׁכּח: and so she forgets that the foot may crush (זוּר, to press together, break by pressure, as הזּוּרה, Isa 59:5 = הזּוּרה, that which is crushed, comp. לנה = לנה, Zec 5:4) them (i.e., the eggs, Ges. §146, 3), and the beast of the field may trample them down, crush them (דּוּשׁ as Arab. dâs, to crush by treading upon anything, to tread out).

Verse 16

The difficulty of הקשׁיח (from קשׁח, Arab. qsḥ, hardened from קשׁה, Arab. qsâ) being used of the hen-ostrich in the masc., may be removed by the pointing הקשׁיח (Ew.); but this alteration is unnecessary, since the Hebr. also uses the masc. for the fem. where it might be regarded as impossible (vid., Job 39:3, and comp. e.g., Isa 32:11.). Jer. translates correctly according to the sense: quasi non sint sui, but ל is not directly equivalent to כּ; what is meant is, that by the harshness of her conduct she treats her young as not belonging to her, so that they become strange to her, Ew. §217, d. In Job 39:16 the accentuation varies: in vain (לריק with Rebia mugrasch) is her labour that is devoid of anxiety; or: in vain is her labour (לריק( ruobal r with Tarcha, יגיעהּ with Munach vicarium) without anxiety (on her part); or: in vain is her labour (לריק with Mercha, יגיעה with Rebia mugrasch), yet she is without anxiety. The middle of these renderings (לריק in all of them, like Isa 49:4 = לריק, Isa 65:23 and freq.) seems to us the most pleasing: the labour of birth and of the brooding undertaken in places where the eggs are put beyond the danger of being crushed, is without result, without the want of success distressing her, since she does not anticipate it, and therefore also takes no measures to prevent it. The eggs that are only just covered with earth, or that lie round about the nest, actually become a prey to the jackals, wild-cats, and other animals; and men can get them for themselves one by one, if they only take care to prevent their footprints being recognised; for if the ostrich observes that its nest is discovered, it tramples upon its own eggs, and makes its nest elsewhere (Schlottm., according to Lichtenstein's Südafrik. Reise). That it thus abandons its eggs to the danger of being crushed and to plunder, arises, according to Job 39:17, from the fact that God has caused it to forget wisdom, i.e., as Job 39:17 explains, has extinguished in it, deprived it of, the share thereof (ב as Isa 53:12, lxx ἐν, as Act 8:21) which it might have had. It is only one of the stupidities of the ostrich that is made prominent here; the proverbial ahmaq min en-na‛âme, “more foolish than the ostrich,” has its origin in more such characteristics. But if the care with which other animals guard their young ones is denied to it, it has in its stead another remarkable characteristic: at the time when (כּעת here followed by an elliptical relative clause, which is clearly possible, just as with בּעת, Job 6:17) it stretches (itself) on high, i.e., it starts up with alacrity from its ease (on the radical signification of המריא = המרה), and hurries forth with a powerful flapping of its wings, half running half flying, it derides the horse and its rider - they do not overtake it, it is the swiftest of all animals; wherefore Arab. '‛dâ mn 'l-dlı̂m ‛zalı̂m, equivalent to delı̂m according to a less exact pronunciation, supra, p. 582, note) and Arab. ‘nfr mn 'l-n‛âmt, fleeter than the ostrich, is just as proverbial as the above Arab. ‘ḥmq mn 'l-wa‛nat; and “on ostrich's wings” is equivalent to driving along with incomparable swiftness. Moreover, on תּמריא and תּשׂחק, which refer to the female, it is to be observed that she is very anxious, and deserts everything in her fright, while the male ostrich does not forsake his young, and flees no danger.^[151],

Verses 19-25

Job 39:19-25 19 Dost thou give to the horse strength?
Dost thou clothe his neck with flowing hair? 20 Dost thou cause him to leap about like the grasshopper?
The noise of his snorting is a terror! 21 He paweth the ground in the plain, and boundeth about with strength.
He advanceth to meet an armed host. 22 He laugheth at fear, and is not affrighted,
And turneth not back from the sword. 23 The quiver rattleth over him,
The glittering lance and spear. 24 With fierceness and rage he swalloweth the ground,
And standeth not still, when the trumpet soundeth.
25 He saith at every blast of the trumpet: Ha, ha!
And from afar he scenteth the battle,
The thundering of the captains and the shout of war.
After the ostrich, which, as the Arabs say, is composed of the nature of a bird and a camel, comes the horse in its heroic beauty, and impetuous lust for the battle, which is likewise an evidence of the wisdom of the Ruler of the world - a wisdom which demands the admiration of men. This passage of the book of Job, says K. Löffler, in his Gesch. des Pferdes (1863), is the oldest and most beautiful description of the horse. It may be compared to the praise of the horse in Hammer-Purgstall's Duftkörner; it deserves more than this latter the praise of majestic simplicity, which is the first feature of classic superiority. Jer. falsely renders Job 39:19: aut circumdabis collo ejus hinnitum; as Schlottm., who also wishes to be so understood: Dost thou adorn his neck with the voice of thunder? The neck (צוּאר, prop. the twister, as Persic gerdân, gerdan, from צוּר, Arab. ṣâr, to twist by pressure, to turn, bend, as Pers. from gerdı̂den, to turn one's self, twist) has nothing to do with the voice of neighing. But רעמה also does not signify dignity (Ew. 113, d), but the mane, and is not from רעם = ראם = רם, the hair of the mane, as being above, like λοφιά, but from רעם, tremere, the mane as quivering, trembling (Eliz. Smith: the shaking mane);

like φόβη, according to Kuhn, cogn. with σόβη, the tail, from φοβεῖν (σοβεῖν), to wag, shake, scare, comp. άΐ́σσεσθαι of the mane, Il. vi. 510.

Verse 20

The motion of the horse, which is intended by תרעישׁנּוּ (רעשׁ, Arab. r‛s, r‛š, tremere, trepidare), is determined according to the comparison with the grasshopper: what is intended is a curved motion forwards in leaps, now to the right, now to the left, which is called the caracol, a word used in horsemanship, borrowed from the Arab. hargala-l-farasu (comp. חרגּל), by means of the Moorish Spanish; moreover, Arab. r‛s is used of the run of the ostrich and the flight of the dove in such “successive lateral and oblique motions” (Carey). nachar, Job 39:20, is not the neighing of the horse, but its snorting through the nostrils (comp. Arab. nachı̂r, snoring, a rattling in the throat), Greek φρύαγμα, Lat. fremitus (comp. Aeschylus, Septem c. Th. 374, according to the text of Hermann: ἵππος χαλινῶν δ ̓ ὡς κατασθμαίνων βρέμει); הוד, however, might signify pomp (his pompous snorting), but perhaps has its radical signification, according to which it corresponds to the Arab. hawı̂d, and signifies a loud strong sound, as the peal of thunder (hawı̂d er-ra‛d),' the howling of the stormy wind (hawı̂d er-rijâh), and the like.^[152]
The substantival clause is intended to affirm that its dull-toned snort causes or spreads terror. In Job 39:21 the plur. alternates with the sing., since, as it appears, the representation of the many pawing hoofs is blended with that of the pawing horse, according to the well-known line,Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum (Virgil, Aen. viii. 596); or, since this is said of the galloping horse, according to the likewise Virgilian line,CavatqueTellurem, et solido graviter sonat ungula cornu (Georg. iii. 87 f). חפר is, as the Arab. hâfir, hoof, shows, the proper word for the horse's impatient pawing of the ground (whence it then, as in Job 39:29, signifies rimari, scrutari). עמק is the plain as the place of contest; for the description, as now becomes still more evident, refers to the war-horse. The verb שׂישׂ (שׂוּשׂ) has its radical signification exsultare (comp. Arab. s]âts, skirta'n, of the foetus) here; and since בּכח, not בּכּח, is added to it, it is not to be translated: it rejoices in its strength, but: it prances or is joyous with strength, lxx γαυριᾷ ἐν Ἰσχύΐ. The difference between the two renderings is, however, scarcely perceptible. נשׁק, armament, Job 39:21, is meton. the armed host of the enemy; אשׁפּה, “the quiver,” is, however, not used metonymically for the arrows of the enemy whizzing about the horse (Schult.), but Job 39:23 is the concluding description of the horse that rushes on fearlessly, proudly, and impetuously in pursuit, under the rattle and glare of the equipment of its rider (Schlottm. and others). רנה (cogn. of רנן), of the rattling of the quiver, as Arab. ranna, ranima, of the whirring of the bow when the arrow is despatched; to point it תּרנּה (Pro 1:20; Pro 8:3), instead of תּרנה, would be to deprive the language of a word supported by the dialects (vid., Ges. Thes.). On Job 39:24 we may compare the Arab. iltahama-l-farasu-l-arda, the horse swallows up the ground, whence lahimm, lahı̂m, a swallower = swift-runner; so here: with boisterous fierceness and angry impatience (בּרעשׁ ורגז) it swallows up the ground, i.e., passes so swiftly over it that long pieces vanish so rapidly before it, as though it greedily sucked them up (גּמּא intensive of גּמא, whence גּמא, the water-sucking papyrus); a somewhat differently applied figure is nahab-el-arda, i.e., according to Silius' expression, rapuit campum. The meaning of Job 39:24 is, as in Virgil, Georg. iii. 83f.:Tum si qua sonum procul arma dedere,Stare loco nescit; and in Aeschylus, Septem, 375: ὅστις βοὴν σάλπιγγος ὁρμαίνει (Hermann, ὀργαίνεἰ μένων (impatiently awaiting the call of the trumpet). האמין signifies here to show stability (vid., Genesis, S. 367f.) in the first physical sense (Bochart, Rosenm., and others): it does not stand still, i.e., will not be held, when (כּי, quum) the sound of the war-trumpet, i.e., when it sounds. שׁופר is the signal-trumpet when the army was called together, e.g., Jdg 3:27; to gather the army that is in pursuit of the enemy, 2Sa 2:28; when the people rebelled, 2Sa 20:1; when the army was dismissed at the end of the war, 2Sa 20:22; when forming for defence and for assault, e.g., Amo 3:6; and in general the signal of war, Jer 4:19. As often as this is heard (בּדי, in sufficiency, i.e., happening at any time = quotiescunque), it makes known its lust of war by a joyous neigh, even from afar, before the collision has taken place; it scents (praesagit according to Pliny's expression) the approaching conflict, (scents even in anticipation) the thundering command of the chiefs that may soon be heard, and the cry of battle giving loose to the assault. “Although,” says Layard (New Discoveries, p. 330), ”docile as a lamb, and requiring no other guide than the halter, when the Arab mare hears the war-cry of the tribe, and sees the quivering spear of her rider, her eyes glitter with fire, her blood-red nostrils open wide, her neck is nobly arched, and her tail and mane are raised and spread out to the wind. The Bedouin proverb says, that a high-bred mare when at full speed should hide her rider between her neck and her tail.”

Verses 26-30

Job 39:26-30 26 Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom,
Doth it spread its wings towards the south? 27 Or is it at thy command that the eagle soareth aloft,
And buildeth its nest on high? 28 It inhabiteth the rock, and buildeth its nest
Upon the crag of the rock and fastness. 29 From thence it seeketh food,
Its eyes see afar off. 30 And its young ones suck up blood;
And where the slain are, there is it.
The ancient versions are unanimous in testifying that, according to the signification of the root, נץ signifies the hawk (which is significant in the Hieroglyphics): the soaring one, the high-flyer (comp. Arab. nṣṣ, to rise, struggle forwards, and Arab. nḍḍ, to raise the wings for flight). The Hiph. יאבר- (jussive form in the question, as Job 13:27) might signify: to get feathers, plumescere (Targ., Jer.), but that gives a tame question; wherefore Gregory understands the plumescit of the Vulgate of moulting, for which purpose the hawk seeks the sunny side. But האביר alone, by itself, cannot signify “to get new feathers;” moreover, an annual moulting is common to all birds, and prominence is alone given to the new feathering of the eagle in the Old Testament, Psa 103:5; Mic 1:16, comp. Isa 40:31 (lxx πτεροφυήσουσιν ὡς ἀετοί).^[153]
Thus, then, the point of the question will lie in לתימן: the hawk is a bird of passage, God has endowed it with instinct to migrate to the south as the winter season is approaching.
In Job 39:27 the circle of the native figures taken from animal life, which began with the lion, the king of quadrupeds, is now closed with the eagle, the king of birds. It is called נשׁר, from נשׁר, Arab. nsr, vellere; as also vultur (by virtue of a strong power of assimilation = vultor) is derived from vellere, - a common name of the golden eagle, the lamb's vulture, the carrion-kite (Cathartes percnopterus), and indeed also of other kinds of kites and falcons. There is nothing to prevent our understanding the eagle κατ ̓ εξοχήν, viz., the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaëtos), in the present passage; for even to this, corpses, though not already putrified, are a welcome prey. In Job 39:27 we must translate either: and is it at thy command that ... ? or: is it so that (as in הכי) at thy command ... ? The former is more natural here. מצוּדה, Job 39:28, signifies prop. specula (from צוּד, to spy); then, however, as Arab. masâd (referred by the original lexicons to masada), the high hill, and the mountain-top. The rare form יעלעוּ, for which Ges., Olsh., and others wish to read לעלעוּ or ילעלעוּ (from לוּע, deglutire), is to be derived from עלע, a likewise secondary form out of עלעל (from עוּל, to suck, to give suck), (Note: The Arab. ‛alla does not belong here: it gains the signification iterum bibere from the primary signification of “coming over or upon anything,” which branches out in various ways: to take a second, third, etc., drink after the first. More on this point on Isa 3:4.
Supplementary note: The quadriliteral עלעל to be supposed, is not to be derived from עלל, and is not, as it recently has been, to be compared with Arab. ‛ll, “to drink.” This Arab. verb does not signify “to drink” at all, but, among many other branchings out of its general primary signification, related to עלה, Arab. ‛lâ, also signifies: “to take a second, third, etc., drink after the first,” concerning which more details will be given elsewhere. עלעל goes back to עוּל, lactare, with the middle vowel, whence also עויל, Job 16:11; Job 12:18; Job 21:11 (which see). The Hauran dialect has ‛âlûl (plur. ‛awâlı̂l), like the Hebr. עולל (עולל = מעולל), in the signification juvenis, and especially juvencus (comp. infra, p. 689, note 3, “but they are heifers,” Arab. illâ‛awâlı̂l).) like שׁרשׁ out of שׁרשׁר (from שׁרר, Arab. srr, to make firm), Ew. §118, a, comp. Fürst, Handwörterbuch, sub עוּל, since instances are wanting in favour of עלע being formed out of לעלע (Jesurun, p. 164). Schult. not inappropriately compares even גלג = גלגל in גּלגּתא, Γολγοθᾶ = גּלגּלתּא. The concluding words, Job 39:30, are perhaps echoed in Mat 24:28. High up on a mountain-peak the eagle builds its eyrie, and God has given it a remarkably sharp vision, to see far into the depth below the food that is there for it and its young ones. Not merely from the valley in the neighbourhood of its eyrie, but often from distant plains, which lie deep below on the other side of the mountain range, it seizes its prey, and rises with it even to the clouds, and bears it home to its nest.^[154]
Thus does God work exceeding strangely, but wonderously, apparently by contradictions, but in truth most harmoniously and wisely, in the natural world.

Chap. 40

Verses 1-3

Job 40:1-3 1 Then Jehovah answered Job, and said: 2 Will now the censurer contend with the Almighty?
Let the instructor of Eloah answer it! 3 Then Job answered Jehovah, and said:
With Job 40:1; Job 38:1 is again taken up, because the speech of Jehovah has now in some measure attained the end which was assigned to it as an answer to Job's outburst of censure. רב is inf. abs., as Jdg 11:25; it is left to the hearer to give to the simple verbal notion its syntactic relation in accordance with the connection; here it stands in the sense of the fut. (comp. 2Ki 4:43): num litigabit, Ges. §131, 4, b. The inf. abs. is followed by יסּור as subj., which (after the form שׁכּור) signifies a censurer and fault-finder, moomeetee's. The question means, will Job persist in this contending with God? He who sets God right, as though he knew everything better than He, shall answer the questions put before him.

Verses 4-5

Job 40:4-5 4 Behold, I am too mean: what shall I answer Thee?
I lay my hand upon my mouth. 5 Once have I spoken, and will not begin again;
And twice - I will do it no more.
He is small, i.e., not equal to the task imposed, therefore he keeps his mouth firmly closed (comp. Job 21:5; Job 29:9), for whatever he might say would still not be to the point. Once he has dared to criticise God's doings; a second time (שׁתּים = שׁנית, Ges. §120, 5) he ventures it no more, for God's wondrous wisdom and all-careful love dazzle him, and he gladly bows.
But how? Is not the divine speech altogether different from what one ought to expect? One expects to hear from the mouth of Jehovah something unheard of in the previous course of the drama, and in this expectation we find ourselves disappointed at the outset. For one need only look back and read Job 9:4-10, where Job acknowledges and describes God as a wise and mighty Lord over the natural world, especially as an irresistible Ruler over everything great in it; Job 12:7-10, where he refers to the creatures of the sky and deep as proofs of God's creative power; Job 12:11-25, where he sketches the grandest picture of God's terrible doings in nature and among men; Job 26:5-14, where he praises God as the Creator and Lord of all things, and describes what he says concerning Him as only a faint echo of the thunder of His might; Job 28:23, where he ascribes absolute wisdom to Him as the Creator of and Ruler of the world. If one ponders these passages of Job's speeches, he will not be able to say that the speech of Jehovah, in the exhibition of the creative power and wisdom of God, which is its theme, would make Job conscious of anything which was previously unknown to him; and it is accordingly asked, What, then, is there that is new in the speech of Jehovah by which the great effect is brought about, that Job humbles himself in penitence, and becomes ready for the act of redemption which follows?
It has indeed never occurred to Job to desire to enter into a controversy with God concerning the works of creation; he is far from the delusion of being able to stand such a test; he knows in general, that if God were willing to contend with him, he would not be able to answer God one in a thousand, Job 9:3. And yet God closely questioned him, and thereby Job comes to the perception of his sin - how comes it to pass? Has the plot of the drama perhaps failed in this point? Has the poet made use of means unsuited to the connection of the whole, to bring about the needful effect, viz., the repentance of Job, - because, perhaps, the store of his thoughts was exhausted? But this poet is not so poor, and we shall therefore be obliged to try and understand the disposition of the speech of Jehovah before we censure it.
When one of Job's last words before the appearing of Jehovah was the word שׁדי יענני, Job thereby desired God's decision concerning the testimony of his innocence. This wish is in itself not sinful; yea, it is even a fruit of his hidden faith, when he casts the look of hope away from his affliction and the accusation of the friends, into the future to God as his Vindicator and Redeemer. But that wish becomes sinful when he looks upon his affliction as a de facto accusation on the part of God, because he cannot think of suffering and sin as separable, and because he is conscious of his innocence, looks upon it as a decree of God, his opponent and his enemy, which is irreconcilable with the divine justice. This Job's condition of conflict and temptation is the prevailing one; his faith is beclouded, and breaks through the night which hangs over him only in single rays. The result of this condition of conflict is the sinful character which that wish assumes: it becomes a challenge to God, since Job directs against God Himself the accusation which the friends have directed against him, and asserts his ability to carry through his good cause even if God would enter with him into a judicial contention; he becomes a יסור and מוכיח אלוה, and raises himself above God, because he thinks he has Him for an enemy who is his best friend. This defiance is, however, not common godlessness; on the contrary, Job is really the innocent servant of God, and his defiant tone is only the result of a false conception which the tempted one indulges respecting the Author of his affliction. So, then, this defiance has not taken full possession of Job's mind; on the contrary, the faith which lays firm hold on confidence in the God whom he does not comprehend, is in conflict against it; and this conflict tends in the course of the drama, the nearer it comes to the catastrophe, still nearer to the victory, which only awaits a decisive stroke in order to be complete. Therefore Jehovah yields to Job's longing שׁדי יענני, in as far as He really answers Job; and even that this takes place, and that, although out of the storm, it nevertheless takes place, not in a way to crush and destroy, but to instruct and convince, and displaying a loving condescension, is an indirect manifestation that Job is not regarded by God as an evil-doer mature for judgment. But that folly and temerity by which the servant of God is become unlike himself must notwithstanding be destroyed; and before Job can realize God as his Witness and Redeemer, in which character his faith in the brighter moments has foreseen Him, his sinful censuring and blaming of God must be blotted out by penitence; and with it at the same time his foolish imagination, by which his faith has been almost overwhelmed, must be destroyed, viz., the imagination that his affliction is a hostile dispensation of God.
And by what means is Job brought to the penitent recognition of his gloomy judgment concerning the divine decree, and of his contending with God? Is it, perhaps, by God's admitting to him what really is the case: that he does not suffer as a sinner the punishment of his sin, but showing at the same time that the decree of suffering is not an unjust one, because its design is not hostile? No, indeed, for Job is not worthy that his cause should be acknowledged on the part of God before he has come to a penitent recognition of the wrong by which he has sinned against God. God would be encouraging self-righteousness if He should give Job the testimony of his innocence, before the sin of vainglory, into which Job has fallen in the consciousness of his innocence, is changed to humility, by which all uprightness that is acceptable with God is tested. Therefore, contrary to expectation, God begins to speak with Job about totally different matters from His justice or injustice in reference to his affliction. Therein already lies a deep humiliation for Job. But a still deeper one in God's turning, as it were, to the abecedarium naturae, and putting the censurer of His doings to the blush. That God is the almighty and all-wise Creator and Ruler of the world, that the natural world is exalted above human knowledge and power, and is full of marvellous divine creations and arrangements, full of things mysterious and incomprehensible to ignorant and feeble man, Job knows even before God speaks, and yet he must now hear it, because he does not know it rightly; for the nature with which he is acquainted as the herald of the creative and governing power of God, is also the preacher of humility; and exalted as God the Creator and Ruler of the natural world is above Job's censure, so is He also as the Author of his affliction. That which is new, therefore, in the speech of Jehovah, is not the proof of God's exaltation in itself, but the relation to the mystery of his affliction, and to his conduct towards God in this his affliction, in which Job is necessitated to place perceptions not in themselves strange to him. He who cannot answer a single one of those questions taken from the natural kingdom, but, on the contrary, must everywhere admire and adore the power and wisdom of God-he must appear as an insignificant fool, if he applies them to his limited judgment concerning the Author of his affliction.
The fundamental tone of the divine speech is the thought, that the divine working in nature is infinitely exalted above human knowledge and power, and that consequently man must renounce all claim to better knowledge and right of contention in the presence of the divine dispensations. But at the same time, within the range of this general thought, it is also in particular shown how nature reflects the goodness of God as well as His wisdom (He has restrained the destructive power of the waters, He also sendeth rain upon the steppe, though untenanted by man); how that which accomplishes the purposes for which it was in itself designed, serves higher purposes in the moral order of the world (the dawn of day puts an end to the works of darkness, snow and hail serve as instruments of divine judgments); how divine providence extends to all creatures, and always according to their need (He provides the lion its prey, He satisfies the ravens that cry to Him); and how He has distributed His manifold gifts in a way often paradoxical to man, but in truth worthy of admiration (to the steinbock ease in bringing forth and growth without toil, to the wild ass freedom, to the antelope untameable fleetness, to the ostrich freedom from anxiety about its young and swiftness, to the horse heroic and proud lust for the battle, to the hawk the instinct of migration, to the eagle a lofty nest and a piercing sight). Everywhere the wonders of God's power and wisdom, and in fact of His goodness abounding in power, and His providence abounding in wisdom, infinitely transcend Job's knowledge and capacity. Job cannot answer one of all these questions, but yet he feels to what end they are put to him. The God who sets bounds to the sea, who refreshes the desert, who feeds the ravens, who cares for the gazelle in the wilderness and the eagle in its eyrie, is the same God who now causes him seemingly thus unjustly to suffer. But if the former is worthy of adoration, the latter will also be so. Therefore Job confesses that he will henceforth keep silence, and solemnly promises that he will now no longer contend with Him. From the marvellous in nature he divines that which is marvellous in his affliction. His humiliation under the mysteries of nature is at the same time humiliation under the mystery of his affliction; and only now, when he penitently reveres the mystery he has hitherto censured, is it time that its inner glory should be unveiled to him. The bud is mature, and can now burst forth, in order to disclose the blended colours of its matured beauty.

Verse 6

Job 40:6 6 Then Jehovah answered Job out of the storm, and said:
This second time also Jehovah speaks to Job out of the storm; not, however, in wrath, but in the profound condescension of His majesty, in order to deliver His servant from dark imaginings, and to bring him to free and joyous knowledge. He does not demand blind subjection, but free submission; He does not extort an acknowledgement of His greatness, but it is effected by persuasion. It becomes manifest that God is much more forbearing and compassionate than men. Observe the friends, the defenders of the divine honour, these sticklers for their own orthodoxy, how they rave against Job! How much better is it to fall into the hands of the living God, than into the hands of man! For God is truth and love; but men have at one time love without truth, at another truth without love, since they either connive at one or anathematize him. When a man who, moreover, like Job, is a servant of God, fails in one point, or sins, men at once condemn him altogether, and admit nothing good in him; God, however, discerns between good and evil, and makes the good a means of freeing the man from the evil. He also does not go rashly to work, but waits, like an instructor, until the time of action arrives. How long He listens to Job's bold challenging, and keeps silence! And then, when He does begin to speak, He does not cast Job to the ground by His authoritative utterances, but deals with him as a child; He examines him from the catechism of nature, and allows him to say for himself that he fails in this examination. In this second speech He acts with him as in the well-known poem of Hans Sachs with St. Peter: He offers him to take the government of the world for once instead of Himself. Here also He produces conviction; here also His mode of action is a deep lowering of Himself. It is Jehovah, the God, who at length begets Himself in humanity, in order to convince men of His love.

Verses 7-9

Job 40:7-9 7 Gird up thy loins manfully:
I will question thee, and do thou answer me! 8 Wilt thou altogether annul my right,
Condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous? 9 And hast thou then an arm like God,
And canst thou with the voice thunder like Him?
The question with האף stands to Job 40:2 in the relation of a climax: Job contended not alone with God, which is in itself wrong, let it be whatsoever it may; he went so far as to lose sight of the divine justice in the government of the world, and in order not to be obliged to give up his own righteousness, so far as to doubt the divine. ואם, Job 40:9, is also interrogative, as Job 8:3; Job 21:4; Job 34:17, comp. Job 39:13, not expressive of a wish, as Job 34:16. In the government of the world, God shows His arm, He raises His voice of thunder: canst thou perhaps - asks Jehovah - do the like, thou who seemest to imagine thou couldst govern the world more justly, if thou hadst to govern it? וּבקוּל כּמהוּ are to be combined: of like voice to Him; the translation follows the accents (ובקול with Rebia mugrasch).

Verses 10-14

Job 40:10-14 10 Deck thyself then with pomp and dignity,
And in glory and majesty clothe thyself! 11 Let the overflowings of thy wrath pour forth,
And behold all pride, and abase it! 12 Behold all pride, bring it low,
And cast down the evil-doers in their place; 13 Hide them in the dust together,
Bind their faces in secret: 14 Then I also will praise thee,
That thy right hand obtaineth thee help.
He is for once to put on the robes of the King of kings (עדה, comp. עטח, to wrap round, Psa 104:2), and send forth his wrath over pride and evil-doing, for their complete removal. הפיץ, effundere, diffundere, as Arab. afâda, vid., Job 37:11. עברות, or rather, according to the reading of Ben-Ascher, עברות ,rehcsA, in its prop. signif. oversteppings, i.e., overflowings. In connection with Job 40:11, one is directly reminded of the judgment on everything that is high and exalted in Isa 2, where beטמנם בּעפר also has its parallel (Isa 2:10). Not less, however, does Job 40:14 recall Isa 59:16; Isa 63:5 (comp. Psa 98:1); Isaiah I and II have similar descriptions to the book of Job. The ἁπ. λεγ. הדך is Hebraeo-Arab.; hadaka signifies, like hadama, to tear, pull to the ground. In connection with תמוּן (from טמן; Aram., Arab., טמר), the lower world, including the grave, is thought of (comp. Arab. mat-murât, subterranean places); חבשׁ signifies, like Arab. ḥbs IV, to chain and to imprison. Try it only for once - this is the collective thought - to act like Me in the execution of penal justice, I would praise thee. That he cannot do it, and yet venture with his short-sightedness and feebleness to charge God's rule with injustice, the following pictures of foreign animals are now further intended to make evident to him: -

Verses 15-18

Job 40:15-18 15 Behold now the behêmôth,
Which I have made with thee:
He eateth grass like an ox. 16 Behold now, his strength is in his loins,
And his force in the sinews of his belly. 17 He bendeth his tail like a cedar branch,
The sinews of his legs are firmly interwoven. 18 His bones are like tubes of brass,
His bones like bars of iron. בּהמות (after the manner of the intensive plur. הוללות, חכמות, which play the part of the abstract termination), which sounds like a plur., but without the numerical plural signification, considered as Hebrew, denotes the beast κατ ̓ ἐξοχήν, or the giant of beasts, is however Hebraized from the Egyptian p-ehe-mau, (muau), i.e., the (p) ox (ehe) of the water (mau as in the Hebraized proper name משׁה). It is, as Bochart has first of all shown, the so-called river or Nile horse, Hippopotamus amphibius (in Isa 30:6, בּהמות נגב, as emblem of Egypt, which extends its power, and still is active in the interest of others), found in the rivers of Africa, but no longer found in the Nile, which is not inappropriately called a horse; the Arab. waterhog is better, Italian bomarino, Eng. sea-cow ?, like the Egyptian p-ehe-mau. The change of p and b in the exchange of Egyptian and Semitic words occurs also elsewhere, e.g., pug’ and בּוּץ, harpu and חרב (ἅρπη), Apriu and עברים (according to Lauth). Nevertheless p-ehe-mau (not mau-t, for what should the post-positive fem. art. do here?) is first of all only the בהמות translated back again into the Egyptian by Jablonsky; an instance in favour of this is still wanting. In Hieroglyph the Nile-horse is called apet; it was honoured as divine. Brugsch dwelt in Thebes in the temple of the Apet.^[155]
In Job 40:15 עמּך signifies nothing but “with thee,” so that thou hast it before thee. This water-ox eats חציר, green grass, like an ox. That it prefers to plunder the produce of the fields - in Arab. chadı̂r signifies, in particular, green barley - is accordingly self-evident. Nevertheless, it has gigantic strength, viz., in its plump loins and in the sinews (שׁרירי, properly the firm constituent parts,^[156] therefore: ligaments and muscles) of its clumsy belly. The brush of a tail, short in comparison with the monster itself, is compared to a cedar (a branch of it), ratione glabritiei, rotunditatis, spissitudinis et firmitatis (Bochart); since the beast is in general almost without hair, it looks like a stiff, naked bone, and yet it can bend it like an elastic cedar branch; חפץ is Hebraeo-Arab., ḥfḍ^[157] is a word used directly of the bending of wood (el-‛ûd).
Since this description, like the whole book of Job, is so strongly Arabized, פחד, Job 40:17, will also be one word with the Arab. fachidh, the thigh; as the Arabic version also translates: ‛urûku afchâdhihi (the veins or strings of its thigh). The Targ., retaining the word of the text here,^[158] has פּחדין in Lev 21:20 for אשׁך, a testicle, prop. inguina, the groins; we interpret: the sinews of its thighs or legs^[159] are intertwined after the manner of intertwined vine branches, שׂריגים.^[160]
But why is פחדיו pointed thus, and not פחדיו (as e.g., שׁעריו)? It is either an Aramaizing (with אשׁריו it has another relationship) pointing of the plur., or rather, as Köhler has perceived, a regularly-pointed dual (like רגליו), from פּחדים (like פּעמים), which is equally suitable in connection with the signification femora as testiculi. מטיל, Job 40:18, is also Hebraeo-Arab.; for Arab. mṭl signifies to forge, or properly to extend by forging (hammering), and to lengthen, undoubtedly a secondary formation of טוּל, tâla, to be long, as makuna of kâna, madana of dâna, massara (to found a fortified city) of sâra, chiefly (if not always) by the intervention of such nouns as makân, medı̂ne, misr (= מצור), therefore in the present instance by the intervention of this metı̂l (= memtûl)^[161] whence probably μέταλλον (metal), properly iron in bars or rods, therefore metal in a wrought state, although not yet finished.^[162]
Its bones are like tubes of brass, its bones (גּרמיו, the more Aram. word) like forged rods of iron - what an appropriate description of the comparatively thin but firm as iron skeleton by which the plump mass of flesh of the gigantic boar-like grass-eater is carried!

Verses 19-24

Job 40:19-24 19 He is the firstling of the ways of God;
He, his Maker, reached to him his sword. 20 For the mountains bring forth food for him,
And all the beasts of the field play beside him. 21 Under the lote-trees he lieth down,
In covert of reeds and marsh. 22 Lote-trees cover him as shade,
The willows of the brook encompass him. 23 Behold, if the stream is strong, he doth not quake;
He remaineth cheerful, if a Jordan breaketh forth upon his mouth. 24 Just catch him while he is looking,
With snares let one pierce his nose!
God's ways is the name given to God's operations as the Creator of the world in Job 40:19 (comp. Job 26:14, where His acts as the Ruler of the world are included); and the firstling of these ways is called the Behêmôth, not as one of the first in point of time, but one of the hugest creatures, un chef-d'oeuvre de Dieu (Bochart); ראשׁית not as Pro 8:22; Num 24:20, of the priority of time, but as Amo 6:1, Amo 6:6, of rank. The art. in העשׁו is, without the pronominal suff. being meant as an accusative (Ew. §290, d), equal to a demonstrative pronoun (comp. Ges. §109, init): this its Creator (but so that “this” does not refer back so much as forwards). It is not meant that He reached His sword to behêmoth, but (on which account לו is intentionally wanting) that He brought forth, i.e., created, its (behêmoth's) peculiar sword, viz., the gigantic incisors ranged opposite one another, with which it grazes upon the meadow as with a sickle: ἀρούρῃσιν κακὴν ἐπιβάλλεται ἅρπην (Nicander, Theriac. 566), ἅρπη is exactly the sickle-shaped Egyptian sword (harpu = חרב). Vegetable food (to which its teeth are adapted) is appointed to the behêmoth: “for the mountains produce food for him;” it is the herbage of the hills (which is scanty in the lower and more abundant in the upper valley of the Nile) that is intended, after which this uncouth animal climbs (vid., Schlottm.). בּוּל is neither a contraction of יבוּל (Ges.), nor a corruption of it (Ew.), but Hebraeo-Arab. = baul, produce, from bâla, to beget, comp. aballa, to bear fruit (prop. seed, bulal), root בל, to soak, wet, mix.^[163]Job 40:20 describes how harmless, and if unmolested, inoffensive, the animal is; שׁם there, viz., while it is grazing.
In Job 40:21 Saadia correctly translates: Arab. tḥt 'l-ḍâl; and Job 40:22, Abulwalid: Arab. ygṭı̂h 'l-ḍl mdlllâ lh, tegit eum lotus obumbrans eum, by interpreting Arab. ‘l-ḍl, more correctly Arab. ‘l-ḍâl, with es-sidr el-berrı̂, i.e., Rhamnus silvestris (Rhamnus Lotus, Linn.), in connection with which Schultens' observation is to be noticed: Cave intelligas lotum Aegyptiam s. plantam Niloticam quam Arabes Arab. nûfr. The fact that the wild animals of the steppe seek the shade of the lote-tree, Schultens has supported by passages from the poets. The lotus is found not only in Syria, but also in Egypt, and the whole of Africa.^[164]

The plur. is formed from the primary form צאל, as שׁקמים from שׁקם, Olsh. §148, b; the single tree was perhaps called צאלה (= Arab. ḍâlt), as שׁקמה (Ew. §189, h). Ammianus Marc. xxii. 15 coincides with Job 40:21: Inter arundines celsas et squalentes nimia densitate haec bellua cubilia ponit. צללו, Job 40:22 (resolved from צלּו, as גּללו, Job 20:7, from גּלּו),^[165] is in apposition with the subj.: Lote-trees cover it as its shade (shading it). The double play of words in Job 40:22 is not reproduced in the English translation. הן, Job 40:23, pointing to something possible, obtains almost the signification of a conditional particle, as Job 12:14; Job 23:8; Isa 54:15. The Arabic version appropriately translates Arab. ‘n ṭgâ 'l-nhr, for Arab. ṭgâ denotes exactly like עשׁק, excessive, insolent behaviour, and is then, as also Arab. dlm, ‛tâ, and other verbs given by Schultens, transferred from the sphere of ethics to the overflow of a river beyond its banks, to the rush of raging waters, to the rising and bursting forth of swollen streams. It does not, however, terrify the behêmoth, which can live as well in the water as on the land; לא יחפּוז, properly, it does not spring up before it, is not disturbed by it. Instead of the Jordan, Job 40:23, especially in connection with יגיח, the ‘Gaihûn (the Oxus) or the ‘Gaihân (the Pyramus) might have been mentioned, which have their names from the growing force with which they burst forth from their sources (גּיח, גּוּח, comp. ‘gâcha, to wash away). But in order to express the notion of a powerful and at times deep-swelling stream, the poet prefers the ירדּן of his fatherland, which moreover, does not lie so very far from the scene, according to the conception at least, since all the wadis in its neighbourhood flow directly or indirectly (as Wâdi el-Meddân, the boundary river between the district of Suwêt and the Nukra plain) into the Jordan. For ירדּן (perhaps from ירד)^[166] does not here signify a stream (rising in the mountain) in general; the name is not deprived of its geographical definiteness, but is a particularizing expression of the notion given above.
The description closes in Job 40:24 with the ironical challenge: in its sight (בּעיניו as Pro 1:17) let one (for once) catch it; let one lay a snare which, when it goes into it, shall spring together and pierce it in the nose; i.e., neither the open force nor the stratagem, which one employs with effect with other animals, is sufficient to overpower this monster. מוקשׁים is generally rendered as equal to חחים, Isa 37:29; Eze 19:4, or at least to the cords drawn through them, but contrary to the uniform usage of the language. The description of the hippopotamus^[167] is not followed by that of the crocodile, which also elsewhere form a pair, e.g., in Achilles Tatius, iv. 2, 19. Behemoth and leviathan, says Herder, are the pillars of Hercules at the end of the book, the non plus ultra of another world distant from the scene. What the same writer says of the poet, that he does not “mean to furnish any contributions to Pennant's Zoologie or to Linnaeus' Animal Kingdom,” the expositor also must assent to.

Chap. 41

Verses 1-5

Job 41:1-5 1 Dost thou draw the crocodile by a hoop-net,
And dost thou sink his tongue into the line?! 2 Canst thou put a rush-ring into his nose,
And pierce his cheeks with a hook? 3 Will he make many supplications to thee,
Or speak flatteries to thee? 4 Will he make a covenant with thee,
To take him as a perpetual slave? 5 Wilt thou play with him as a little bird,
And bind him for thy maidens?
In Job 3:8, לויתן signified the celestial dragon, that causes the eclipses of the sun (according to the Indian mythology, râhu the black serpent, and ketu the red serpent); in Psa 104:26 it does not denote some great sea-saurian after the kind of the hydrarchus of the primeval world,^[168] but directly the whale, as in the Talmud (Lewysohn, Zoologie des Talm. §178f.). Elsewhere, however, the crocodile is thus named, and in fact as תּנּין also, another appellation of this natural wonder of Egypt, as an emblem of the mightiness of Pharaoh (vid., on Psa 74:13.), as once again the crocodile itself is called in Arab. el-fir‛annu. The Old Testament language possesses no proper name for the crocodile; even the Talmudic makes use of קרוקתא = κροκόδειλος (Lewysohn, §271). לויתן is the generic name of twisted, and תנין long-extended monsters. Since the Egyptian name of the crocodile has not been Hebraized, the poet contents himself in תּמשׁך with making a play upon its Egyptian, and in Arab. tmsâḥ, timsâḥ,^[169]
Arabized name (Ew. §324, a). To wit, it is called in Coptic temsah, Hierogl. (without the art.) msuh (emsuh), as an animal that creeps “out of the egg (suh).”^[170]
In Job 41:1, Ges. and others falsely translate: Canst thou press its tongue down with a cord; השׁקיע does not signify demergere = deprimere, but immergere: canst thou sink its tongue into the line, i.e., make it bite into the hook on the line, and canst thou thus draw it up? Job 41:1 then refers to what must happen in order that the משׁך of the msuh may take place. Herodotus (and after him Aristotle) says, indeed, ii. 68, the crocodile has no tongue; but it has one, only it cannot stretch it out, because the protruding part has grown to the bottom of the mouth, while otherwise the saurians have a long tongue, that can be stretched out to some length. In Job 41:2 the order of thought is the same: for first the Nile fishermen put a ring through the gills or nose of valuable fish; then they draw a cord made of rushes (σχοῖνον) through it, in order to put them thus bound into the river. “As a perpetual slave,” Job 41:4 is intended to say: like one of the domestic animals. By צפּור, Job 41:5, can hardly be meant צפּרת הכּרמים, the little bird of the vineyard, i.e., according to a Talmud. usage of the language, the golden beetle (Jesurun, p. 222), or a pretty eatable grasshopper (Lewysohn, §374), but, according to the words of Catullus, Passer deliciae meae puellae, the sparrow, Arab. ‛asfûr - an example of a harmless living plaything (שׂחק בּ, to play with anything, different from Psa 104:26, where it is not, with Ew., to be translated: to play with it, but: therein).

Verses 6-9

Job 41:6-9 6 Do fishermen trade with him,
Do they divide him among the Canaanites? 7 Canst thou fill his skin with darts,
And his head with fish-spears? 8 Only lay thy hand upon him
Remember the battle, thou wilt not do it again! 9 Behold, every hope becometh disappointment:
Is not one cast down even at the sight of him?
The fishermen form a guild (Arab. ṣunf, sunf), the associated members of which are called חבּרים (distinct from חברים). On כּרה על, vid., on Job 6:27. “When I came to the towns of the coast,” says R. Akiba, b. Rosch ha-Schana, 26b, ”they called selling, which we call מכירה, כירה, there,” according to which, then, Gen 50:5 is understood, as by the Syriac; the word is Sanscrito-Semitic, Sanscr. kri, Persic chirı̂den (Jesurun, p. 178). lxx ἐνσιτούνται, according to 2Ki 6:23, to which, however, עליו is not suitable. כּנענים are Phoenicians; and then, because they were the merchant race of the ancient world, directly traders or merchants. The meaning of the question is, whether one sells the crocodile among them, perhaps halved, or in general divided up. Further, Job 41:7 : whether one can kill it בּשׂכּות, with pointed missiles (Arab. shauke, a thorn, sting, dart), or with fish-spears (צלצל, so called from its whizzing, צלל, óáëëá). In Job 41:8 the accentuation is the right indication: only seize upon him - remember the battle, i.e., thou wilt be obliged to remember it, and thou wilt have no wish to repeat it. זכר .ti t is a so-called imperat. consec.: if thou doest it, thou wilt ... , Ges. §130, 2. תּוסף is the pausal form of תּוסף (once ôï͂óð, Pro 30:6), of which it is the original form.
The suff. of תּוהלתּו refers to the assailant, not objectively to the beast (the hope which he indulges concerning it). נכזבה, Job 41:9, is 3 praet., like נאלמה, Isa 53:7 (where also the participial accenting as Milra, occurs in Codd.); Fürst's Concord. treats it as part., but the participial form נקטלה, to be assumed in connection with it, along with נקטלה and נקטלת, does not exist. הגם, Job 41:9, is, according to the sense, equivalent to הלא גם, vid., on Job 20:4. מראיו (according to Ges., Ew., and Olsh., sing., with the plural suff., without a plur. meaning, which is natural in connection with the primary form מראי; or what is more probable, from the plur. מראים with a sing. meaning, as פּנים) refers to the crocodile, and יטּל (according to a more accredited reading, יטּל = יוּטל) to the hunter to whom it is visible.
What is said in Job 41:6 is perfectly true; although the crocodile was held sacred in some parts of Egypt, in Elephantine and Apollonopolis, on the contrary, it was salted and eaten as food. Moreover, that there is a small species of crocodile, with which children can play, does not militate against Job 41:5. Everywhere here it is the creature in its primitive strength and vigour that is spoken of. But if they also knew how to catch it in very early times, by fastening a bait, perhaps a duck, on a barb with a line attached, and drew the animal to land, where they put an end to its life with a lance-thrust in the neck (Uhlemann, Thoth, S. 241): this was angling on the largest scale, as is not meant in Job 41:1. If, on the other hand, in very early times they harpooned the crocodile, this would certainly be more difficult of reconcilement with v. 31, than that mode of catching it by means of a fishing-hook of the greatest calibre with Job 41:1. But harpooning is generally only of use when the animal can be hit between the neck and head, or in the flank; and it is very questionable whether, in the ancient times, when the race was without doubt of an unmanageable size, that has now died out, the crocodile hunt (Job 7:12) was effected with harpoons. On the whole subject we have too little information for distinguishing between the different periods. So far as the questions of Jehovah have reference to man's relation to the two monsters, they concern the men of the present, and are shaped according to the measure of power which they have attained over nature. The strophe which follows shows what Jehovah intends by these questions.

Verses 10-11

Job 41:10-11 10 None is so foolhardy that he dare excite him!
And who is it who could stand before Me? 11 Who hath given Me anything first of all, that I must requite it?
Whatsoever is under the whole heaven is Mine.
One sees from these concluding inferences, thus applied, what is the design, in the connection of this second speech of Jehovah, of the reference to behêmoth and leviathan, which somewhat abruptly began in Job 40:15. If even the strength of one of God's creatures admits no thought of being able to attack it, how much more should the greatness of the Creator deter man from all resistance! For no one has any claim on God, so that he should have the right of appearing before Him with a rude challenge. Every creature under heaven is God's; man, therefore, possesses nothing that was not God's property and gift, and he must humbly yield, whether God gives or takes away. לא, Job 41:10, is not directly equivalent to אין, but the clause is exclamatory. יעורנו Chethîb, יעירנו Kerî, is the Palestine reading, the reverse the Babylonian; the authorized text (chiefly without a Kerî) is יעוּרנּוּ from עוּר in a transitive signification (ἐγείρειν), as שׁוּב, Job 39:12, comp. Job 42:10. The meaning of הקדּימני is determined according to ואשׁלּם: to anticipate, viz., by gifts presented as a person is approaching the giver (Arab. aqdama). הוּא, Job 41:11, is neutral, as Job 13:16; Job 15:9; Job 31:11, Job 31:28. תּחת is virtually a subj.: that which is under ... . After these apparently epiphonematic verses (2 and 3), one might now look for Job's answer. But the description of the leviathan is again taken up, and in fact hitherto it was only the invincibility of the animal that was spoken of; and yet it is not so described that this picture might form the exact pendent of the preceding.

Verses 12-14

Job 41:12-14 12 I will not keep silence about his members,
The proportion of his power and the comeliness of his structure. 13 Who could raise the front of his coat of mail?
Into his double teeth-who cometh therein? 14 The doors of his face-who openeth them?
Round about his teeth is terror.
The Kerî לו authorized by the Masora assumes an interrogative rendering: as to it, should I be silent about its members (לו at the head of the clause, as Lev 7:7-9; Isa 9:2), - what perhaps might appear more poetic to many. החרישׁ (once, Job 11:3, to cause to keep silence) here, as usually: to be silent. בּדּיו, as Job 18:13. דּבר signifies the relation of the matter, a matter of fact, as דּברי, facts, Psa 65:4; Psa 105:27; Psa 145:5. חין (compared by Ew. with הין, a measure) signifies grace, χάρις (as synon. חסד), here delicate regularity, and is made easy of pronunciation from חנן, just as the more usual חן; the language has avoided the form חנן, as observed above. לבוּשׁ . clothing, we have translated “coat of mail,” which the Arab. libâs usually signifies; פּני לבוּשׁו is not its face's covering (Schlottm.), which ought to be לבוּשׁ פּניו; but פּני is the upper or front side turned to the observer (comp. Isa 25:7), as Arab. wjh, (wag'h), si rem desuper spectes, summa ejus pars, si ex adverso, prima (Fleischer, Glossae, i. 57). That which is the “doubled of its mouth” (רסן, prop. a bit in the mouth, then the mouth itself) is its upper and lower jaws armed with powerful teeth. The “doors of the face” are the jaws; the jaws are divided back to the ears, the teeth are not covered by lips; the impression of the teeth is therefore the more terrible, which the substantival clause, Job 41:14 (comp. Job 39:20), affirms. שׁנּיו gen. subjecti: the circle, ἓρκος, which is formed by its teeth (Hahn).

Verses 15-17

Job 41:15-17 15 A pride are the furrows of the shields,
Shut by a rigid seal. 16 One joineth on to the other,
And no air entereth between them. 17 One upon another they are arranged,
They hold fast together, inseparably.
Since the writer uses אפיק both in the signif. robustus, Job 12:12, and canalis, Job 40:18, it is doubtful whether it must be explained robusta (robora) scutorum (as e.g., Ges.), or canales scutorum (Hirz., Schlottm., and others). We now prefer the latter, but so that “furrows of the shields” signifies the square shields themselves bounded by these channels; for only thus is the סגוּר, which refers to these shields, considered, each one for itself, suitably attached to what precedes. חותם צר is an acc. of closer definition belonging to it: closed is (each single one) by a firmly attached, and therefore firmly closed, seal. lxx remarkably ὥσπερ σμυρίτης λίθος, i.e., (emery (vid., Krause's Pyrogeteles, 1859, S. 228). Six rows of knotty scales and four scales of the neck cover the upper part of the animal's body, in themselves firm, and attached to one another in almost impenetrable layers, as is described in Job 41:7 in constantly-varying forms of expression (where יגּשׁוּ with Pathach beside Athnach is the correct reading), - a גּאוה, i.e., an equipment of which the animal may be proud. Umbr. takes גאוה, with Bochart, = גּוה, the back; but although in the language much is possible, yet not everything.

Verses 18-21

Job 41:18-21 18 His sneezing sendeth forth light,
And his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn; 19 Out of his mouth proceed flames,
Sparks of fire escape from him; 20 Out of his nostrils goeth forth smoke
Like a seething pot and caldron; 21 His breath kindleth coals,
And flames go forth out of his mouth.
That the crocodile delights to sun itself on the land, and then turns its open jaws to the sunny side, most Nile travellers since Herodotus have had an opportunity of observing;^[171] and in connection therewith the reflex action of sneezing may occur, since the light of the sun produces an irritation on the retina, and thence on the vagus; and since the sun shines upon the fine particles of watery slime cast forth in the act of sneezing, a meteoric appearance may be produced. This delicate observation of nature is here compressed into three words; in this concentration of whole, grand thoughts and pictures, we recognise the older poet. עטשׁ is the usual Semitic word for “sneezing” (Synon. זרר 2Ki 4:35). תּהל shortened from תּהל, Job 31:26, Hiph. of הלל. The comparison of the crocodile's eyes with עפעפּי־שׁחר (as Job 3:9, from עפעף, to move with quick vibrations, to wink, i.e., tremble), or the rendering of the same as εἶδος ἑωσφόρου (lxx), is the more remarkable, as, according to Horus, i. 68, two crocodile's eyes are the hieroglyph^[172] for dawn, ἀνατολή: ἐπειδ́περ (probably to be read ἐπειδὴ πρὸ) παντὸς σώματος ζώου οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ ἐκ τοῦ βυθοῦ ἀναφαίνονται. There it is the peculiar brilliancy of the eyes of certain animals that is intended, which is occasioned either by the iris being furnished with a so-called lustrous substance, or there being in the pupil of the eye (as e.g., in the ostrich) that spot which, shining like metal, is called tapetum lucidum. For ἀναφαίνεσθαι of the eyes ἐκ τοῦ βυθοῦ, is the lustre of the pupil in the depth of the eye. The eyes of the crocodile, which are near together, and slanting, glimmer through the water, when it is only a few feet under water, with a red glow.
Nevertheless the comparison in Job 41:18 might also be intended differently. The inner (third) eyelid^[173] of the crocodile is itself a rose red; and therefore, considered in themselves, its eyes may also be compared with the “eyelids of the dawn.” What is then said, Job 41:19, of the crocodile, Achilles Tatius, iv. 2, says of the hippopotamus: μυκτὴρ ἐπὶ μέγα κεχῃνὼς καὶ πνέων πυρώδη καπνὸν ὡς ἀπὸ πηγῆς πυρός. Bartram has observed on the alligator, that as it comes on the land a thick smoke issues from its distended nostrils with a thundering sound. This thick, hot steam, according to the credible description which is presented here, produces the impression of a fire existing beneath, and bursting forth. The subjective truth of this impression is faithfully but poetically reproduced by the poet. On כּידוד (root כד, escudere). התמלּט signifies no more than to disentangle one's self, here therefore: to fly out in small particles. אגמון, Job 41:19, is rendered by Saad., Gecat., and others, by qumqum (קומקום), a caldron; the modern expositors derive it from אגם = agama, to glow, and understand it of a “heated caldron.” But the word signifies either heat or caldron; the latter signification, however, cannot be linguistically established; one would look for אגּן (Arab. iggâne, a copper Germ. Waschkessel). The noun אגמון signifies, Job 40:2, the reed σχοῖνος, and in the Jerusalem Talmud, Sota ix. 12, some menial service (comp. Arab. ugum); Ew. rightly retains the former signification, like a pot blown upon, i.e., fired, heated, and beside it (in combination with it) reeds as fuel, which in themselves, and especially together with the steaming water, produce a thick smoke. The Waw is to be compared to the Arabic Waw concomitantiae (which governs the acc.).

Verses 22-25

Job 41:22-25 22 Great strength resteth upon his neck,
And despair danceth hence before him. 23 The flanks of his flesh are thickly set,
Fitting tightly to him, immoveable. 24 His heart is firm like stone,
And firm like the nether millstone. 25 The mighty are afraid of his rising up;
From alarm they miss their aim.
Overpowering strength lodges on its neck, i.e., has its abiding place there, and before it despair, prop. melting away, dissolution (דּאבה from דּאב, Arab. ḏ'b = דּוּב Hiph., Arab. ḍ'b II, to bring into a loose condition, synon. חמס), dances hence, i.e., spring up and away (ידוּץ, Arab. jadisu, to run away), i.e., it spreads before it a despondency which produces terror, and deprives of strength. Even the pendulous fleshy parts (מפּלי), especially of its belly, hang close together, דבקוּ, i.e., they are not flabby, but fit to it, like a metal casting, without moving, for the skin is very thick and covered with thick scales; and because the digestive apparatus of the animal occupies but little space, and the scales of the back are continued towards the belly, the tender parts appear smaller, narrower, and closer together than in other animals. יצוּק here is not, as Job 27:2; Job 29:6, the fut. of צוּק, but the part. of יצק, as also Job 41:24: its heart is firm and obdurate, as though it were of cast brass, hard as stone, and in fact as the nether millstone (פלח from פלח, falacha, to split, crush in pieces), which, because it has to bear the weight and friction of the upper, must be particularly hard. It is not intended of actual stone-like hardness, but only of its indomitable spirit and great tenacity of life: the activity of its heart is not so easily disturbed, and even fatal wounds do not so quickly bring it to a stand. משּׂמו from שׂת = שׂאת = שׂאת), primary form שׂאתּ, is better understood in the active sense: afraid of its rising, than the passive: of its exaltedness. אילים (according to another reading אלים) is not, with Ew., to be derived from איל (Arab. ı̂jal), a ram; but אילים Exo 15:15; Eze 17:13 (comp. גּירים 2Ch 2:16, נירי 2Sa 22:29), אלים Eze 31:11; Eze 32:21, and אוּלים Cheth. 2Ki 24:15, are only alternating forms and modes of writing of the participial adject., derived from אוּל (איל) first of all in the primary form awil (as גּר = gawir). The signif. assigned to the verb אול: to be thick = fleshy, which is said then to go over into the signif. to be stupid and strong (Ges. Handwörterb.), rests upon a misconception: âla is said of fluids “to become thick,” because they are condensed, since they go back, i.e., sink in or settle (Ges. correctly in Thes.: notio crassitiei a retrocendendo). The verb âla, ja'ûlu, unites in itself the significations to go backward, to be forward, and to rule; the last two: anteriorem and superiorem esse, probably belong together, and אל signifies, therefore, a possessor of power, who is before and over others. התחטּא, Job 41:25, has the signif., which does not otherwise occur, to miss the mark (from חטא, Arab. chaṭiya, to miss, opp. Arab. ṣâb, to hit the mark), viz., (which is most natural where אילים is the subject spoken of) since they had designed the slaughter and capture of the monster. שׁברים is intended subjectively, as תּבירא = פּחד Exo 15:16, Targ. II, and also as the Arab. thubûr, employed more in reference to the mind, can be used of pain.

Verses 26-29

Job 41:26-29 26 If one reacheth him with the sword-it doth not hold;
Neither spear, nor dart, nor harpoon. 27 He esteemeth iron as straw,
Brass as rotten wood. 28 The son of the bow doth not cause him to flee,
Sling stones are turned to stubble with him. 29 Clubs are counted as stubble,
And he laugheth at the shaking of the spear. משּׂיגהוּ, which stands first as nom. abs., “one reaching him,” is equivalent to, if one or whoever reaches him, Ew. §357, c, to which בּלי תקוּם, it does not hold fast (בּלי with v. fin., as Hos 8:7; Hos 9:16, Chethîb), is the conclusion. חרב is instrumental, as Psa 17:13. מסּע, from נסע, Arab. nz‛, to move on, hasten on, signifies a missile, as Arab. minz‛a, an arrow, manz‛a, a sling. The Targ. supports this latter signification here (funda quae projicit lapidem); but since קלא, the handling, is mentioned separately, the word appears to men missiles in general, or the catapult. In this combination of weapons of attack it is very questionable whether שׁריה is a cognate form of שׁריון (שׁרין), a coat of mail; probably it is equivalent to Arab. sirwe (surwe), an arrow with a long broad edge (comp. serı̂je, a short, round, as it seems, pear-shaped arrow-head), therefore either a harpoon or a peculiarly formed dart.^[174] “The son of the bow” (and of the אשׁפּה, pharetra) is the arrow. That the ἁπ. γεγρ. תותח signifies a club (war-club), is supported by the Arab. watacha, to beat. כּידון, in distinction from חנית (a long lance), is a short spear, or rather, since רעשׁ implies a whistling motion, a javelin. Iron the crocodile esteems as תּבן, tibn, chopped straw; sling stones are turned with him into קשׁ. Such is the name here at least, not for stumps of cut stubble that remain standing, but the straw itself, threshed and easily driven before the wind (Job 13:25), which is cut up for provender (Exo 5:12), generally dried (and for that reason light) stalks (e.g., of grass), or even any remains of plants (e.g., splinters of wood).^[175]
The plur. נחשׁבוּ, Job 41:29, does not seem to be occasioned by תותח being conceived collectively, but by the fact that, instead of saying תותח וכידון, the poet has formed וכידון into a separate clause. Parchon's (and Kimchi's) reading תוחח is founded upon an error.

Verses 30-34

Job 41:30-34 30 His under parts are the sharpest shards,
He spreadeth a threshing sledge upon the mire. 31 He maketh the deep foam like a caldron,
He maketh the sea like a pot of ointment. 32 He lighteth up the path behind him,
One taketh the water-flood for hoary hair. 33 Upon earth there is not his equal,
That is created without fear. 34 He looketh upon everything high,
He is the king over every proud beast.
Under it, or, תּחתּיו taken like תּחת, Job 41:11, as a virtual subject (vid., Job 28:5): its under parts are the most pointed or sharpest shards, i.e., it is furnished with exceedingly pointed scales. חדּוּד is the intensive form of חד (Arab. hadı̂d, sharpened = iron, p. 542, note), as חלּוּק, 1Sa 17:40, of חלק (smooth),^[176] and the combination חדּוּדי חרשׂ (equal the combination חדודי החרשׂים, comp. Job 30:6) is moreover superlative: in the domain of shards standing prominent as sharp ones, as Arab. chairu ummatin, the best people, prop. bon en fait de peuple (Ew. §313, c. Gramm. Arab. §532). lxx ἡ στρωμνὴ αὐτοῦ ὀβελίσκοι ὀξεῖς, by drawing ירפּד to Job 41:30, and so translating as though it were רפידתו (Arab. rifâde, stratum). The verb רפד (rafada), cogn. רבד, signifies sternere (Job 17:13), and then also culcire; what is predicated cannot be referred to the belly of the crocodile, the scales of which are smooth, but to the tail with its scales, which more or less strongly protrude, are edged round by a shallow cavity, and therefore are easily and sharply separated when pressed; and the meaning is, that when it presses its under side in the morass, it appears as though a threshing-sledge with its iron teeth had been driven across it.
The pictures in Job 41:31 are true to nature; Bartram, who saw two alligators fighting, says that their rapid passage was marked by the surface of the water as it were boiling. With מצוּלה, a whirlpool, abyss, depth (from צוּל = צלל, to hiss, clash; to whirl, surge), ים alternates; the Nile even in the present day is called bahr (sea) by the Beduins, and also compared, when it overflows its banks, to a sea. The observation that the animal diffuses a strong odour of musk, has perhaps its share in the figure of the pot of ointment (lxx ὥσπερ ἐξάλειπτρον, which Zwingli falsely translates spongia); a double gland in the tail furnishes the Egyptians and Americans their (pseudo) musk. In Job 41:32 the bright white trail that the crocodile leaves behind it on the surface of the water is intended; in Job 41:32 the figure is expressed which underlies the descriptions of the foaming sea with πολιός, canus, in the classic poets. שׂיבה, hoary hair, was to the ancients the most beautiful, most awe-inspiring whiteness. משׁלו, Job 41:33, understood by the Targ., Syr., Arab. version, and most moderns (e.g., Hahn: there is not on earth any mastery over it), according to Zec 9:10, is certainly, with lxx, Jer., and Umbr., not to be understood differently from the Arab. mithlahu (its equal); whether it be an inflexion of משׁל, or what is more probable, of משׁל (comp. Job 17:6, where this nomen actionis signifies a proverb = word of derision, and התמשּׁל, to compare one's self, be equal, Job 30:19). על־עפר is also Hebr.-Arab.; the Arabic uses turbe, formed from turâb (vid., on Job 19:25), of the surface of the earth, and et-tarbâ-uas the name of the earth itself. העשׂוּ (for העשׂוּי, as צפוּ, Job 15:22, Cheth. = צפוּי, resolved from עשׂוּו, ‛asûw, 1Sa 25:18, Cheth.) is the confirmatory predicate of the logical subj. described in Job 41:33 as incomparable; and לבלי־חת (from חת, the a of which becomes i in inflexion), absque terrore (comp. Job 38:4), is virtually a nom. of the predicate: the created one (becomes) a terrorless one (a being that is terrified by nothing). Everything high, as the לבלי־חת, Job 41:33, is more exactly explained, it looketh upon, i.e., remains standing before it, without turning away affrighted; in short, it (the leviathan) is king over all the sons of pride, i.e., every beast of prey that proudly roams about (vid., on Job 28:8).

Chap. 42

Verses 1-3

Job 42:1-3 1 Then Job answered Jehovah, and said: 2 Now I know that Thou canst do all things,
And no plan is impracticable to Thee. 3 “Who then hideth counsel -
Without knowledge?”
Thus have I judged without understanding,
What was too wonderful for me, without knowing.
He indeed knew previously what he acknowledges in Job 42:2, but now this knowledge has risen upon him in a new divinely-worked clearness, such as he has not hitherto experienced. Those strange but wondrous monsters are a proof to him that God is able to put everything into operation, and that the plans according to which He acts are beyond the reach of human comprehension. If even that which is apparently most contradictory, rightly perceived, is so glorious, his affliction is also no such monstrous injustice as he thinks; on the contrary, it is a profoundly elaborated מזמּה, a well-digested, wise עצה of God. In Job 42:3 he repeats to himself the chastening word of Jehovah, Job 38:2, while he chastens himself with it; for he now perceives that his judgment was wrong, and that he consequently has merited the reproof. With לכן he draws a conclusion from this confession which the chastening word of Jehovah has presented to him: he has rashly pronounced an opinion upon things that lie beyond his power of comprehension, without possessing the necessary capacity of judging and perception. On the mode of writing ידעתּ, Cheth., which recalls the Syriac form med'et (with the pronominal suff. cast off), vid., Ges. §44, rem. 4; on the expression Job 42:2, comp. Gen 11:6. The repetition of Job 38:2 in Job 42:3 is not without some variations according to the custom of authors noticed in Psalter, i. 330. הגּדתּי, “I have affirmed,” i.e., judged, is, Job 42:3, so that the notion of judging goes over into that of pronouncing a judgment. The clauses with ולא are circumstantial clauses, Ew. §341, a.

Verses 4-6

Job 42:4-6 4 O hear now, and I will speak:
I will ask Thee, and instruct Thou me. 5 I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear,
And now mine eye hath seen Thee. 6 Therefore I am sorry, and I repent
In dust and ashes.
The words employed after the manner of entreaty, in Job 42:4, Job also takes from the mouth of Jehovah, Job 38:3; Job 40:7. Hitherto Jehovah has interrogated him, in order to bring him to a knowledge of his ignorance and weakness. Now, however, after he has thoroughly perceived this, he is anxious to put questions to Jehovah, in order to penetrate deeper and deeper into the knowledge of the divine power and wisdom. Now for the first time with him, the true, living perception of God has its beginning, being no longer effected by tradition (ל of the external cause: in consequence of the tidings which came to my ears, comp. Psa 18:45, comp. Isa 23:5), but by direct communication with God. In this new light he can no longer deceive himself concerning God and concerning himself; the delusion of the conflict now yields to the vision of the truth, and only penitential sorrow for his sin towards God remains to him. The object to אמאס is his previous conduct. נחם is the exact expression for μετανοεῖν, the godly sorrow of repentance not to be repented of. He repents (sitting) on dust and ashes after the manner of those in deep grief.
If the second speech of Jehovah no longer has to do with the exaltation and power of God in general, but is intended to answer Job's doubt concerning the justice of the divine government of the world, the long passage about the hippopotamus and the crocodile, Job 40:15-41:34, in this second speech seems to be devoid of purpose and connection. Even Eichhorn and Bertholdt on this account suppose that the separate portions of the two speeches of Jehovah have fallen into disorder. Stuhlmann, Bernstein, and De Wette, on the other hand, explained the second half of the description of the leviathan, Job 41:12-34, as a later interpolation; for this part is thought to be inflated, and to destroy the connection between Jehovah's concluding words, Job 41:2-3, and Job's answer, Job 42:2-6. Ewald forcibly rejected the whole section, Job 40:15, by ascribing it to the writer of Elihu's speeches-an opinion which he has again more recently abandoned. In fact, this section ought to have had a third poet as its writer. But he would be the double (Doppelgänger) of the first; for, deducting the somewhat tame לא אחרישׁ בדיו, Job 41:12, - which, however, is introduced by the interrupted description being resumed, in order now to begin in real earnest, - this section stands upon an equally exalted height with the rest of the book as a poetic production and lofty description; and since it has not only, as also Elihu's speeches, an Arabizing tinge, but also the poetic genius, the rich fountain of thought, the perfection of technical detail, in common with the rest of the book; and since the writer of the book of Job also betrays elsewhere an acquaintance with Egypt, and an especial interest in things Egyptian, the authenticity of the section is by no means doubted by us, but we freely adopt the originality of its present position.
But before one doubts the originality of its position, he ought, first of all, to make an earnest attempt to comprehend the portion in its present connection, into which it at any rate has not fallen from pure thoughtlessness. The first speech of Jehovah, moreover, was surprisingly different from what was to have been expected, and yet we recognised in it a deep consistency with the plan; perhaps the same thing is also the case in connection with the second.
After Job has answered the first speech of Jehovah by a confession of penitence, the second can have no other purpose but that of strengthening the conviction, which urges to this confession, and of deepening the healthful tone from which it proceeds. The object of censure here is no longer Job's contending with Jehovah in general, but Job's contending with Jehovah on account of the prosperity of the evil-doer, which is irreconcilable with divine justice; that contending by which the sufferer, in spite of the shadow which affliction casts upon him, supported the assertion of his own righteousness. Here also, as a result, the refutation follows in the only way consistent with the dignity of Jehovah, and so that Job must believe in order to perceive, and does not perceive in order not to be obliged to believe. Without arguing the matter with Job, as to why many things in the government of the world are thus and not rather otherwise, Jehovah challenges Job to take the government of the world into his own hand, and to give free course to his wrath, to cast down everything that is exalted, and to render the evil-doer for ever harmless. By thus thinking of himself as the ruler of the world, Job is obliged to recognise the cutting contrast of his feebleness and the divine rule, with which he has ventured to find fault; at the same time, however, he is taught, that - what he would never be able to do - God really punishes the ungodly, and must have wise purposes when, which He indeed might do, He does not allow the floods of His wrath to be poured forth immediately.
Thus far also Simson is agreed; but what is the design of the description of the two Egyptian monsters, which are regarded by him as by Ewald as out of place here? To show Job how little capable he is of governing the world, and how little he would be in a position to execute judgment on the evil-doer, two creatures are described to him, two unslain monsters of gigantic structure and invincible strength, which defy all human attack. These two descriptions are, we think, designed to teach Job how little capable of passing sentence upon the evil-doer he is, who cannot even draw a cord through the nose of the behêmoth, and who, if he once attempted to attack the leviathan, would have reason to remember it so long as he lived, and would henceforth let it alone. It is perhaps an emblem that is not without connection with the book of Job, that these בהמות and לויתן (תנין), in the language of the Prophets and the Psalms, are the symbols of a worldly power at enmity with the God of redemption and His people. And wherefore should Job's confession, Job 42:2, not be suitably attached to the completed description of the leviathan, especially as the description is divided into two parts by the utterances of Jehovah, Job 41:2-3, which retrospectively and prospectively set it in the right light for Job?

Verse 7

Job's confession and tone of penitence are now perfected. He acknowledges the divine omnipotence which acts according to a wisely-devised scheme, in opposition to his total ignorance and feebleness. A world of divine wisdom, of wondrous thoughts of God, now lies before him, concerning which he knows nothing of himself, but would gladly learn a vast amount by the medium of divine instruction. To these mysteries his affliction also belongs. He perceives it now to be a wise decree of God, beneath which he adoringly bows, but it is nevertheless a mystery to him. Sitting in dust and ashes, he feels a deep contrition for the violence with which he has roughly handled and shaken the mystery, - now will it continue, that he bows beneath the enshrouded mystery? No, the final teaching of the book is not that God's rule demands faith before everything else; the final teaching is, that sufferings are for the righteous man the way to glory, and that his faith is the way to sight. The most craving desire, for the attainment of which Job hopes where his faith breaks forth from under the ashes, is this, that he will once more behold God, even if he should succumb to his affliction. This desire is granted him ere he yields. For he who hitherto has only heard of Jehovah, can now say: עתה עיני ראתך; his perception of God has entered upon an entirely new stage. But first of all God has only borne witness of Himself to him, to call him to repentance. Now, however, since the rust of pollution is purged away from Job's pure soul, He can also appear as his Vindicator and Redeemer. After all that was sinful in his speeches is blotted out by repentance, there remains only the truth of his innocence, which God Himself testifies to him, and the truth of his holding fast to God in the hot battle of temptation, by which, without his knowing it, he has frustrated the design of Satan. 7 And it came to pass, after Jehovah had spoken these words to Job, that Jehovah said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee and thy two friends: for ye have not spoken what is correct in reference to Me, as My servant Job.
In order that they may only maintain the justice of God, they have condemned Job against their better knowledge and conscience; therefore they have abandoned truth in favour of the justice of God, - a defence which, as Job has told the friends, God abhors. Nevertheless He is willing to be gracious.

Verse 8

Job 42:8 8 And now take unto you seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to My servant Job, and offer an offering for yourselves, and Job My servant shall pray for you; only his person will I accept, that I recompense not unto you your folly: for ye have not spoken what is correct in reference to Me, as My servant Job.
Schlottm., like Ew., translates נכונה what is sincere, and understands it of Job's inward truthfulness, in opposition to the words of the friends contrary to their better knowledge and conscience. But nkwn has not this signification anywhere: it signifies either directum = rectum or erectum = stabile, but not sincerum. However, objective truth and subjective truthfulness are here certainly blended in the notion ”correct.” The “correct” in Job's speeches consists of his having denied that affliction is always a punishment of sin, and in his holding fast the consciousness of his innocence, without suffering himself to be persuaded of the opposite. That denial was correct; and this truthfulness was more precious to God than the untruthfulness of the friends, who were zealous for the honour of God.
After Job has penitently acknowledged his error, God decides between him and the friends according to his previous supplicatory wish, Job 16:21. The heavenly Witness makes Himself heard on earth, and calls Job by the sweet name of עבדי. And the servant of Jehovah is not only favoured himself, but he also becomes the instrument of grace to sinners. As where his faith shone forth he became the prophet of his own and the friends' future, so now he is the priestly mediator between the friends and God. The friends against whom God is angry, but yet not as against רשׁעים, but only as against those who have erred, must bring an offering as their atonement, in connection with which Job shall enter in with a priestly intercession for them, and only him (כּי אם, non alium sed = non nisi), whom they regarded as one punished of God, will God accept (comp. Gen 19:21) - under what deep shame must it have opened their eyes!
Here also, as in the introduction of the book, it is the עולה which effects the atonement. It is the oldest and, according to its meaning, the most comprehensive of all the blood-offerings. Bullocks and rams are also the animals for the whole burnt-offerings of the Mosaic ritual; the proper animal for the sin-offering, however, is the he-goat together with the she-goat, which do not occur here, because the age and scene are strange to the Israelitish branching off of the חטאת from the עולה. The double seven gives the mark of the profoundest solemnity to the offering that was to be offered. The three also obey the divine direction; for although they have erred, God's will is above everything in their estimation, and they cheerfully subordinate themselves as friends to the friend.^[177]

Verse 9

Job 42:9 9 The Eliphaz of Teman, and Bildad of Shuach, and Zophar of Naamah, went forth and did as Jehovah had said to them; and Jehovah accepted the person of Job.
Jehovah has now risen up as a witness for Job, the spiritual redemption is already accomplished; and all that is wanting is, that He who has acknowledged and testified to Job as His servant should also act outwardly and visibly, and in mercy show Himself the righteous One.

Verse 10

Job 42:10 10 And Jehovah turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends; and Jehovah increased everything that Job had possessed to the double. רעהוּ is to be understood generally, as Job 16:21, and the בּ signifies not “because,” but “when.” The moment in which Job prayed for his friends became, as the climax of a life that is well-pleasing with God, the turning-point of glory to him. The Talmud has borrowed from here the true proverb: תחלה כל־המתפלל בעד חברו נענה, i.e., he who prays for his fellow-men always finds acceptance for himself first of all. The phrase (שׁבית) שׁוּב שׁבוּת signifies properly to turn captivity, then in general to make an end of misery; also in German, elend, old High Germ. elilenti, originally signified another, foreign country (vid., Psalter, ii. 192), since an involuntary removal from one's native land is regarded as the emblem of a lamentable condition. This phrase does not exactly stamp Job as the Mashal of the Israel of the Exile, but it favoured this interpretation. Now when Job was recovered, and doubly blessed by God, as is also promised to the Israel of the Exile, Isa 61:7 and freq., sympathizing friends also appeared in abundance.

Verse 11

Job 42:11 11 Then came to him all his brothers, and all his sisters, and all his former acquaintances, and ate bread with him in his house, and expressed sympathy with him, and comforted him concerning all the evil which Jehovah had brought upon him; and each one gave him a Kesitâ, and each a golden ring.
Prosperity now brought those together again whom calamity had frightened away; for the love of men is scarcely anything but a number of coarse or delicate shades of selfishness. Now they all come and rejoice at Job's prosperity, viz., in order to bask therein. He, however, does not thrust them back; for the judge concerning the final motives of human love is God, and love which is shown to us is certainly more worthy of thanks than hatred. They are his guests again, and he leaves them to their own shame. And now their tongues, that were halting thus far, are all at once become eloquent: they mingle congratulations and comfort with their expressions of sorrow at his past misfortune. It is now an easy matter, that no longer demands their faith. They even bring him each one a present. In everything it is manifest that Jehovah has restored His servant to honour. Everything is now subordinated to him, who was accounted as one forsaken of God. קשׂיטה is a piece of metal weighed out, of greater value than the shekel, moreover indefinite, since it is nowhere placed in the order of the Old Testament system of weights and measures, adapted to the patriarchal age, Gen 33:19, in which Job's history falls.^[178] נזמים are rings for the nose and ear; according to Exo 32:3, an ornament of the women and men.

Verse 12

The author now describes the manner of Job's being blessed. 12 And Jehovah blessed Job's end more than his beginning; and he had fourteen thousand sheep and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand she-asses.
The numbers of the stock of cattle, Job 1:3,^[179] now appear doubled, but it is different with the children.

Verse 13

Job 42:13 13 And he had seven sons and three daughters.
Therefore, instead of the seven sons and three daughters which he had, he receives just the same again, which is also so far a doubling, as deceased children also, according to the Old Testament view, are not absolutely lost, 2Sa 12:23. The author of this book, in everything to the most minute thing consistent, here gives us to understand that with men who die and depart from us the relation is different from that with things which we have lost. The pausal שׁבענה (instead of שׁבעה), with paragogic âna, which otherwise is a fem. suff. (Ges. §91, rem. 2), here, however, standing in a prominent position, is an embellishment somewhat violently brought over from the style of the primeval histories (Gen 21:29; Rth 1:19): a septiad of sons. The names of the sons are passed over in silence, but those of the daughters are designedly given.

Verse 14

Job 42:14 14 And the one was called Jemîma, and the second Kezia, and the third Keren ha-pûch.
The subject of ויּקרא is each and every one, as Isa 9:5 (comp. supra, Job 41:25, existimaverit quis). The one was called ימימה (Arab. jemâme, a dove) on account of her dove's eyes; the other קציעה, cassia, because she seemed to be woven out of the odour of cinnamon; and the third קרן הפּוּך, a horn of paint (lxx Hellenizing: κέρας ἀμαλθείας), which is not exactly beautiful in itself, but is the principal cosmetic of female beauty (vid., Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, transl.): the third was altogether the most beautiful, possessing a beauty heightened by artificial means. They were therefore like three graces. The writer here keeps to the outward appearance, not disowning his Old Testament standpoint. That they were what their names implied, he says in

Verse 15

Job 42:15 15 And in all the land there were not found women so fair as the daughters of Job: and their father gave them inheritance among their brothers.
On נמצא, followed by the acc., vid., Ges. §143, 1, b. להם, etc., referring to the daughters, is explained from the deficiency in Hebrew in the distinction of the genders. Job 42:15 sounds more Arabian than Israelitish, for the Thora only recognises a daughter as heiress where there are no sons, Num 27:8 The writer is conscious that he is writing an extra-Israelitish pre-Mosaic history. The equal distribution of the property again places before our eyes the pleasing picture of family concord in the commencement of the history; at the same time it implies that Job will not have been wanting in son-in-law for his fair, richly-dowried daughters, - a fact which Job 42:16 establishes:

Verse 16

Job 42:16 16 And Job lived after this a hundred and forty years, and saw his children and his children's children to four generations.
In place of ויּרא, the Keri gives the unusual Aorist form ויּראה, which, however, does also occur elsewhere (e.g., 1Sa 17:42). The style of the primeval histories, which we here everywhere recognise, Gen 50:23 (comp. Isa 53:10), is retained to the last words.

Verse 17

Job 42:17 17 And Job died, old, and weary of life.
In the very same manner Genesis, Gen 25:8, Gen 35:29, records the end of the patriarchs. They died satiated of life; for long life is a gift of God, but neither His greatest nor His final gift.
A New Testament poet would have closed the book of Job differently. He would have shown us how, becoming free from his inward conflict of temptation, and being divinely comforted, Job succumbs to his disease, but waves his palm of victory before the throne of God among the innumerable hosts of those who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. The Old Testament poet, however, could begin his book with a celestial scene, but not end it with the same. True, in some passages, which are like New Testament luminous points in the Old Testament poem, Job dares to believe and to hope that God will indeed acknowledge him after death. But this is a purely individual aspiration of faith - the extreme of hope, which comes forth against the extreme of fear. The unravelment does not correspond to this aspiration. The view of heaven which a Christian poet would have been able to give at the close of the book is only rendered possible by the resurrection and ascension of Christ. So far, what Oehler in his essay on the Old Testament Wisdom (1854, S. 28) says, in opposition to those who think the book of Job is directed against the Mosaic doctrine of retribution, is true: that, on the contrary, the issue of the book sanctions the present life phase of this doctrine anew. But the comfort which this theologically and artistically incomparable book presents to us is substantially none other than that of the New Testament. For the final consolation of every sufferer is not dependent upon the working of good genii in the heavens, but has its seat in God's love, without which even heaven would become a very hell. Therefore the book of Job is also a book of consolation for the New Testament church. From it we learn that we have not only to fight with flesh and blood, but with the prince of this world, and to accomplish our part in the conquest of evil, to which, from Gen 3:15 onwards, the history of the world tends; that faith and avenging justice are absolutely distinct opposites; that the right kind of faith clings to divine love in the midst of the feeling of wrath; that the incomprehensible ways of God always lead to a glorious issue; and that the suffering of the present time is far outweighed by the future glory - a glory not always revealed in this life and visibly future, but the final glory above. The nature of faith, the mystery of the cross, the right practice of the care of souls, - this, and much besides, the church learns from this book, the whole teaching of which can never be thoroughly learned and completely exhausted.

Appendix to the Commentary on Job

The Monastery of Job in Hauran, and the Tradition of Job
The oral tradition of a people is in general only of very subordinate value from a scientific point of view when it has reference to an extremely remote past; but that of the Arabs especially, which is always combined with traditions and legends, renders the simplest facts perplexing, and wantonly clothes the images of prominent persons in the most wonderful garbs, and, in general, so rapidly disfigures every object, that after a few generations it is no longer recognisable. So far as it has reference to the personality of Job, whose historical existence is called in question or denied by some expositors, it may be considered as altogether worthless, but one can recognise when it speaks of Job's native country. By the ארץ עוּץ the writer of the book of Job meant a definite district, which was well known to the people for whom he wrote; but the name has perished, like many others, and all the efforts of archaeologist to assign to the land its place in the map of Palestine have been fruitless. Under these circumstances the matter is still open to discussion, and the tradition respecting Job has some things to authorize it. True, it cannot of itself make up for the want of an historical testimony, but it attains a certain value if it is old, i.e., if it can be traced back about to the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, when reliable information was still obtainable respecting that district, although its name was no longer in use.
In all the larger works of travel on Palestine and Syria, we find it recorded that Haurân is there called Job's fatherland. In Hauran itself the traveller hears this constantly; if any one speaks of the fruitfulness of the whole district, or of the fields around a village, he is always answered: Is it not the land of Job (bildâd Êjûb)? Does it not belong to the villages of Job (diâ' Êjûb)? Thus to Seetzen^[180]Bosrâ was pointed out as a city of Job; and to Eli Smith^[181] even the country lying to the east of the mountains was called the land of Job. In Kanawat, a very spacious building, belonging to the Roman or Byzantine period, situated in the upper town, was pointed out to me as the summer palace of Job (the inscription 8799 in Corp. Inscr. Graec. is taken from it). The shepherds of Dâ'il, with whom I passed a night on the Wâdi el-Lebwe, called the place of their encampment Job's pasture-ground. In like manner, the English traveller Buckingham, when he wandered through the Nukra, was shown in the distance the village of Gherbi (i.e., Chirbet el-ghazale, which from its size is called el-chirbe κατ ̓ εξοχήν) as the birthplace and residence of Job,^[182] and it seems altogether as though Hauran and the Land of Job are synonymous. But if one inquires particularly for that part of the country in which Job himself dwelt, he is directed to the central point of Hauran, the plain of Hauran (sahl Haurân),^[183] and still more exactly to the district between the towns of Nawâ and Edre'ât, which is accounted the most fertile portion of the country, covered with the ruins of villages, monasteries, and single courts, and is even now comparatively well cultivated. Among the nomads as well as among the native agricultural population, this district is called from its formation Nukra or Nukrat esh-Shâm,^[184] a name by which this highly-favoured plain is known and celebrated by the poets in the whole Syrian desert, as far as ‘Irâk and Higâz.
But even the national writers are acquainted with and frequently make mention of the Hauranitish tradition of Job; yet they do not call Job's home Nukra, - for this word, which belongs only to the idiom of the steppe, is unknown to the literature of the language, - but Bethenîje (Betanaea). It is so called in a detailed statement of the legends of Job:^[185]
After the death of his father, Job journeyed into Egypt^[186] to marry Rahme (רחמה) the daughter of Ephraim, who had inherited from her grandfather Joseph the robe of beauty; and after he had brought her to his own country, he received from God a mission as prophet to his countrymen, viz., to the inhabitants of Haurân and Batanaea (Arab. b‛ṯh 'llh t‛ rsûlâ 'lâ qûmh whm 'hl ḥûrân w-'l-btnı̂t). The historian of Jerusalem, Mugîr ed-dîn el-Hambeli, in the chapter on the legend of the prophets, says: “Job came from el-'Ês, and the Damascene province of Batanaea was his property.” In like manner, in the Geography of Jâkût el-Hamawi,^[187] under the art. Bethenîje, it is said: “and in this land lived Job (wakân Êjûb minhâ).”
Modern exegetes, as is known, do not take the plain of Hauran, but the mountain range of Hauran with its eastern slope, as the Provincia Batanaea. I have sought elsewhere^[188] to show the error of this view, and may the more readily confine myself to merely referring to it, as one will be convinced of the correctness of my position in the course of this article. One thing, however, is to be observed here, that the supposition that Basan is so called as being the land of basalt rocks, is an untenable support of this error. The word basalt may be derived from βασάντις, or a secondary formation, βασάλτις, because Basan is exclusively volcanic;^[189] but we have no more right to reverse the question, than to say that Damascus may have received its name from the manufacture of damask.^[190], were Beduin women.
After what has been said, we cannot assign to the Hebr. בּשׁן any other signification than that of a fertile stoneless plain or low country. This appellation, which was given, properly and originally, only to the heart of the country, and its most valuable portion, viz., the Nukra, would then a potiori be transferred to the whole, and when the kingdom of Basan was again destroyed, naturally remained to that province, of which it was the proper designation.)
The home of Job is more definitely described in the following passages. Muhammed el-Makdeshi^[191] says, p. 81 of his geography: “And in Haurân and Batanaea lie the villages of Job and his home (diâ' Êjûb wa-diâruh). The chief place (of the district) is Nawâ, rich in wheat and other cereals.” The town of Nawâ is still more definitely connected with Job by Jâkût el-Hamawi under the article Nawâ: “Between Nawa and Damascus in two days' journey; it belongs to the district of Hauran,^[192] and is, according to some, the chief town of the same. Nawâ was the residence (menzil) of Job;” and Ibn er-Râbi says, p. 62 of his essay on the excellences of Damascus:^[193] “To the prophets buried in the region of Damascus belongs also Job, and his tomb is near Nawâ, in the district of Hauran.” Such passages prove at the same time the identity of the Nukra with Batanaea; for if the latter is said to be recognisable from the fact of Job's home being found in it, and we find this sign in connection with the Nukra in which Nawâ with its surrounding country is situated, both names must denote one and the same district.
That, according to the last citation, Job's tomb is also shown in the Nukra, has been already observed in my Reisebericht, S. 121. Jâkût, under Dêr Êjûb, thus expresses himself: “The Monastery of Job is a locality in Hauran, a Damascene province, in which Job dwelt and was tried of God. There also is the fountain which he made to flow with his foot, and the block of rock on which he leant. There also is his tomb.” What Kazwîni ways in his Wonders of Creation (‛agâib el-machlûkât), under Dêr Êjûb, accords with it: “The Monastery of Job lies in one of the Damascene provinces, and was the place of Job's residence, in which God tried him. There also is the fountain which sprang forth at the stamping of his foot, when at the end of his trial God commanded him, and said: Strike with thy foot - (thus a fountain will spring forth, and) this shall be to thee a cool bath and a draught (Korân, xxxviii. 41ff.). There is also the rock on which he sat, and his tomb.” Recurring to the passage of the Koran cited, we shall see that the stone of Job, the fountain and the tomb, are not situated in the Monastery itself, but at some little distance from it.
I came with my cortége out of Gôlân, to see the remarkable pilgrim fair of Muzêrîb, just when the Mekka caravan was expected; and since the Monastery of Job, never visited by any one now-a-days, could not lie far out of the way, I determined to seek it out, because I deluded myself with the hope of finding an inscription of its founder, 'Amr I, and in fact one with a date, which would have been of the greatest importance in reference to the history of the Ghassanides, - a hope which has remained unfulfilled. In the evening of the 8th of May we came to Tesîl. Here the Monastery was for the first time pointed out to us. It was lighted up by the rays of the setting sun, - a stately ruin, which lay in the distance a good hour towards the east. The following morning we left Tesîl. Our way led through luxuriant corn-fields and fields lying fallow, but decked with a rich variety of flowers in gayest blossom, to an isolated volcanic mound, Tell el-Gumû’,^[194] from which we intended to reconnoitre the surrounding country. from this point, as far as the eye could reach, it swept over fields of wheat belonging to the communities of Sahm, Tell Shihâb, Tesîl, Nawâ, and Sa'dîje, which covered a region which tradition calls the home of Job. True, the volcanic chaos (el-wa'r) extended in the west to the distance of some three miles up the hill on which we stood, and on the north the plain was bounded partly by Tell el-Gâbia and the “tooth of Nawâ” (sinn Nawâ), a low ridge with a few craters; but towards the E. and S. and S.W. the plain was almost unbounded, for isolated eminences, as Tell 'Ashtarâ, T. Ash'arî, T. Shihâb, T. el-Chammân, and others, rose above the level of the plain only like mole-hills; and the deep gorges of the Meddân, Jarmûk, Hît, and Muchêbi, were sudden and almost perpendicular ravines, either not seen at all, or appeared as dark marks. The plain slopes gently and scarcely perceptibly towards Kufr el-mâ, Kufr es-sâmir, Zêzûn, and Bendek; and the Naher el'Owêrid, a rover abounding in water in its level bed, resembles a glistening thread of silver. If this district had trees, as it once had, - for among the ruins one often discovers traces of vineyards and garden walls, which it can have no longer, since the insecurity and injustice of the country do not admit of men remaining long in one and the same village, therefore not to take hold upon the soil and establish one's self, and become at home anywhere, - it would be an earthly paradise, by reason of its healthy climate and the fertility of its soil. That even the Romans were acquainted with the glorious climate of Hauran, is proved by the name Palaestina salutaris, which they gave to the district.^[195]
The inhabitants of Damascus say there is no disease whatever in Haurân; and as often as the plague or any other infectious disease shows itself in their city, thousands flee to Hauran, and to the lava-plateau of the Legâ. This healthy condition may arise from the volcanic formation of the country, and from the sea-breeze, which it always has in connection with its position, which is open towards the west. Even during the hottest days, when e.g., in the Ghûta a perfect calm prevails, so that no breeze is felt, this cool and moist sea-breeze blows refreshingly and regularly over the plain; and hence the Hauranitish poet never speaks of his native country without calling it the “cool-blowing Nukra” (en-nukra el-‛adı̂je). But as to the fertility of the district, there is indeed much good arable land in the country east of the Jordan, as in Irbid and Suwêt, of the same kind as between Salt and ‘Ammân, but nowhere is the farming, in connection with a small amount of labour (since no manure is used), more productive than in Hauran, or more profitable; for the transparent “Batanaean wheat” (hinta bethenı̂je) is always at least 25 per cent. higher in price than other kinds. Hence the agriculture of that region also, in times of peace and security (during the first six centuries after Christ), produced that fondness for building, some of the magnificent memorials of which are our astonishment in the present day; and, in fact, not unfrequently the inscriptions testify that the buildings themselves owe their origin to the produce of the field. Thus, in the locality of Nâhite in the Nukra, I found the following fragment of an inscription:...Μασαλέμου Ράββου κτίσμα ἐξ ἰδίων κόπων γεωργικῶν ἐν ἔτι στ, Masalemos son of Rabbos set up (this memorial) out of the produce of his farming in the year 280. Of a like kind is the following remains of two distichs in Marduk: . . . δρός τε σαόφρων | . . . μεγαρόν | . . . ις ἀνάπαυμα μέγιστον | . . . γεωπονίης. In Shakkâ the longer inscription of a mausoleum in a state of good preservation begins: Βάσσος ἑῆς πάτρης μεγακύδεος ἀγλαὸν ὄμμα Ἐκ σφετέρου καμάτοιο γεωπονίης τέ μ ̓ ἔδειμεν.
Bassos, beaming eye of the honourable city of his birth,
Has built me out of the produce of his own tillage.
Similar testimonies are to be found in the inscriptions of Burckhardt.
After a long sojourn on the hill, which was occasioned by the investigation of some interesting plants in the crater of the mound, we set out for Sa'dîje, which is built on the slope of a hill. After a good hour's journey we arrived at the Makâm Êjûb, “the favoured tomb of Job,” situated at the southern base of the hill, and rendered conspicuous by two white domes, and there we dismounted. The six attendants and alumni of the Makâm, or, as the Arabs thoughtfully call them, “the servants of our master Job” (châdimîn sêjidna Êjûb), received us, with some other pilgrims, at the door of the courtyard, and led us to the basin of the fountain of Job, by the side of which they spread out their mantles for us to rest upon under the shade of walnut tree and a willow. While the rest were negated in the duties of hospitality, the superior of the Makâm, the Sheikh Sa'îd el-Darfûri (from Darfûr) did not leave us, and made himself in every way obliging. Like him, all the rest of the inhabitants of the place were black, and all unmarried; their celibacy, however, I imagine, was only caused by the want of opportunity of marrying, and the limited accommodation of the place. Sheikh Sa'îd believed himself to be fifty years of age; he left his home twenty years before to go on pilgrimage to Mekka, where he “studied” four years; the same length of time he sojourned in Medîna, and had held his present office ten years. Besides his mother tongue, he spoke Arabic and a little Turkish, having been in Constantinople a few years before. His judgment of the inhabitants of that city is rather harsh: he charges them with immorality, drunkenness, and avarice. In one year, said he, I could hardly save enough to travel by the steamer to Chôdscha Bêk (Odessa). How different was my experience to the inhabitants of this city! I was there three months, during which time I had nothing to provide for, and left with ninety Mânôt (imperials), which just sufficed to set up these dilapidated relics again. A Russian ship brought me to Smyrna, whence I travelled by the Nemsâwi (Austrian Lloyd steamer) to Syria.
According to the account given by the inhabitants of Sa'dîje, the Makâm has been from ancient times a negro hospice. These Africans, commonly called ‘Abîd in Damascus, and in the country Tekârine, come chiefly from Tekrûr in Sûdân; they first visit Mekka and Medîna, then Damascus, and finally the Makâm of Job. Here they sojourn from twenty to thirty days, during which time they wash themselves daily in Job's fountain, and pray upon Job's stone; and the rest of the day they either read or assist the dwellers in the Makâm in their tillage of the soil. When they are about to leave, they received a testimonial, and often return home on foot across the Isthmus of Suez, often by water, chiefly from Jâfâ, by the Austrian Lloyd ship to Egypt, and thence to their native country. These pilgrims, so far as the requirements of their own country are concerned, are literati; and it appears as though by this journey they obtained their highest degree. I have frequently met them in my travels. They are known by their clean white turban, and the white broad-sleeved shirt, which reaches to the ankles, their only garment. They carry a small bundle over the shoulder upon a strong staff, which may serve as a weapon of defence in case of need. In this bundle they carry a few books and other effects, and above this their cloak. They are modest, taciturn men, who go nimbly onward on their way, and to whom one always gladly gives a supper and a night's lodging.
We visited the holy places in the company of the Sheikh Sa'îd. The Makâm, and the reservoir, which lies fifty paces to the front of it, are surrounded by a wall. This reservoir is filled by a strong, rapid, and cold stream of water, which comes from the fountain of Job, about 400 paces distant. The fountain itself springs up by the basalt hill on which the village and the Job's stone are situated; and it is covered in as far as the reservoir (called birke), in order to keep the water fresh, and to guard against pollution. Between the fountain and the Makâm stand a half-dozen acacias and a pomegranate, which were just then in full bloom. The Makâm itself, on which the wretched habitations for the attendants and pilgrims adjoin, is a one-storey stone building, of old material and moderate circumference. The first thing shown us was the stone trough, called gurn, in which Job bathed at the end of his trial. The small space in which this relic stands, and over which, so far as I remember, one of the two domes is raised, is called wadjet sêjidnâ Êjûb, “the lavatory of our lord Job.” Adjoining this is the part with the tomb, the oblong mound of which is covered with an old torn green cloth. The tomb of Sa'd was more carefully tended. Our Damascene travelling companions were divided in their opinions as to the person whose tomb was near that of Job, as in Syria it is hardly possible to find and distinguish the makâms of the many men of God (rigâl Allâh) or favoured ones of God (auliâ) who bear the same names; but a small white flag standing upon the grave informed us, for it bore the inscription: “This is the military emblem (râje) of our lord Sa'd abû Merzûka.”
Perhaps the preservation of the Makâm of Job is due to the tomb of Sa'd, as its endowments have long since disappeared, while the tomb of Sa'd still has its revenues. From 'Aglûn it receives tribute of oil and olives yearly. And several large vegetable gardens, which lie round about the Makâm, and are cultivated by its attendants, must also contribute something considerable towards its maintenance. In these gardens they grow dura (maize), tobacco, turnips, onions, and other things, for their own use and for sale. The plants, which can be freely watered from the fountain of Job, are highly esteemed. The government levies no taxes on the Makâm, and the Arabs no tribute; and since, according to the popular belief, that Beduin horse that is watered from the birke dies, the Beduins do not even claim the rights of hospitality, - a fortunate circumstance, the removal of which would speedily cause the ruin of the hospice. From nightly thieves, who not unfrequently break through the walls of the stables in the villages of the plain, and carry off the smaller cattle, both the Makâm and the village are secure; for if the night thieves come, they see, as every one in Hauran testifies, a surging sea around the place, which prevents their approach.
From the Makâm we ascended the hill of the village, on the highest part of which is the stone of Job (Sachrat Êjûb). It is inside a small Mussulman hall of prayer, which in its present form is of more modern origin, but is undoubtedly built from the material of a Christian chapel, which stood here in the pre-Muhammedan age. It is an unartistic structure, in the usual Hauranitish style, with six or eight arches and a small dome, which is just above the stone of Job. My Mussulman attendants, and a Hauranite Christina from the village of Shemiskîn, who had joined us as we were visiting the Sachra, trod the sacred spot with bare feet, and kissed the rock, the basaltic formation of which is unmistakeable. Against this rock, our guide told us, Job leaned “when he was afflicted by his Lord” (hı̂n ibtelâ min rabbuh).^[196]
While these people were offering up their 'Asr (afternoon) prayer in this place, Sa'îd brought me a handful of small long round stones and slag, which the tradition declares to be the worms that fell to the ground out of Job's sores, petrified. “Take them with thee,” said he, “as a memento of this place; let them teach thee not to forget God in prosperity, and in misfortune not to contend with Him.” The frequent use of these words in the mouth of the man might have weakened them to a set phrase: they were, however, appropriate to the occasion, and were not without their effect. After my attendants had provided themselves with Job's worms, we left the Sachra. These worms form a substantial part of the Hauranitish tradition of Job, and they are known and revered generally in the country. Our Christian attendant from Shemiskîn bound them carefully in the broad sleeve of his shirt, and recited to us a few verses from a kasîde, in which they are mentioned. The poem, which a member of our company, the dervish Regeb, wrote down, is by a Hauranite Christian, who in it describes his unhappy love in colours as strong as the bad taste it displays. The lines that are appropriate here are as follows: -Min ‛azma nârı̂ nâra jôm el-qijâma,Tûfâna Nûha 'dmû‛ a 'ênı̂ ‛anuh zôd. Ja‛ qûba min hoznı̂ hizânuh qisâma Min belwetı̂ Ejûba jerta‛ bihe ‛d-dûd.^[197]
The fire of hell at the last day will kindle itself from the glow of my pain,
And stronger than the flood of Noah are the tear-streams of mine eyes.
The grief of Jacob for his son was but a small part of my grief;
And, visited with my misery, Job was once the prey of worms.^[198]
The village, which the peasants call Shêch Sa'd, and the nomads Sa'dîje, is, as the name implies, of later origin, and perhaps was founded by people who fled hither when oppressed elsewhere, for the sake of being able to live more peacefully under the protection of the two tombs. That the place is not called Êjûbîje, is perhaps in order to distinguish it from the Monastery of Job.
In less than a quarter of an hour we rode up to the Dêr Êjûb, a square building, standing entirely alone, and not surrounded by ruins. When the Arabian geographers call it a village, they reckon to it the neighbouring Sa'dîje with the Makâm. It is very extensive, and built of fine square blocks of dolerite. While my fellow-traveller, M. Dörgens, was engaged in making a ground-plan of the shattered building, which seemed to us on the whole to have had a very simple construction, I took some measurements of its sides and angles, and then searched for inscriptions. Although the ground-floor is now in part hidden in a mezbele,^[199] which has been heaped up directly against the walls, on the east side, upon the architrave, not of the chief doorway, which is on the south, but of a door of the church, is found a large Greek inscription in a remarkable state of preservation. The architrave consists of a single carefully-worked block of dolerite, and at present rests almost upon the ground, since the rubbish has filled the whole doorway. The writing and sculpture are hollowed out.
In the center is a circle, and the characters inscribed at each side of this circle are still undeciphered; the rest of the inscription is easy to be read: αὕτη ἡ πύλη κ(υρίο)υ δίκαιοι εἰσελεύσοντε ἐν αὐτῇ· τοῦτο τὸ ὑπέρθυρον ἐτέθη ἐν χρόνοις Ἠελίου εὐλαβεστ(άτου) ἡγουμ(ένου) μ(ηνί) Ἰουλίῳ κε ἰνδ(ι)κ(τίωνος) ιε τοῦ ἔτους πηντακοσιοστοῦ τρικοστοῦ ἕκτου κ(υρί)ου Ἰ(ης)οῦ Χ(ριστ)οῦ Βασιλεύοντος. The passage of Scripture, Psa 118:20, with which this inscription beings, is frequently found in these districts in the inscriptions on church portals.
This inscription was an interesting discovery; for, so far as I know, it is the oldest that we possess which reckons according to the Christian era, and in the Roman indiction (indictio)^[200] we have an important authority for determining its date. Now, since there might be a difference of opinion as to the beginning of the “kingdom of Christ,” I was anxious to have the judgment of an authority in chronology on the point; and I referred to Prof. Piper of Berlin, who kindly furnished me with the following communication: - “...The inscription therefore furnishes the following data: July 25, indict. xv., year 536, κυρίου Ιοῦ Χοῦ βασιλεύοντος. To begin with the last, the Dionysian era, which was only just introduced into the West, is certainly not to be assumed here. But it is also by no means the birth of Christ that is intended. Everything turns upon the expression βασιλεύοντος. The same expression occurs once in an inscription from Syria, Corp. Inscr. Graec. 8651: βασιλεύοντος Ιουστινιανοῦ τῷ ια ἔτει. The following expression, however, occurs later concerning Christ on Byzantine coins: Rex regnantium and βασιλεὺς βασιλέων (after Rev 17:14; Rev 19:16), the latter under John Zimiszes (died 975), in De Saulcy, Pl. xxii. 4. But if the βασιλεία of Christ is employed as the era, we manifestly cannot refer to the epoch of the birth of Christ, but must take the epoch of His ascension as our basis: for with this His βασιλεία first began; just as in the West we sometimes find the calculation begins a passione. Now the fathers of the Western Church indeed place the death (and therefore also the ascension) of Christ in the consulate of the two Gemini, 29 a.d. Not so with the Greek fathers. Eusebius takes the year of His death, according to one supposition, to be the 18th year of Tiberius, i.e., 785 a.u.c. = 32 a.d. Supposing we take this as the first year regnante Jesu Christo, then the year 536, of the inscription of the Monastery of Job, is reduced to our era, after the birth of Christ, by adding 31. Thus we have the number of the year 567, to which the accompanying xv. indictio corresponds, for 567 + 3 = 570; and 570/15 has no remainder. XV is therefore the indiction of the year 567, which more accurately belongs to the year from 1st Sept. 566 to 31st Aug. 567. And since the day of the month is mentioned in the inscription, it is the 25th July 567 that is indicated. For it appears to me undoubted that the indictions, according to the usual mode of computation among the Greeks, begin with the 1st Sept. 312. Thus a Sidonian inscription of dec. 642 a.d. has the I indiction (Corp. Inscr. Gr. 9153)....”
Thus far Prof. Piper's communication. According to this satisfactory explanation of its date, this inscription is perhaps not unqualified to furnish a contribution worth notice, even for the chronology of the life of Jesus, since the Ghassinides, under whom not only the inscription, but the Monastery itself 300 years earlier, had its origin, dwelt in Palestine, the land of Christ; and their kings were perhaps the first who professed Christianity.
The “festival of the Monastery of Job,” which, according to Kazwînî's Syrian Calendar,^[201] the Christians of the country celebrated annually on the 23rd April, favours the pre-Muhammedan importance of the Monastery. This festival in Kazwînî's time, appearing only by name inf the calendar, had undoubtedly ceased with the early decline of Christianity in the plain of Hauran, for the historically remarkable Exodus of a large portion of the Ghassinides out of the cities of Hauran to the north of Georgia had taken place even under the chalifate of Omar. The Syrian Christians of the present day celebrate the festival of Mâr Gorgius (St. George), who slew the dragon (tennîn) near Beirût, on the 23rd April. A week later (the 1st May, oriental era) the Jews of Damascus have the sôm Êjûb (the fast of Job), which lasts twentyfour hours. In Kazwînî's calendar it is erroneously set down to the 3rd May.
Moreover, with reference to the Monastery, it must be mentioned that, according to the history of Ibn Kethîr,^[202] the great Greco-Ghassinide army, which, under the leadership of Theodoric, a brother of the Emperor Heraclius, was to have repulsed the attack of the Mussulmans on Syria, revolted in its neighbourhood in the 13th year of the Hegira (Higra), while the enemy was encamped on the south bank of the Meddân, and was drawn up near Edre'ât. After several months had passed came the battle known as the “battle of the Jarmûk,” the issue of which cost the Byzantines Syria. The volcanic hollows of the ground, which for miles form a complex network of gorges, for the most part inaccessible, offer great advantages in defensive warfare; and here the battle near Edre'î, in which 'Og king of Bashan lost his kingdom, was probably fought.
According to the present division of the country, the Monastery of Job and the Makâm are in the southern part of Gêdûr, an administrative district, which is bounded on the north by the Wâdî Bêrût, on the east by the W. el-Horêr and the high road, on the south by the Jarmûk, and on the west by the W. Hit and by a range of volcanic mounds, which stretch to the south-east corner of the Snow-mountain (el-Hermôn); this district, however, has only a nominal existence, for it has no administration of its own. Either it is added to Haurân, or its revenues, together with those of Gôlân, are let out to the highest bidder for a number of years. Gêdûr is the natural north-western continuation of the plain of Haurân; and the flat bed of the Horêr, which does not form a gorge until it comes to the bridge of Sîra, forms no boundary proper. Moreover, the word is not found in ancient geography; and the Arabian geographers, even the later ones, who recognised the idea of Gêdûr, always so define the position of a locality situated in Gêdûr, that they say it is situated in the Haurân. Thus Jâkût describes the town of el-Gâbia, situated in western Gêdûr, and in like manner, as we have seen above, Nawâ and the Monastery of Job, etc.^[203]
There is no doubt that, as the Gêdûr of the present day is reckoned in the Nukra, so this country also in ancient days, at least as far as its northern watershed, has belonged to the tetrarchy of Batanaea.
The Monastery of Job is at present inhabited. A certain sheikh, Ahmed el-Kâdirî, has settled down here since the autumn of 1859, as partner of the senior of the Damascene ‘Omarîje (the successors of the Chalif 'Omar), to whose family endowments (waqf) the Monastery belongs, and with his family he inhabits a number of rooms in the inner court, which have escaped destruction. He showed us the decree of his partner appointing him to his position, in which he is styled Sheikh of the Dêr Êjûb, Dêr el-Lebwe, and ‘Ashtarâ. Dêr el-Lebwe, “the monastery of the lion,”^[204] was built by the Gefnide Eihem ibn el-Hârith; and we shall have occasion to refer to ‘Ashtarâ, in which Newbold,^[205] in the year 1846, believed he had found the ancient capital of Basan, ‘Ashtarôt, further on. But the possessor of all these grand things was a very unhappy man. While we were drinking coffee with him, he related to us how the inhabitants of Nawâ had left him only two yoke (feddân) of arable land from the territory assigned to him, and taken all the rest to themselves. The harvest of that year, after the deduction of the bedhâr (the new seed-corn), would hardly suffice to meet the demands of his family, and of hospitality; and for his partner, how had advanced money to him, there would be nothing left. In Damascus he found no redress; and the Sheikh of Nawâ, Dhiâb el-Medhjeb, had answered his last representation with the words, “He who desires Job's inheritance must look for trials.” Here also, as in Arabia generally, I found that intelligence and energy was on the side of the wife. During our conversation, his wife, with one of her children, had drawn near; and while the child kissed my hand, according to custom, she said: “To-morrow thou wilt arrive at Muzêrîb; Dhiâb will also be going thither with contributions for the pilgrims. We put our cause in thy hands, arrange it as seems thee best; this old man will accompany thee.” And as we were riding, the Sheikh Ahmed was also obliged to mount, and his knowledge of the places did us good service on Tell Ashtarâ and Tell el-Ash'arî. In Muzêrîb, where the pilgrim fair and the arriving caravans for Mekka occupied our attention for five days, we met Dhiâb and the Ichtiârîje (elders of the community) of Nawâ; and, after some opposition, the sheikh of the Monastery of Job obtained four feddân of land under letter and seal, and returned home satisfied.
The case of this man is no standard of the state of the Hauranites, for there are so many desolated villages that there is no lack of land; only round about Nawâ it is insufficient, since this place is obliged to take possession of far outlying fields, by reason of its exceedingly numerous agricultural population.^[206]
The more desolate a land exposed to plunder becomes, the more populous must its separate towns become, since the inhabitants of the smaller defenceless villages crowd into them. Thus the inhabitants of the large town of Kenâkir at the present time till the fields of twelve neighbouring deserted villages; and Salt, the only inhabited place in the Belkâ, has its corn-fields even at a distance of fifteen miles away. The poet may also have conceived of Job's domain similarly, for there were five hundred ploughmen employed on it; so that it could not come under the category of ordinary villages, which in Syria rarely have above, mostly under, fifty yoke of oxen. According to the tradition, which speaks of “Job's villages” (diâ' Êjûb), these ploughmen would be distributed over several districts; but the poet, who makes them to be overwhelmed by one ghazwe, therefore as ploughing in one district, will have conceived of them only as dwelling in one locality.
It might not be out of place here to give some illustration of the picture which the poet draws of Job's circumstances and position as a wealthy husbandman. Haurân, the scene of the drama (as we here assume), must at that period, as at present, have been without protection from the government of the country, and therefore exposed to the marauding attacks of the tribes of the desert. In such a country there is no private possession; but each person is at liberty to take up his abode in it, and to cultivate the land and rear cattle at his own risk, where and to what extent he may choose. Whoever intends doing so much first of all have a family, or as the Arabs say, “men” (rigâl), i.e., grown-up sons, cousins, nephews, sons-in-law; for one who stands alone, “the cut off one” (maktû‛), as he is called, can attain no position of eminence among the Semites, nor undertake any important enterprise.^[207]

Then he has to make treaties with all the nomad tribes from which he has reason to fear any attack, i.e., to pledge himself to pay a yearly tribute, which is given in native produce (in corn and garments). Thus the community of el-Hîgâne, ten years since, had compacts with 101 tribes; and that Job also did this, seems evident from the fact that the poet represents him as surprised not by neighbouring, but by far distant tribes (Chaldaeans and Sabaeans), with whom he could have no compact.^[208]
Next he proceeds to erect a chirbe, i.e., a village that has been forsaken (for a longer or shorter period), in connection with which, excepting the relations, slaves, and servants of the master, all those whom interest, their calling, and confidence in the good fortune of the master, have drawn thither, set about the work. Perhaps Job 15:28 has reference to Job's settlement.^[209]
With reference to the relation of the lord of a village (ustâd beled, or sâhib dê‛a) to his work-people, there are among the dependents two classes. The one is called zurrâ‛, “sowers,” also fellâhin kism, “participating husbandmen,” because they share the produce of the harvest with the ustâd thus: he receives a fourth while they retain three-fourths, from which they live, take the seed for the following season, give their quota towards the demands of the Arabs, the village shepherds, the field watchmen, and the scribe of the community (chatı̂b); they have also to provide the farming implements and the yoke-oxen. On the other hand, the ustâd has to provide for the dwellings of the people, to pay the land-tax to the government, and, in the event of a failure of the crops, murrain, etc., to make the necessary advances, either in money or in kind at the market price, and without any compensation. This relation, which guarantees the maintenance of the family, and is according to the practice of a patriarchal equity, is greatly esteemed in the country; and one might unhesitatingly consider it therefore to be that which existed between Job and his ploughmen, because it may with ease exist between a single ustâd and hundreds, indeed thousands, of country people, if Job 1:3 did not necessitate our thinking of another class of country people, viz., the murâbi‛ı̂n, the “quarterers.” They take their name from their receiving a fourth part of the harvest for their labour, while they have to give up the other three-fourths to the ustâd, who must provide for their shelter and board, and in like manner everything that is required in agriculture. As Job, according to Job 1:3 (comp. on Job 42:12), provided the yoke-oxen and means of transport (asses and camels), so he also provided the farming implements, and the seed for sowing. We must not here think of the paid day-labourer of the Syrian towns, or the servants of our landed proprietors; they are unknown on the borders of the desert. The hand that toils has there a direct share in the gain; the workers belong to the aulâd, “children of the house,” and are so called; in the hour of danger they will risk their life for their lord.
This rustic labour is always undertaken simultaneously by all the murâbi‛ı̂n (it is so also in the villages of the zurrâ‛) for the sake of order, since the ustâd, or in his absence the village sheikh, has the general work of the following day announced from the roof of his house every evening. Thus it is explained how the 500 ploughmen could be together in one and the same district, and be slain all together.
The ustâd is the sole judge, or, by deputy, the sheikh. An appeal to the government of the country would be useless, because it has no influence in Hauran; but the servant who has been treated unjustly by his master, very frequently turns as dachı̂l fi 'l-haqq (a suppliant concerning his right) to his powerful neighbour, who is bound, according to the customs of the country, to obtain redress for him (comp. Job 29:12-17). If he does not obtain this by persuasion, he cries for force, and such a demand lies at the root of many a bloody feud.
Powerful and respected also as the position, described in Job 29:1, of such a man is, it must, according to the nature of its basis, fall in under strokes of misfortune, like those mentioned in Job 1:14-19, and change to the very opposite, as the poet describes it in Job 30:1.
After these observations concerning the agricultural relations of Hauran, we return to the tradition of Job. As we pursue the track of this tradition further, we first find it again in some of the Christina writers of the middle ages, viz., in Eugesippus (De distanc. loc. terr. sanct.), in William of Tyre (Histor. rerum a Francis gest.), and in Marino Sanuto (De secretis fid. cruc.). The passages that bear upon the point are brought together in Reland (Palest. pp. 265f.); and we would simply refer to them, if it were possible for the reader to find his way among the fabulous confusion of the localities in Eugesippus and Sanuto.
The oldest of these citations is from Eugesippus, and is as follows: One part of the country is the land of Hus, out of which Job was; it is also called Sueta, after which Bildad the Suhite was named. Sanuto tells us where this locality is to be sought. “Sueta is the home of Baldad the Suite, Below this city (civitas), in the direction of the Kedar-tribes, the Saracens are accustomed to assemble out of Aram, Mesopotamia, Ammon, Moab, and the whole Orient, around the fountain of Fiale; and, on account of the charms of the place, to hold a fair there during the whole summer, and to pitch their coloured tents.” In another place he says: fontem Fialen Medan, i.e., aquas Dan, a Saracenis nuncupari.
Now, since according to an erroneous, but previously prevalent etymology, “the water of Dan” (מי דן = יאר דּן) denoted the Jordan, and since we further know from Josephus (Bell. iii. 10, 7) that the Phiala is the small lake of Râm, whose subterranean outflow the tetrarch Philip is said to have shown to be the spring of the Jordan, which comes to light deeper below, we should have thought the country round about the lake of Râm, at the south foot of Hermôn, to be the home of Job and Bildad. This discovery would be confirmed by the following statement of Eugesippus (in Reland, loc. cit.): “The river Dan flows under ground from its spring as far as the plain of Meldan, where it comes to light. This plain is named after the fair, which is held there, for the Saracens call such an one Meldan. At the beginning of the summer a large number of men, with wares to sell, congregate there, and several Parthian and Arabian soldiers also, in order to guard the people and their herds, which have a rich pasture there in the summer. The word Meldan is composed of mel and dan.” It is indeed readily seen that the writer has ignorantly jumbled several words together in the expression meldan, as mê Dan, “water of Dan,” and Mêdân or mı̂dân, “market-place;” perhaps even also leddân, the name of the great fountain of the Jordan in the crater of the Tell el-Kâdi. In like manner, the statement that the neighbourhood of Phiala, or that of the large fountain of the Jordan, might formerly have been a fair of the tribes, is false, for the former is broken up into innumerable craters, and the latter is poisoned by the swamp-fevers of the Hûle; but as to the rest, both Eugesippus and Sanuto seem really to speak of a tradition which places Job's or Bildad's home in that region. And yet it is not so: their tradition is no other than the Hauranitish; but ignorance of the language and geography of the country, and some accidental circumstances, so confused their representations, that it is difficult to find out what is right. The first clue is given us by the history of William of Tyre, in which (l. xxii. c. 21) it is said that the crusaders, on their return from a marauding expedition in the Nukra, wished to reconquer a strong position, the Cavea Roob, which they had lost a short time before. “This place,” says the historian, “lies in the province of Suite, a district distinguished by its pleasantness, etc.; and that Baldad, Job's friend, who is on that account called the Suite, is said to have come from it.” This passage removes us at once into the neighbourhood of Muzêrîb and the Monastery of Job, for the province of Suete is nothing but the district of Suwêt (Arab. ṣwı̂t),^[210] the north-western boundary of which is formed by the gorge of the Wâdî Rahûb. The Cavea Roob, which was first of all again found out by me on my journey in 1862, lies in the middle of the steep bank of that wadi, and is at present called maghâret Rahûb, “the cave of R.,” or more commonly mu'allakat Rahûb, “the swinging cave of R.,” and at the time of the Crusades commanded the dangerous pass which the traveller, on ascending from the south end of the Lake of Galilee to Edre'ât by the nearest way, has to climb on hands and feet. In another passage (xvi. 9), where the unhealthy march to Bosrâ is spoken of, Will. of Tyre says: “After we had come through the gorge of Roob, we reached the plain which is called Medan, and where every year the Arabs and other oriental tribes are accustomed to hold a large fair.” This plain is in the vicinity of Muzêrîb, in which the great pilgrim-fair is held annually. We find something similar in xiii. 18: “After having passed Decapolis^[211] we came to the pass of Roob, and further on into the plain of Medan, which stretches far and wide in every direction, and is intersected by the river Dan, which falls into the Jordan between (Tiberias and Scythopolis (Bîsân).” This river, the same as that which Sanuto means by his aquae Dan (Mê Dân), is none other than the Wâdi el-Meddân, called “the overflowing one,” because in the month of March it overflows its banks eastward of the Gezzâr-bridge. It is extremely strange that the name of this river appears corrupted not only in all three writers mentioned above, but also in Burckhardt; for, deceived by the ear, he calls it Wâdî Om el-Dhan.^[212]
The Meddân is the boundary river between the Suwêt and Nukra plains; it loses its name where it runs into the Makran; and where it falls into the valley of the Jordan, below the lake of Tiberias, it is called el-Muchêbî.
We have little to add to what has been already said. The Fiale of Sanuto is not the Lake Râm, but the round begge, the lake of springs of Muzêrîb, the rapid outflow of which, over a depth of sixty to eighty feet, forms a magnificent waterfall, the only one in Syria, as it falls into the Meddân near the village of Tell Shihâb.
The unfortunate confusion of the localities was occasioned by two accidental circumstances: first, that both the springs of the Jordan below Bâniâs and the lake of Muzêrîb, have a village called Rahûb (רחוב) in their vicinity, of which one is mentioned in Jdg 18:28., and the other, about a mile below the Cavea Roob, is situated by a fountain of the same name, from which village, cavern, and wadi derive their names; secondly, that there, as here, there is a village Abil (אבל): that near Dan is situated in the “meadow-district of 'Ijôn” (Merg. 'Ijûn); and that in the Suwêt lies between Rahûb and the Makran, and was visited by Seetzen as well as by myself. Perhaps the circumstance that, just as the environs of Muzêrîb have their Mîdân,^[213] so the environs of Bâniâs have their Ard el-Mejâdîn, “region of battle-fields,” may also have contributed to the confusion; thus, for example, the country sloping to the west from the Phiala towards the Hûle, between Gubbâtâ ez-zêt and Za'ûra, is called, perhaps on account of the murderous encounters which took place there, both in the time of the Crusades and also in more ancient times. It is certainly the ground on which the battle narrated in the book of Joshua, Jos 11:1, took place, and also the battle in which Antiochus the Great slew the Egyptian army about 200 b.c.)
What we have gained for our special purpose from this information (by which not a few statements of Ritter, K. v. Raumer, and others, are substantiated), is not merely the fact that the tradition which places Job's home in the region of Muzêrîb existed even in the middle ages (which the quotation given above from Makdeshî, who lived before the time of the Crusades, also confirms), and even came to the ears of the foreigners who settled in the country as they then passed through the land, but also the certainty that this tradition was then, as now, common to the Christians and the Mussulmans, for the three writers previously mentioned would hardly have recorded it on the testimony of the latter only.^[214]
There can be no doubt as to which of these two religions must be regarded as the original mother of this tradition. The Hauranite Christians, who, from their costume, manners, language, and traditions, undoubtedly inherited the country from the pre-Muhammedan age, venerate the Makâm perhaps even more than the Muhammedans; which would be altogether impossible in connection with the hostile position of the two religious sects towards one another, and in connection with the zealous scorn with which the Syrian Christians regard the religion of Islam, if the Hauranitish tradition of Job and the Makâm were of later, Muhammedan origin. It is also possible that, on a closer examination of the Makâm and the buildings about the Sachra, one might find, besides crosses, Greek inscriptions (since they are nowhere wanting in the Nukra), which could only have their origin in the time before the occupation of Islam (635 a.d.); for after this the Hauranite Christians, who only prolong their existence by wandering from chirbe to chirbe, have not even built a single dwelling-house, much less a building for religious worship, which was forbidden under pain of death in the treaty of Omar. But in connection with the pre-Islam Monastery of Job, which owed its origin only to the sacred tradition that held its ground in that place, are monumental witnesses that this tradition is pre-Islamic, and has been transferred from the Christians to the Mussulmans, required? We may go even further, and assert that Muhammed, in the Sur. xxxviii. 41ff. of the Korân, had the Hauranitish tradition of Job and the localities near Sa'dîje definitely before his mind.
We must regard the merchandise caravans which the inhabitants of Tehâma sent continuously into the “north country,” esh-shâm,^[215] and the return freight of which consisted chiefly of Hauranitish corn, as proof of a regular intercourse between the east Jordanic country and the west of the Arabian peninsula in the period between Christ and Muhammed. Hundreds of men from Mekka and Medina came every year to Bosrâ; indeed, when it has happened that the wandering tribes of Syria, which were, then also as now, bound for Hauran with the kêl, i.e., their want of corn, got before them, and had emptied the granaries of Bosrâ, or when the harvests of the south of Hauran had been destroyed by the locusts, which is not unfrequently the case, they will have come into the Nukra^[216] as far as Nawâ, sometimes even as far as Damascus, in order to obtain their full cargo.
If commerce often has the difficult task of bringing together the most heterogeneous peoples, and of effecting a reciprocal interchange of ideas, it here had the easy work of sustaining the intercourse among tribes that were originally one people, spoke one idiom, and regarded themselves as all related; for the second great Sabaean migration, under ‘Amr and his son Ta'labe, had taken possession of Mekka, and left one of their number, Rabî'a ibn Hâritha, with his attendants (the Chuzâ'ites), behind as lord of the city. In the same manner they had become possessed of Jathrib (el-Medîna), and left this city to their tribes Aus and Chazreg: the remainder of the people passed on to Peraea and took possession of the country, at that time devastated, as far as Damascus, according to Ibn Sa'îd, even including this city. By the reception of Christianity, the Syrian Sabaeans appear to have become but slightly or not at all estranged from their relatives in the Higâz, for Christianity spread even here, so that the Caesars once ventured to appoint a Christian governor even to the city of Mekka. This was during the lifetime of the Gefnite king ‘Amr ibn Gebele. At the time of Muhammed there were many Christians in Mekka, who will for the most part have brought their Christianity with the Syrian caravans, so that at the commencement of Islâm the Hauranitish tradition of Job might have been very well known in Mekka, since many men from Mekka may have even visited the Makâm and the Sachra, and there have heard many a legend of Job like that intimated in the Korân xxxviii. 43. Yea, whoever will give himself the trouble to investigate minute commentaries on the Koran, especially such as interpret the Koran from the tradition (hadı̂th), e.g., the Kitâb ed-durr el-muchtâr, may easily find that not merely Kazwînî, Ibn el-Wardî, and Jâkût, whose observations concerning the Monastery of Job have been given above, but also much older authorities, identify the Koranish fountain of Job with the Hauranitish.
A statement of Eusebius, of value in connection with this investigation, brings us at one stride about three hundred years further on. It is in the Onomastikon, under Καρναείμ, and is as follows: “Astaroth Karnaim is at present (about 310 a.d.) a very large village (κώμη μεγίστη) beyond the Jordan, in the province of Arabia, which is also called Batanaea. Here, according to tradition (ἐκ παραδόσεως), they fix the dwelling (οἶκος) of Job.” On the small map which accompanies these pages, the reader will find in the vicinity of the Makâm the low and somewhat precipitous mound, not above forty feet in height, of Tell 'Ashtarâ, the plateau of which forms an almost round surface, which is 425 paces in diameter, and shows the unartistic foundations of buildings, and traces of a ring-wall. Here we have to imagine that ‘Astarot Karnaim. Euseb. here makes no mention whatever of the city of Astaroth, the ancient capital of Basan, for this he does under Astaroo'th; the hypothesis of its being the residence of king 'Og, which Newbold^[217] set up here, consequently falls to the ground. The κώμη μεγίστη of Eusebius must, in connection with the limited character of the ground, certainly be somewhat contracted; but the identity of the localities is not to be doubted in connection with the great nearness of the οἶκος (the Makâm).^[218]
Let us compare another statement that belongs here; it stands under Ἀσταρὼθ Καρναείμ, and is as follows: “There are at the present time two villages of this name in Batanaea, which lie nine miles distant from one another, μεταξὺ ΑΔΑΡΩΝ καὶ ΑΒΙΛΗΞ.” Jerome has duo castella instead of two villages, by which at least the κώμη μεγίστη is somewhat reduced; for that it is one of these two castles^[219] can be the less doubtful, since they also regulate the determining of the respective localities. If the reading ΑΒΙΛΗΞ is correct, only Abil (אבל) in the north of Suwêt can (since, without doubt, the Arabian names of the places in Hauran existed in Eusebius' day) be intended; and ΑΔΑΡΩΝ ought then to be changed into ΑΛΑΡΩΝ, in order to denote the large village of El-hârâ, on the lofty peak of the same name in the plain of Gêdûr. El-hârâ lies to the north, and Abil to the south of ‘Ashtarâ. If, however, as is most highly probable, instead of ΑΒΙΛΗΞ (which form Euseb. does not use elsewhere, for he calls the town of Abil Ἀβέλ, and the inscription in Turra has the form πόλεως Ἀβέλις), ΑΒΙΔΗΞ is to be read, which corresponds to the Ἀβιδᾶ of Ptolemy (ed. Wilberg, p. 369) and the modern /Abidîn near Bêtirrâ, thus the name of the other village is to be changed from ΑΔΑΡΩΝ to ΑΡΑΡΩΝ (for which the Cod. Vat. erroneously has ΔΡΑΡΩΝ), the modern 'Arâr.^[220]‘Abîdîn, however, lies nine miles west, and ‘Arâr nine miles east of ‘Ashtarâ.
Now, as to the second village, and its respective castle, which is mentioned in the second citation from the Onomastikon, I believe that both Euseb. and Jerome intend to say there are two villages, of which the one has the byname of the other; consequently the one is called Astarôt (Karnaim), and the other Karnaim (Astarôt). Twelve miles west of ‘Ashtarâ lies the Golanite village of Kornîje (קרניּה), which in old Kanêtra I have taken up in my trigonometrical measurements.
We find also a third passage in the Onomast. which belongs here; it is under Ἰαβώκ in Cod. Vat., under Ἰδουμαία in Cod. Leid. and Vellarsi, and runs: “According to the view of a certain one (κατά τινος), this region is the land of Asitis (Ausitis), the home of Job, while according to others it is Arabia (ἡ Ἀραβία); and again, according to others, it is the Land of Sîhôn.” Whether genuine or not, this passage possesses a certain value. If it is genuine, Jerome would have left it accordingly untranslated, because he would not be responsible for its whole contents, for he not unfrequently passes over or alters statements of Eusebius where he believes himself to be better informed; but, taken exactly, he could only have rejected the views of those who seek Job's native country on the Jabbok (if the passage belongs to the art. Ἰαβώκ) or in Edom (if it belongs to Ἰδουμαία), or in the Belkâ, the land of Sîhôn; but not the view of those who make Arabia (Batanaea) to be Ausitis, for the statement of Eusebius with reference to this point under Carnaei'm he translates faithfully. If the passage is not genuine, it at any rate gives the very early testimony of an authority distinct from Eusebius and Jerome in favour of the age of the Hauranitish tradition concerning Job, while it has only a single (κατά τινος) authority for the view of those who make Edom to be Ausitis, and even this only when the passage belongs to Ἰδουμαία.
By means of these quotations from the Onomastikon, that passage of Chrysostom (Homil. V. de Stud. §1, tom. ii. p. 59), in which it is said that many pilgrims from the end of the earth come to Arabia, in order to seek for the dunghill on which Job lay, and with rapture to kiss the ground where he suffered ( - - ἀπὸ περάτων τῆς γῆς εἰς τῆν Ἀραβίαν τρέχοντες, ἵνα τῆν κοπρίαν ἴδωσι, καὶ θεασάμενοι καταφιλήσωσι τῆν γῆν), appears also to obtain its right local reference. This Arabia is certainly none other than that which Eusebius explains by ἣ καὶ Βαταναία, and that κοπρία or mezbele to be sought nowhere except near the Makâm Êjûb. And should there by any doubts upon the subject, ought they not to be removed by the consideration that the proud structure of the Monastery of Job, with its spring festivals mentioned above, standing like a Pharos casting its light far and wide in that age, did not allow either the Syrian Christians or the pilgrims from foreign parts to mistake the place, which tradition had rendered sacred, as the place of Job's sufferings?
There is no monastery whose origin, according to an unimpeachable testimony, belongs to such an early date as that of the Monastery of Job. According to the chronicles of the peoples (ta'rı̂ch el-umem), or the annals of Hamze el-Isfahâni (died about 360 of the Hegira), it was built by ‘Amr I, the second Gefnide. Now, since the first Ghassanitish king (Gefne I) reigned forty-five years and three months, and ‘Amr five years, the Monastery would have been in existence about 200 a.d., if we place the beginning of the Gefnide dynasty in the time 150 a.d. Objections are raised against such an early date, because one is accustomed on good authority to assign the origin of monasteries to about the year 300 a.d. In the face of more certain historical dates, these objections must remain unheeded, for hermit and monastery life (rahbanı̂ja) existed in the country east of Jordan among the Essenes and other societies and forms of worship, even before Christianity; so that the latter, on its appearance in that part, which took place long before 200 a.d., received the monasteries as an inheritance: but certainly the chronology of the Gefnide dynasty is not reliable. Hamze fixes the duration of the dynasty at 616 years; Ibn Sa'îd,^[221] in his history of the pre-Islamic Arabs, at 601 years; and to the same period extends the statement of Mejânishi,^[222] who, in his topography of the Ka'be, says that between the conquest of Mekka by Ta'lebe and the rule of the Kosî in this city was 500 years. On the contrary, however, Ibn Jusef^[223] informs us that this dynasty began “earlier” than 400 years before Islamism. With this statement accord all those numerous accounts, according to which the “rupture of the dyke” (sêl el-‛arim), the supposed cause of the Jemanic emigration, took place rather more than 400 years before Islamism. If therefore, to content ourselves with an approximate calculation, we make Islamism to begin about 615 (the year of the “Mission” was 612 a.d.), and the Gefnide dynasty, with the addition of the “earlier,” 415 years previous, then the commencement of the reign of Gefne I would have been 200 a.d., and the erection of the Monastery shortly before 250.
When the tribe whose king later on built the Monastery migrated from Jemen into Syria, the Trachonitis was in the hands of a powerful race of the Kudâ'ides, which had settled there in the first century of our era, having likewise come out of Jemen, and become tributary to the Romans. This race had embraced Christianity from the natives; and some historians maintain that it permitted the Gefnides to settle and share in the possession of the country, only on the condition that they likewise should embrace Christianity. In those early times, these tribes, of course, with the new religion received the tradition of Job also from the first hand, from the Jews and the Jewish Christians, who, since the battle of the Jewish people with the Romans, will have found refuge and safety to a large extent in Petraea, and especially in the hardly accessible Trachonitis. The Nukra also, as the most favoured region of Syria and Palestina, will have had its native population, among which, in spite of the frequent massacres of Syrians and Jews, there will have been many Jews. Perhaps, moreover, the protection of the new Jemanic population of Hauran again attracted Jewish settlers thither: Nawâ^[224] at least is a place well known in the Talmud and Midrash, which is mentioned, as a city inhabited by the Jews among those who are not Jews, and as the birth-place of several eminent teachers.^[225]
Moreover, in Syria the veneration of a spot consecrated by religious tradition is independent of its being at the time inhabited or desolate. The supposed tombs of Aaron near Petra, of Hud near Gerash, of Jethro (Su'êb) in the valley of Nimrîn, of Ezekiel in Melîhat Hiskîn, of Elisha on the el-Jesha’ mountains, and many other mezâre (tombs of the holy, to which pilgrims resort), are frequently one or more days' journey distant from inhabited places, and yet they are carefully tended. They are preserved from decay and neglect by vows, by the spring processions, and especially by the piety of the Beduins, who frequently deposit articles of value near the mezâre, as property entrusted to the care of the saint. The Makâm of Job may also have been such a consecrated spot many centuries before the erection of the Monastery, and perhaps not merely to the Jews, but also to the Aramaean and Arab population. The superstitious veneration of such places is not confined among the Semites to a particular religious sect, but is the common heritage of the whole race; and the tradition of Job in particular was, originally, certainly not Israelitish, but Aramaean.
Job is not mentioned in the writings of Josephus, but we do find there a remarkable passage concerning Job's native country, the land of the Usites, viz., Ant. i. 6: “Aram, from whom come the Aramaeans, called by the Greeks Syrians, had four sons, of whom the first was named Οὔσης, and possessed Trachonitis and Damascus.” The first of these two, Trachonitis, has usually been overlooked here, and attention has been fixed only on Damascus. The word el-Ghûta (Arab. ‘l-gûṭt), the proper name of the garden and orchard district around Damascus, has been thought to be connected in sound with 'Us, and they have been treated as identical: this is, however, impossible even in philological grounds. Ghûta would certainly be written עוּטה in Hebrew, because this language has no sign for the sound Gh (Arab. g); but Josephus, who wrote in Greek, ought then to have said Γούσης, not Οὔσης, just as he, and the lxx before him and Eusebius after him, render the city עזה by Γάζα, the mountain עיבל by Γαιβάλ, the village עי by Γαΐ́, etc. In the same manner the lxx ought to have spoken of a Γαυσῖτις, not Αὐσῖτις, if this were the case. Proper names, also, always receive too definite and lasting an impress for their consonants, as ץ and ט, to be easily interchanged, although this is possible with the roots of verbs. Moreover, if the word עוץ had had the consonant ץ (Arab. ḍ), Josephus must have reproduced it with τ or θ, not with s, in accordance with the pronunciation (especially if he had intended to identify עוץ and Ghûta). And we see from Ptolemy and Strabo, and likewise from the Greek mode of transcribing the Semitic proper names in the Haurânite inscriptions of the Roman period, e.g., Μάθιος and Νάταρος for Arab. mâḍâ and nḍr, that in the time of Josephus the sound of ץ had already been divided into Arab. ṣ and ḍ; comp. Abhandl. der Berlin. Acad. d. Wissenschaft, 1863, S. 356f. Hence it is that Josephus manifestly speaks only of one progenitor Οὔσης, therefore of one tribe; while the word Ghûta, often as a synonym of buq'a (בקעה), denotes a low well-watered country enclosed by mountains, and in this appellative signification occurs as the proper name of several localities in the most widely separated parts of Arabia (comp. Jâkût, sub voce), which could not be the case if it had been = ארץ עוץ.^[226]
The word Ausitis used by the lxx also has no formation corresponding to the word Ghûta, but shows its connection with עוּץ ארץ by the termination; while the word Ghûta rendered in Greek is Gouthata' (in Theophanes Byzant. Gouthatha'), in analogy e.g., with the form Cheblatha' for Ribla (Jos. Ant. x. 11).^[227]
But why are we obliged to think only of Damascus, since Josephus makes Trachonitis also to belong to the land of the Usites? If we take this word in its most limited signification, it is (apart from the eastern Trachon) that lava plateau, about forty miles long and about twenty-eight broad, which is called the Legâ in the present day. This is so certain, that one is not obliged first of all to recall the well-known inscription of the temple of Mismia, which calls this city situated in the Legâ, Μητροκώμη τοῦ Τράχωνος. From the western border of this Trachon, however, the Monastery of Job is not ten miles distant, therefore by no means outside the radius that was at all times tributary to the Trachonites (Arab el-wa'r), a people unassailable in their habitations in the clefts of the rocks.^[228]
According to this, the statement of Josephus would at least not stand in open contradiction to the Hauranitish tradition of Job. But we go further and maintain that the Monastery of Job lies exactly in the centre of Trachonitis. This word has, viz., in Josephus and others, a double signification - a more limited and a wider one. It has the more limited where, together with Auranitis, Batanaea, Gamalitica, and Gaulonitis, it denotes the separate provinces of the ancient kingdom of Basan. Then it signifies the Trachonitis kat' exochee'n, i.e., the wildest portion of the volcanic district, viz., the Legâ, the Haurân mountain range, the Safâ and Harra of the Râgil. On the other hand, it has the wider signification when it stands alone; then it embraces the whole volcanic region of Middle Syria, therefore with the more limited Trachonitis the remaining provinces of Basan, but with the exception, as it seems, of the no longer volcanic Galadine (North Gilead). In this sense, therefore, as a geographical notion, Trachonitis is almost synonymous with Basan.
Since it is to the interest of this investigation to make the assertion advanced sure against every objection, we will not withhold the passages in support of it. Josephus says, Ant. xv. 10, 3, the district of Hûle (Οὐλαθά) lies between Galilee and Trachonitis. He might have said more accurately, “between Galilee and Gaulonitis,” but he wished to express that the great basaltic region begins on the eastern boundary of the Hûle. The word Trachonitis has therefore the wider signification. In like manner, in Bell. iii. 10 it is said the lake of Phiala lies 120 stadia east of Paneion (Bâniâs) on the way to the Trachonitis. True, the Phiala is a crater, and therefore itself belongs to Trachonitis, but between it and Bâniâs the lava alternates with the chalk formation of the Hermôn, whereas to the south and east of the Phiala it is everywhere exclusively volcanic; Trachonitis has therefore here also the wider signification. Ant. xvii. 2, it is said Herod had the castle of Βαθύρα built in Batanaea (here, as often in Josephus, in the signification of Basan), in order to protect the Jews who travel from Babylon (viâ Damascus) to Jerusalem against the Trachonite robbers. Now, since this castle and village (the Bêtirrâ mentioned already), which is situated in the district of Gamalitica on an important ford of the Muchêbi gorge between ‘Abidin and Sebbûte, could not be any protection against the robbers of Trachonitis in the more limited sense, but only against those of Golan, it is manifest that by the Trachonites are meant the robbers of Trachonitis in the wider sense. Aurelius Victor (De Hist. Caes. xxvii.) calls the Emperor M. Julius Philippus, born in Bosrâ, the metropolis of Auranitis, quite correctly Arabs Trachonites; because the plain of Hauran, in which Bosra is situated, is also of a basaltic formation, and therefore is a part of the Trachonitis.
The passage of Luke's Gospel, Luk 3:1, where it says Herod tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and Trachonitis, also belongs here. That Philip possessed not perhaps merely the Trachonitis (similar to a province assigned to a man as banishment rather than for administration, producing little or no revenue) in the more limited sense, but the whole Basanitis, is shown by Josephus, who informs us, Ant. xvii. 11, 4 and freq., that he possessed Batanaea (in the more restricted sense, therefore the fruitful, densely populated, profitable Nukra), with Auranitis, Trachonitis, etc. We must therefore suppose that in the words τῆς Ἰτουραίας καὶ Τραχωνίτιδος χώρας in Luke, one district is meant, which by Ἰτουραίας is mentioned according to the marauding portion of its population, and by Trachooni'tidos more generally, according to its trachonitic formation.^[229]

Ioannes Malalas (Chronogr. ed. Dindorf, p. 236), who, as a Syrian born, ought to be well acquainted with the native usage of the language, hence calls Antipas, as a perfectly adequate term, only toparch of Trachonitis; and if, according to his statement (p. 237), the official title of this Herod was the following: Σεβαστὸς Ἡρώδης τοπάρχης καὶ θεσμοδότης Ἰουδαίων τε καὶ Ἑλλήνων, Βασιλεὺς τῆς Τραχωνίτιδος, it is self-evident that “king of Trachonitis” here is synonymous with king of Basan. In perfect harmony with this, Pliny says (H. N. v. 18) that the ten cities of Decapolis lay within the extensive tetrarchies of Trachonitis, which are divided into separate kingdoms. Undoubtedly Pliny adds to these tetrarchies of Trachonitis in the wider sense, which are already known to us, Galadine also, which indeed belonged also the pre-Mosaic Basan, but at the time of Josephus is mostly reckoned to Peraea (in the more limited sense).
On the ground of this evidence, therefore, the land of the Usites of Josephus, with the exception of the Damascene portion, was Trachonitis in the wider sense; and since the Makâm Êjûb is in the central point of this country, this statement accords most exactly with the Syrian tradition. It is clear that the latter remains untouched by the extension of the geographical notion in Josephus, for without knowing anything more of a “land of the Usites,” it describes only a portion of the same as the “native country of Job;” and again, Josephus had no occasion to speak of Job in his commentary on the genealogies, therefore also none to speak of his special home within the land of the Usites. Eusebius, on the other hand, in his De Originibus (ix. 2, 4), refers to this home, and says, therefore limiting Josephus' definition: Hus, Traconitidis conditor, inter Palaestinam et Coelesyriam tenuit imperium; unde fuit Iob.
With this evidence of agreement between two totally independent witnesses, viz., the Syrian tradition and Josephus, the testimony of the latter in particular has an enhanced value; for, although connected with the Bible, it nevertheless avails as extra-biblical testimony concerning the Usites, it comes from an age when one might still have the historical fact from the seat of the race, and from an authority of the highest order. True, Josephus is not free from disfigurements, where he has the opportunity of magnifying his people, himself, or his Roman patrons, and of depreciating an enemy; but here he had to do with nothing more than the statement of the residence of a people; and since the word Ou'sees also has no similarity in sound with the words Damascus and Trachonitis, that might make a combination with them plausible, we may surely have before us a reliable historical notice here, or at least a tradition which was then general (and therefore also for us important), while we may doubt this in connection with other parts of the genealogies, where Josephus seems only to catch at that which is similar in sound as furnishing an explanation.
But that which might injure the authority of Josephus is the contradiction in which it seems to stand to a far older statement concerning Ausitis, viz., the recognised postscript of the lxx to the book of Job, which makes Job to be the Edomitish king Jobab. The identification, it may be said, can however only have been possible because Ausitis was in or near Edom. But the necessity of this inference must be disputed. It is indeed unmistakeable that that postscript is nothing more than a combination of the Jews beyond Palestine (probably Egytpio-Hellenistic), formed, perhaps, long before the lxx, - such a vagary as many similar ones in the Talmud and Midrash. From the similarity in sound of Ἰωβάβ with Ἰώβ, and the similarity in name of Ζαρά, the father of Jobab, with a son of Re'ûël and grandson of Esau (Gen 36:13), Job's descent from Esau has been inferred. That Esau's first-born was called Elîphaz and his son Temân, seemed to confirm this combination, since (in accordance with the custom^[230] of naming the grandson as a rule after his grandfather) Elîphaz the Temanite might be regarded as grandson of that Elîphaz, therefore like Job as great-grandson of Esau and πέμπτος ἀπὸ Ἀβραάμ. The apparent and certainly designed advantages of this combination were: that Job, who had no pedigree, and therefore was to be thought of as a non-Israelite, was brought into the nearest possible blood-relationship to the people of God, and that, by laying the scene in the time of the patriarchs, all questions which the want of a Mosaic colouring to the book of Job might excite would be met. Now, even if the abode of Job were transferred from the land of ‘Us to Edom, it would be only the consequence of his combination with Jobab, and, just as worthless as this latter itself, might lead no one astray. But it does not seem to have gone so far; it is even worthy of observation, that מבצרה (from Bosra, the Edomite city),^[231] being attached to the misunderstood υἱὸς Ζαρά ἐκ Βοσόῤῥας, Gen 36:33, is reproduced in the lxx by μητρὸς Βοσόῤῥας, as also that Job's wife is not called an Edomitess, but a γυνὴ Ἀράβισσα. And it appears still far more important, that Ausitis lies ἐν τοῖς ὁρίοις τῆς Ἰδουμαίας καὶ Ἀραβίας, so far as the central point of Ἰδουμαία is removed by the addition καὶ τῆς Ἀραβίας, and Job's abode is certainly removed from the heart of Idumaea. The Cod. Alex. exchanges that statement of the place, even in a special additional clause, for ἐπὶ τῶν ὁρίων τοῦ Εὐφράτου, therefore transfers Ausitis to the vicinity of the Euphrates, and calls the father of Jobab (= Job) Ζαρὲθ ἐξ ἀνατολῶν ἡλίου (מבני קדם). Nevertheless we attach no importance to this variation of the text, but rather offer the suggestion that the postscript gives prominence to the observation: οὗτος (viz., Ἰώβ) ἑρμεενεύεται ἐκ τῆς Συριακῆς βίβλου.^[232]
If we compare the postscript of the lxx with the legend of Islam, we find in both the Esauitish genealogy of Job; the genealogy of the legend is: Êjûb ibn Zârih (זרח) ibn Reû'îl ibn el-'Ais ibn Ishâk ibn Ibrâhîm; and we may suppose that it is borrowed directly from the lxx, and that it reached Arabia and Mekka even in the pre-Islamic times by means of the (Arabian) Christians east of Jordan, who had the Old Testament only in the Greek translation. Even the Arabic orthography of the biblical proper names, which can be explained only on the supposition of their transfer from the Greek, is in favour of this mode of the transmission of the Christian religion and its legends to the people of the Higaz. Certainly there can be no doubt as to an historical connection between the postscript and the legend, and therefore it would be strange if they did not accord respecting the home of Job. The progenitor el-'Ais (עיץ), in the genealogy of the legend, is also a remarkable counterpart to the Ausitis ἐν τοῖς ὁρίοις τῆς Ἰδουμ. καὶ Ἀρ., for it is a blending of עשׂו and עוּץ, and it has to solve the difficult problem, as to how Job can be at the same time an Usite and an Esauite; for that Job as an Aisite no longer belongs to Idumaea, but to the district of the more northern Aramaeans, is shown e.g., from the following passage in Mugîr ed-dîn's History of Jerusalem: “Job belonged to the people of the Romans (i.e., the Aisites),^[233] for he sprang from el-'Ais, and the Damascene province of Batanaea was his property.”
The κοπρία of the lxx, at Job 2:8, leads to the same result; that it is also found again as mezbele in the later legend, is a further proof how thoroughly this accords with the lxx, and how it has understood its statement of the position of Ausitis. It may also be maintained here, that it was only possible to translate the words בתוך־חאפר by ἐπὶ τῆς κοπρίας ἔξω τῆς πόλεως when “heap of ashes” and “dunghill” were synonymous notions. This, however, is the case only in Hauran, where the dung, as being useless for agricultural purposes, is burnt from time to time in an appointed place before the town (vid., p. 573),^[234] while in every other part of Syria it is as valuable and as much stored up as among us. If the lxx accordingly placed the kopri'a of Job in Hauran, it could hardly represent Ausitis as Edom.
But how has the Ausitis of the lxx been transferred hither? Certainly not as the “land of ‘Us” (in the sense of the land of Basan, land of Haurân), for without wasting a word about it, there has never been such an one in the country east of the Jordan: but as “the land of the Usites” in the sense of the Arabic diâr 'Us (dwelling-place of the Usites) or ard benî 'Us. A land receives designations of this kind with the settlement of a people in it; they run parallel with the proper name of the country, and in the rule vanish again with that people. These designations belong, indeed, to the geography of the whole earth, but nowhere have they preserved their natural character of transitoriness more faithfully than in the lands where the Semitic tongue is spoken. It is this that makes the geographical knowledge of these countries so extremely difficult to us, because we frequently take them to be the names of the countries, which they are not, and which - so far as they always involve a geological definition of the regions named - can never be displaced and competently substituted by them. In this sense the land of the Usites might, at the time of the decay of both Israelitish kingdoms, when the ארם דמשׂק possessed the whole of Peraea, very easily extend from the borders of Edom to the gates of Damascus, and even further northwards, if the Aramaean race of ‘Us numbered many or populous tribes (as it appears to be indicated in כל מלכי ארץ העוץ, Jer 25:20), in perfect analogy with the tribe of Ghassân, which during five hundred years occupied the country from the Aelanitic Gulf to the region of Tedmor, at one time settling down, at another leading a nomadic life, and Hauran was the centre of its power. By such a rendering the Ἀραβία of the postscript would not be different from the later provincia Arabiae, of which the capital was the Trachonitish Bostra, while is was bounded on the south end of the Dead Sea by Edom (Palaestine tertia).
But should any one feel a difficulty in freeing himself from the idea that Ausitis is to be sought only in the Ard el-Hâlât east of Ma'ân, he must consider that the author of the book of Job could not, like that legend which places the miraculous city of Iram in the country of quicksands, transfer the cornfields of his hero to the desert; for there, with the exception of smaller patches of land capable of culture, which we may not bring into account, there is by no means to be found that husbandman's Eldorado, where a single husbandman might find tillage for five hundred (Job 1:3), yea, for a thousand (Job 42:12) yoke of oxen. Such numbers as these are not to be depreciated; for in connection with the primitive agriculture in Syria and Palestine, - which renders a four years' alternation of crops necessary, so that the fields must be divided into so many portions (called in Hauran wâgihât, and around Damascus auguh, Arab. ‘wjh), from which only one portion is used annually, and the rest left fallow (bûr), - Job required several square miles of tillage for the employment of his oxen. It is all the same in this respect whether the book of Job is a history or poem: in no case could the Ausitis be a country, the notorious sterility of which would make the statement of the poet ridiculous.
Our limited space does not admit of our proving the worth which we must acknowledge to the tradition, by illustrating those passages of the Old Testament scriptures which have reference to עוץ and ארץ עוץ. But to any one, who, following the hints they give, wishes again to pursue the investigations, elsewhere useless, concerning the position of the land of the Usites, we might indicate: (1) that עוץ the first-born of Aram (Gen 10:23) is the tribe sought, while two others of this name - a Nahorite, Job 22:21, and a Horite, Job 36:28 - may be left out of consideration; the former because the twelve sons of Nahor need not be progenitors of tribes, and the latter because he belongs to a tribe exterminated by the Edomites in accordance with Deu 2:12, Deu 2:22 : (2) that ארץ העוץ, Jer 25:20, is expressly distinguished from אדום in the Jer 25:21, and - if one compares the round of the cup of punishment, Jer. 25, with the detailed prophecies which follow in Jer 46:1, to which it is a prooemium that has been removed from its place - corresponds to דמשׂק (with Hamât and Arpad), Jer 49:23 : (3) that therefore Lam 4:21, where יושׁבת בארץ עוץ would be devoid of purpose if it described the proper habitable land of Edom, must describe a district extending over that, in which the Edomites had established themselves in consequence of Assyria having led away captive the Israelitish and Aramaean population of the East Jordanic country and Coele-Syria. In connection with Jer 25:20 one must not avoid the question whether עוץ is the name of the ארם דמשׂק that has been missed. Here the migration of the Damascene Aramaeans from Kîr (Amo 9:7) ought to be considered, the value of the Armenian accounts concerning the original abode of the Usites tested, what is erroneous in the combination of קיר with the river Kur shown and well considered, and in what relations both as to time and events that migration might have stood to the overrunning of Middle Syria by the Aramaean Sôbaean tribes (from Mesopotamia) under Hadad-ezer, and to the seizure and possession of the city of Damascus by Rezon the Sôbaean? Finally, one more tradition might be compared, to which some value may perhaps be attached, because it is favoured by the stone monuments, whose testimony we are not accustomed otherwise to despise in Palestine and Syria. The eastern portal of the mosque of Benî Umêja in Damascus, probably of the very temple, the altar of which king Ahaz caused to be copied (2Ki 16:10), is called Gêrûn or the Gerun gate: the portal in its present form belongs to the Byzantine or Roman period. And before this gate is the Gêrûnîje, a spacious, vaulted structure, mostly very old, which has been used since the Mussulman occupation of the city as a mêda'a, i.e., a place for religious ablutions. The topographical writings on Damascus trace these two names back to a Gêrûn ibn Sa'd ibn 'Ad ibn 'Aus (עוץ) ibn Iram (ארם) ibn Sâm (שׁם) ibn Nûh (נוח), who settled in Damascus in the time of Solomon (one version of the tradition identifies him with Hadad, Jos. Ant. viii. 7), and built in the middle of the city a castle named after him, in which a temple to the planet (kôkeb) Mushteri, the guardian-god of the city, has been erected. That this temple, which, as is well known, under Theodosius, at the same time with the temple of the sun at Ba'lbek, passed over to the Christians, was actually surrounded with a strong, fortified wall, is capable of proof even in the present day. In this tradition, which has assumed various forms, a more genuine counterpart of the biblical עוץ appears than that ‘Ais which we have characterized above as an invention of the schools, viz., an ‘Aus (Arab. ‛wṣ), father of the Adite-tribe which is said to have settled in the Damascene district under that Gêrûn, and also ancestor of the prophet Hûd, lost to the tradition, whose makâm on the mountains of Suêt rises far above Gerash a city of pillars, this true Iram dhât el-'imâd, the valley of the Jabbok and the Sawâd of Gilead.
It is with good reason that we have hitherto omitted to mention the Αἰσῖται of Ptolemy v. 18 (19). The Codd have both Αἰσεῖται and Αἰσῖται; different Semitic forms (e.g., the name of the Arab. bny hays, which, according to Jâkût, once dwelt in the Harra of the Ragil) may lie at the basis of this name, only not the form עוּץ, which ought to be Οὐσῖται, or at least Αὐσῖται (which no Cod. reads). As to the abodes of the Αἰσῖται, Ptolemy distributes them under nine greater races or groups of races, which in his time inhabited the Syrian steppe. Three of these had their settlements in the eastern half of the Syrian steppe towards the Euphrates of on its western banks: the Καυχαβηνοί in the north, the Αἰσῖται in the middle, and the Ὀρχηνοί in the south. According to this the Αἰσῖται would have been about between Hît and Kûfa, or in that district which is called by the natives Ard el-Wudjan, and in which just that race of the Chaldaeans might have dwelt that plundered Job's camels. There we are certainly not to seek the scene of the drama of Job; and if the Edomites were dispersed there (Lam 4:21), they were not to be envied on account of their fortune. But if the Aisi'tai are to be sought there, we may not connect the Καυχαβηνοί with the village of Cochabe (Arab. kawkabâ) on the Hermon (Epiphan. Haer. x. 18), in order then to remove the Aisi'tai, dwelling “below them,” to Batanaea.
And now, in concluding here, I have still to explain, that in writing these pages I was not actuated by an invincible desire of increasing the dull literature respecting the ארץ עוץ by another tractate, but exclusively by the wish of my honoured friend that I should furnish him with a contribution on my visit to the Makâm Êjûb, and concerning the tradition that prevails there, for his commentary on the book of Job.
As to the accompanying map, it is intended to represent the hitherto unknown position of the Makâm, the Monastery, and the country immediately around the, by comparing it with two localities marked on most maps, Nawâ and the castle of Muzêrîb. The latter, the position of which we determined in 1860 as 32 44' north lat. and 35 51' 45” east long. (from Greenwich), lies three hours' journey on horseback south of the Monastery. The Wâdi Jarmûk and Wâdi Hît have the gorge formation in common with all other wadis that unite in the neighbourhood of Zêzûn and from the Makran, which is remarkable from a geological point of view: a phenomenon which is connected with the extreme depression of the valley of the Jordan. For the majority of the geographical names mentioned in this essay I refer the reader to Carl Ritter's Geographic von Syrien und Palästina;^[235] others will be explained in my Itinerarien, which will be published shortly.

1. מרר and מרה both spring from the root מר [vid. supra, p. 396, note], with the primary signification stringere, to beat, rub, draw tight. Hence Arab. mârrâ, to touch lightly, smear upon (to go by, over, or through, to move by, etc.), but also stringere palatum, of an astringent taste, strong in taste, to be bitter, opp. Arab. ḥalâ, soft and mild in taste, to be sweet, as in another direction חלה, to be loose, weak, sick, both from the root Arab. ḥl in ḥalla, solvit, laxavit. From the signification to be tight come amarra, to stretch tight, istamarra, to stretch one's self tight, to draw one's self out in this state of tension - of things in time, to continue unbroken; mirreh, string, cord; מרה, to make and hold one's self tight against any one, i.e., to be obstinate: originally of the body, as Arab. mârrâ, tamârrâ, to strengthen themselves in the contest against one another; then of the mind, as Arab. mârâ, tamârâ, to struggle against anything, both outwardly by contradiction and disputing, and inwardly by doubt and unbelief. - Fl.
2. The idea might also be: My hand presses my groaning back (because it would be of no use to me); but Job 23:2 is against this, and the Arab. kamada, to restrain inward pain, anger, etc. by force (e.g., mât kemed, he died from suppressed rage or anxiety), has scarcely any etymological connection with כבד.
3. אדעה is generally accented with Dechî, מלים with Munach, according to which Dachselt interprets: scirem, quae eloquia responderet mihi Deus, but this is incorrect. The old editions have correctly אדעה Munach, מלים Munach (taking the place of Dechî, because the Athnach-word which follows has not two syllables before the tone-syllable; vid., Psalter, ii. 104, §4).
4. With this interpretation, לא should certainly have Rebia mugrasch; its accentuation with Mercha proceeds from another interpretation, probably non ituque ponet in me (manum suam), according to which the Targ. translates. Others, following this accentuation, take לא in the sense of הלא (vid., in Dachselt), or are at pains to obtain some other meaning from it.
5. The Arab. verb ‛ṭf signifies trans. to turn, or lay, anything round, so that it is laid or drawn over something else and covers it; hence Arab. ‛ṭâf, a garment that is cast round one, Arab. ta‛aṭṭafawith Arab. b of a garment: to cast it or wrap it about one. Intrans. to turn aside, depart from, of deviating from a given direction, deflectere, declinare; also, to turn in a totally opposite direction, to turn one's self round and to go back. - Fl.
6. In contrast to the extreme north, the abode of the gods, the habitation of life, the extreme south is among the Arians the abode of the prince of death and of demons, Jama (vid., p. 421) with his attendants, and therefore the habitation of death.
7. On אחז, Carey correctly observes, and it explains the form of the expression: The oriental foot has a power of grasp and tenacity, because not shackled with shoes from early childhood, of which we can form but little idea.
8. Wetzstein arranges the significations of צפן as follows: - 1. (Beduin) intr. fut. i, to contain one's self, to keep still (hence in Hebr. to lie in wait), to be rapt in thought; conjug. II. c. acc. pers. to make any one thoughtful, irresolute. 2. (Hebr.) trans. fut. o, to keep anything to one's self, to hold back, to keep to one's self; Niph. to be held back, i.e., either concealed or reserved for future use. Thus we see how, on the one hand, צפן is related to טמן, e.g., Job 20:26 (Arab. itmaanna, to be still); and, on the other, can interchange with צפה in the signification designare (comp. Job 15:22 with Job 15:20; Job 21:19), and to spy, lie in wait (comp. Psa 10:8; Psa 56:7; Pro 1:11, Pro 1:18, with Psa 37:32).
9. On עתים, in the sense of times of retribution, Wetzstein compares the Arab. ‛idât, which signifies predetermined reward or punishment; moreover, עת is derived from עדת (from ועד), and עתּים is equivalent to עדתּים, according to the same law of assimilation, by which now-a-days they say לתּי instead of לדתּי (one who is born on the same day with me, from Arab. lidat, lida), and רתּי instead of רדתּי (my drinking-time), since the assimilation of the ד takes place everywhere where ת is pronounced. The ת of the feminine termination in עתים, as in שׁקתות and the like, perhaps also in בתים (bâttim), is amalgamated with the root.
10. Layard, New Discoveries, p. 270, describes these wild asses' colts. The Arabic name is like the Hebrew, el-ferâ, or also himâr el-wahsh, i.e., wild ass, as we have translated, whose home is on the steppe. For fuller particulars, vid., Wetzstein's note on Job 39:5.
11. In the idiom of Hauran, לקשׂ, fut. i, signifies to be late, to come late; in Piel, to delay, e.g., the evening meal, return, etc.; in Hithpa. telaqqas, to arrive too late. Hence laqı̂s לקישׂ and loqsı̂ לקשׂי, delayed, of any matter, e.g., לקישׁ and זרע לקשׂי, late seed (= לקשׁ, Amo 7:1, in connection with which the late rain in April, which often fails, is reckoned on), ולד לקשׂי, a child born late (i.e., in old age); bakı̂r בכיר and bekrı̂ בכרי are the opposites in every signification. - Wetzst.
12. All the Beduins sleep naked at night. I once asked why they do this, since they are often disturbed by attacks at night, and I was told that it is a very ancient custom. Their clothing (kiswe, כסוה), both of the nomads of the steppe (bedû) and of the caves (wa‛r), is the same, summer and winter; many perish on the pastures when overtaken by snow-storms, or by cold and want, when their tents and stores are taken from them in the winter time by an enemy. - Wetzst.
13. Wetzstein observes on this passage: In the mind of the speaker, מחסה is the house made of stone, from which localities not unfrequently derive their names, as El-hasa, on the east of the Dead Sea; the well-known commercial town El-hasâ, on the east of the Arabian peninsula, which is generally called Lahsâ; the two of El-hasja (אלחסיה), north-east of Damascus, etc.: so that חבקו צור forms the antithesis to the comfortable dwellings of the Arab. ḥaḍarı̂, hadarı̂, i.e., one who is firmly settled. The roots חבק, חבך, seem, in the desert, to be only dialectically distinct, and like the root עבק, to signify to be pressed close upon one another. Thus חבקה (pronounced hibtsha), a crowd = zahme, and asâbi‛ mahbûke (מחבוּכה), the closed fingers, etc. The locality, hibikke (Beduin pronunciation for habáka, חבכה with the Beduin Dag. euphonicum), described in my Reisebericht, has its name from this circumstance alone, that the houses have been attached to (fastened into) the rocks. Hence חבּק in this passage signifies to press into the fissure of a rock, to seek out a corner which may defend one (dherwe) against the cold winds and rain-torrents (which are far heavier among the mountains than on the plain). The dherwe (from Arab. ḏarâ, to afford protection, shelter, a word frequently used in the desert) plays a prominent part among the nomads; and in the month of March, as it is proverbially said the dherwe is better than the ferwe (the skin), they seek to place their tents for protection under the rocks or high banks of the wadys, on account of the cold strong winds, for the sake of the young of the flocks, to which the cold storms are often very destructive. When the sudden storms come on, it is a general thing for the shepherds and flocks to hasten to take shelter under overhanging rocks, and the caverns (mughr, Arab. mugr) which belong to the troglodyte age, and are e.g., common in the mountains of Hauran; so that, therefore, Job 24:8 can as well refer to concealing themselves only for a time (from rain and storm) in the clefts as to troglodytes, who constantly dwell in caverns, or to those dwelling in tents who, during the storms, seek the dherwe of rock sides.
14. Brentius here remarks: Quantum igitur judicium in eos futurum est, qui in homines ejusdem carnis, ejusdem patriae, ejusdem fidei, ejusdem Christi committunt quod nec in bruta animalia committendum est, quod malum in Germania frequentissimum est. Vae igitur Germaniae!
15. Wetzstein translates Hos 11:9 : I will not come as a raging foe, with ב of the attribute = Arab. b-ṣifat 'l-‛ayyûr (comp. Jer 15:8, עיר, parall. שׁדד) after the form קים, to which, if not this עיר, certainly the עיר, ἐγρήγορος, occurring in Dan 4:10, and freq., corresponds. What we remarked above, p. 483, on the form קים, is cleared up by the following observation of Wetzstein: “The form קים belongs to the numerous class of segolate forms of the form פעל, which, as belonging to the earliest period of the formation of the Semitic languages, take neither plural nor feminine terminations; they have often a collective meaning, and are not originally abstracta, but concreta in the sense of the Arabic part. act. mufâ‛l. This inflexible primitive formation is frequently found in the present day in the idiom of the steppe, which shows that the Hebrew is essentially of primeval antiquity (uralt). Thus the Beduin says: hû qitlı̂ (הוּא קטלי), he is my opponent in a hand-to-hand combat; nithı̂ (נטחי), my opponent in the tournament with lances; chı̂lfı̂ (חלפי) and diddı̂ (צדּי), my adversary; thus a step-mother is called dı̂r (ציר), as the oppressor of the step-children, and a concubine dirr (צרר), as the oppressor of her rival. The Kamus also furnishes several words which belong here, as tilb (טלב), a persecutor.” Accordingly, קים is derived from קום, as also עיר, a city, from עור (whence, according to a prevalent law of the change of letters, we have עיר first of all, plur. עירים, Jdg 10:4), and signifies the rebelling one, i.e., the enemy (who is now in the idiom of the steppe called qômâni, from qôm, a state of war, a feud), as עיר, a keeper and ציר, a messenger; עיר (קיר) is also originally concrete, a wall (enclosure).
16. The mask was perhaps never known in Palestine and Syria; סתר פנים is the mendı̂l or women's veil, which in the present day (in Hauran exclusively) is called sitr, and is worn over the face by all married women in the towns, while in the country it is worn hanging down the back, and is only drawn over the face in the presence of a stranger. If this explanation is correct the poet means to say that the adulterer, in order to remain undiscovered, wears women's clothes comp. Deu 22:5; and, in fact, in the Syrian towns (the figure is taken from town-life) women's clothing is always chosen for that kind of forbidden nocturnal undertaking, i.e., the man disguises himself in an ı̂zâr, which covers him from head to foot, takes the mendı̂l, and goes with a lantern (without which at night every person is seized by the street watchman as a suspicious person) unhindered into a strange house. - Wetzst.
17. Vid., Aben-Ezra on Exo 12:7. The main proof that it is to be pronounced bâttim is, that written exactly it is בּתּים, and that the Metheg according to circumstances, is changed into an accent, as Exo 8:7; Exo 12:7; Jer 18:22; Eze 45:4, which can only happen by Kametz, not by Kometz (K. chatûph); comp. Köhler on Zec 14:2.
18. The translation: like foam (spuma or bulla), is also very suitable here. Thus Targ., Symm., Jerome, and others; but the signification to foam cannot be etymologically proved, whereas קצף in the signification confringere is established by קצפה, breaking, Joe 1:7, and Arab. qṣf; so that consequently קצף, as synon. of אף, signifies properly the breaking forth, and is then allied to אברה.
19. Another figure is also presented here. It is a common thing for the Arabs (Beduins) in harvest-time to come down upon the fields of standing corn - especially barley, because during summer and autumn this grain is indispensable to them as food for their horses - of a district, chiefly at night, and not unfrequently hundreds of camels are laden at one time. As they have no sickles, they cut off the upper part of the stalk with the ‛aqfe (a knife very similar to the Roman sica) and with sabres, whence this theft is called qard קרץ, sabring off; and that which is cut off, as well as the uneven stubble that is left standing, is called qarid. - Wetzst.)
20. It is worthy of observation, that hilâl signifies in Arabic the new moon (comp. Genesis, S. 307); and the Hiphil ahalla, like the Kal halla, is used of the appearing and shining of the new moon.
21. Comp. also Spiegel, Grammatik der Huzväresch-Sprache, S. 103.
22. Against the comparison of the Arab. wâsâ, solari, by Michaelis, Ges., and others (who assume the primary significations solatium, auxilium), Lagarde (Anmerkungen zur griech. Uebersetzung der Proverbien, 1863, S. 57f.) correctly remarks that Arab. wâsâ, is only a change of letters of the common language for Arab. âsâ; but Arab. wâšâ, to finish painting (whence Arab. twšyt, decoration), or ושׁה as a transposition from שׁוה, to be level, simple (Hitzig on Pro 3:21), leads to no suitable sense.
23. The name צפון signifies the northern sky as it appears by day, from its beclouded side in contrast with the brighter and more rainless south; comp. old Persian apâkhtara, if this name of the north really denotes the “starless” region, Greek ζόφος, the north-west, from the root skap, σκεπᾶν, σκεπανός (Curtius, Griech. Etymologie, ii. 274), aquilo, the north wind, as that which brings black clouds with it.
24. According to the more recent interpretation, under Aristotelian influence, Arab. ‘l-‛rš is the outermost sphere, which God as πρῶτον κινοῦν having set in motion, communicates light, heat, life, and motion to the other revolving spheres; for the causae mediae gradually descend from God the Author of being (muhejji) from the highest heaven into the sublunary world.
25. Ralbag, without any ground for it, understands it of the milky way (העגול החלבי), which, according to Rapoport, Pref. to Slonimski's Toledoth ha-schamajim (1838), was already known to the Talmud b. Berachoth, 58 b, under the name of נהר דנוד.
26. Vid., Wissenschaft, Kunst, Judenthum (1838), S. 220f.
27. Vid., Grätz, Geschichte der Juden, iv. 324. On Isa 27:1 Kimchi interprets the מבריח differently: he scares (pushes away).
28. Vid., extracts from his המזלות ספר in Joseph Kara's Comm. on Job, contributed by S. D. Luzzatto in Kerem Chemed, 7th year, S. 57ff.
29. In Beduin the enemy is called qômâni (vid., supra, on Job 24:12, p. 505), a denominative from qôm, Arab. qawm, war, feud; but qôm has also the signification of a collective of qômâni, and one can also say: entum wa-ijânâ qôm, you and we are enemies, and bênâtna qôm, there is war between us. - Wetzst.
30. On the similar idea of the body, as the kosha (sheath) of the soul, among the Hindus, vid., Psychol. S. 227.
31. Anm. zur griech. Uebers. der Proverbien (1863), S. VI.f., where the first reason given for this improvement of the text is this, that the usual explanation, according to which ישׁל and יבצע have the same subj. and obj. standing after the verb, is altogether contrary to Semitic usage. But this assertion is groundless, as might be supposed from the very beginning. Thus, e.g., the same obj. is found after two verbs in Job 20:19, and the same subj. and obj. in Neh 3:20.
32. The watchman's hut, for the protection of the vineyards and melon and maize fields against thieves, herds, or wild beasts, is now called either ‛arı̂she and mantara (מנטרה) if it is only slightly put together from branches of trees, or chême (הימה) if it is built up high in order that the watcher may see a great distance. The chême is the more frequent; at harvest it stands in the midst of the threshing-floors (bejâdir) of a district, and it is constructed in the following manner: - Four poles (‛awâmı̂d) are set up so as to form the corners of a square, the sides of which are about eight feet in length. Eight feet above the ground, four cross pieces of wood (‘awârid) are tightly bound to these with cords, on which planks, if they are to be had, are laid. Here is the watcher's bed, which consists of a litter. Six or seven feet above this, cross-beams are again bound to the four poles, on which boughs, or reeds (qasab), or a mat (hası̂ra, חצירה) forms a roof (sath, שׂטח), from which the chême has its name; for the Piel-forms ערּשׁ, חיּם, and שׂטּח signify, “to be stretched over anything after the manner of a roof.” Between the roof and the bed, three sides of the che=me are hung round with a mat, or with reeds or straws (qashsh, קשׁ) bound together, in order both to keep off the cold night-winds, and also to keep the thieves in ignorance as to the number of the watchers. A small ladder, sullem (סלּם), frequently leads to the bed-chamber. The space between the ground and this chamber is closed only on the west side to keep off the hot afternoon sun, for through the day the watcher sits below with his dog, upon the ground. Here is also his place of reception, if any passers-by visit him; for, like the village shepherd, the field-watcher has the right of showing a humble hospitality to any acquaintances. When the fruits have been gathered in, the chême is removed. The field-watchman is now called nâtûr (Arab. nâṭûr), and the verb is natar, נטר, “to keep watch,” instead of which the quadriliteral nôtar, נוטר (from the plur. Arab. nwâṭı̂r, “the watchers”), has also been formed. In one part of Syria all these forms are written with צ (d) instead of ט fo da, and pronounced accordingly. The נצר in this passage is similarly related to the נטר in Sol 1:6; Sol 8:11-12. - Wetzst.
33. In Syria and Arabia the east wind is no longer called qadı̂m, but exclusively sharqı̂ja, i.e., the wind that blows from the rising of the sun (sharq). This wind rarely prevails in summer, occurring then only two or three days a month on an average; it is more frequent in the winter and early spring, when, if it continues long, the tender vegetation is parched up, and a year of famine follows, whence in the Lebanon it is called semûm (שׂמוּם), which in the present day denotes the “poisonous wind” (= nesme musimme), but originally, by alliance with the Hebr. שׁמם, denoted the “devastating wind.” The east wind is dry; it excites the blood, contracts the chest, causes restlessness and anxiety, and sleepless nights or evil dreams. Both man and beast feel weak and sickly while it prevails. Hence that which is unpleasant and revolting in life is compared to the east wind. Thus a maid in Hauran, at the sight of one of my Damascus travelling companions, whose excessive ugliness struck her, cried: billâh, nahâr el-jôm aqshar (Arab. ‘qšr), wagahetni (Arab. w-jhṫnı̂
34. The valley is not called Wadi nahas (Copper valley), which is only a supposition of Rüppell, but Wadi nasb, Arab. naṣb, which, according to Reinaud, signifies valley of statues of columns. Thirty hours' journey from Suez, says a connoisseur in the Historisch-politische Blätter, 1863, S. 802f., lies the Wadi nesb [a pronunciation which assumes the form of writing Arab. nsb]; it is rare that the ore is so easy to get, and found in such abundance, for the blocks containing the copper are in many places 200 feet in diameter, and the ore is almost in a pure state. The mineral (the black earth containing the copper) abounds in the metal ... . Besides this, iron-ore, manganese, carbonate of lead, and also the exceeding precious cinnabar, have been discovered on Sinai.
35. In the essay on the Sinaitic peninsula in Piper's Ev. Jahrbuch, 1852. The mining district that J. Wilson saw (1843-44) is not one that was unknown up to that time, but one of the places of the Wadi maghâra recognised as favouring the ancient Egyptian system of excavation.
36. Thus Klemm, Allgem. Cultur-Geschichte, v. 304.
37. According to a contribution from Prof. Lauth of Munich.
38. Vid., Genesis, S. 512; Ritter, Erdkunde, xiv. 125-127; as also my Kirchliches Chronikon des peträischen Arabiens in the Luth. Zeitschr. 1840, S. 133.
39. Opp. ed. Vallarsi, iii. 183. The text of Eusebius is to be amended according to that of Jerome; vid., Ugolini, Thes. vol. v. col. cxix.f. What Ritter says, Erdkunde, xiv. 127, is disfigured by mischievous mistakes.
40. On the meaning of this appellation, vid., Genesis, S. 630.
41. Schwarz, Das h. Land (1852), S. 323. The Egyptian monuments mention a district by the name of Asj, which paid native iron as tribute; vid., Brugsch, Geogr. der Nachbarländer Aegyptens, S. 52.
42. 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.”
43. Vid., the whole account skilfully translated in Klemm's Allgem. Cultur-Geschichte, v. 503f.
44. Hist. nat. xxxvi. 7, 11: Invenit eadem Aegyptus in Aethiopia quem vocant basalten (basaniten) ferrei coloris atque duritiae, unde et nomen ei dedit (vid., von Raumer, Palästina, S. 96, 4th edition). Neither Seetzen nor Wetzstein has found proper iron-ore in Basan. Basalt is all the more prevalent there, from which Basan may have its name. For there is no special Semitic word for basalt; Botchor calls in the aid of Arab. nw‛ ruchâm 'swd, “a kind of black marble;” but, as Wetzstein informs me, this is only a translation of the phrase of a French dictionary which he had, for the general name of basalt, at least in Syria, is hagar aswad (black stone). Iron is called hadı̂d in Arabic (literally a pointed instrument, with the not infrequent transference of the name of the tool to the material from which it is made). ברזל (פרזל) is known in Arabic only in the form firzil, as the name for iron chains and great smith's shears for cutting iron; but it is remarkable that in Berber, which is related to Egyptian, iron is called even in the present day wazzâl; vid., Lex. geographicum ed. Juynboll, tom. iv. (adnot.) p. 64, l. 16, and Marcel, Vocabulaire Françaisarabe de dialectes vulgaires africains, p. 249: “Fer Arab. ḥdı̂d, hadyd (en berbere Arab. wzzâl, ouezzâl; Arab. ‘wzzâl, ôouzzâl).” The Coptic name of iron is benipi (dialect. penipe), according to Prof. Lauth perhaps, as also barôt, ore, connected with ba, the hieroglyph name of a very hard mineral; the black basalt of an obelisk in the British Museum is called bechenen in the inscription. If it really be so, that iron and basalt are homonymous in Semitic, the reason could only be sought for in the dark iron-black colour of basalt, in its hardness, and perhaps also its weight (which, however, is only about half the specific gravity of pure iron), not in the magnetic iron, which has only in more modern times been discovered to be a substantial component part of basalt, the grains of which cannot be seen by the naked eye, and are only detected with the magnetic needle, or by chemical analysis.
45. Vid., Luzzatto on Isa 18:5, where זלזלים, of the trembling and quivering twigs, is correctly traced to זלל = דלל = זלל; on the other hand, Isa 14:19, אבני־בור is wrongly translated fundo della fossa, by comparison with Job 28:3. אבן does not signify a shaft, still less the lowest shaft, but stone (rock).
46. Comp. Quenstedt, Handbuch der Mineralogie (1863), S. 355 and 302.
47. The איה - says the Talmud b. Chullin, 63b - is in Babylon, and seeth a carcase in the land of Israel.
48. Vid., Zeitschr. für d. Kunde des Morgenlandes, iv. 40f. The recently attempted explanation of κοράλλιον from גּורל (to which κλῆρος the rather belongs), in the primary signification lappillus (Arab. ‛garal), is without support.
49. Two reasons for פנינים = pearls (in favour of which Bochart compares the name of the pearl-oyster, πίννα) and ראמות = corals, which are maintained by Carey, are worthy of remark. (1.) That פנינים does not signify corals, he infers from Lam 4:7, for the redness of corals cannot be a mark of bodily beauty; “but when I find that there are some pearls of a slightly reddish tinge, then I can understand and appreciate the comparison.” (2.) That ראמות signifies corals, is shown by the origin of the word, which properly signifies reêm-(wild oxen) horns, which is favoured by a mention of Pliny, h. n. xiii. 51: (Tradidere) juncos quoque lapideos perquam similes veris per litora, et in alto quasdam arbusculas colore bubuli cornus ramosas et cacuminibus rubentes. Although Pliny there speaks of marine petrified plants of the Indian Ocean (not, at least in his sense, of corals), this hint of a possible derivation of ראמות is certainly surprising. But as to Lam 4:7, this passage is to be understood according to Sol 5:10 (my friend is צח ואדום). The white and red are intended to be conceived of as mixed and overlapping one another, as our Germ. popular poetry speaks of cheeks which “shine with milk and purple;” and as in Homer, Il. iv. 141-146, the colour of the beautifully formed limbs of Menelaus is represented by the figure (which appears hideous to us): ὡς δ ̓ ὅτε τίς τ ̓ ἐλέφαντα γυνὴ φοίνικι μιήνͅ (ebony stained with purple).
50. The Targ. translates שׁהם by פּנינים, βήρυλλος; ספיר by שׁבזיזא (Arab. sbz, vid., Pott in the Zeitschr.f. K. d. M. iv. 275); פז by אובריזין, ὄβρυζον; ראמות by סנדלכין, σανδαράχη, red gold-pigment (vid., Rödiger-Pott, as just quoted, S. 267); גבישׁ again by בּירוּלין in the sense of the Arabico-Persic bullûr, Kurd. bellûr, crystal; פנינים by מרגלין, μαργαρῖται; פטדה by מרגּלא ירקא (the green pearl); כתם by פטלון (perhaps פּטלון, πέταλον, in the sense of lamina auri).
51. Vid., Jul. Hamberger, Lehre Jak. Böhme's, S. 55.
52. Vid., Buxtorf's Tiberias, p. 245; comp. Bär's Psalterium, p. 133.
53. The fresh vegetation, indeed, in hotter districts (e.g., in the valley of the Jordan and Euphrates) begins with the arrival of the autumnal rains, but the real spring (comp. Sol 2:11-13) only begins about the vernal equinox, and still later on the mountains. On the contrary, the late summer, קיץ, which passes over into the autumn, חרף, is the season for gathering the fruit. The produce of the fields, garden fruit, and grapes ripen before the commencement of the proper autumn; some (when the land can be irrigated) summer fruits, e.g., Dhura (maize) and melons, in like manner olives and dates, ripen in autumn. Therefore the translation, in the days of my autumn (“of my harvest”), is the only correct one. If חרפּי were intended here in a sense not used elsewhere, it might signify, according to the Arabic with h, “(in the days) of my prosperity,” or ”my power,” or even with Arab. ch, “(in the days) of my youthful vigour;” for charâfât are rash words and deeds, charfân one who says or does anything rash from lightness, the feebleness of old age, etc. (according to Wetzst., very common words in Syria): חרף or חרף, therefore the thoughtlessness of youth, Arab. jahl, i.e., the rash desire of doing something great, which חרף הנפש למות (Jdg 5:18). But it is most secure to go back to חרף, Arab. chrf, carpere, viz., fructus.
54. Vid., Layard, New Discoveries, p. 57.
55. Comp. jer. Schekalim ii. 5 (in Pinner's Compendium des Thalmud, S. 58): “R. Jochanan was walking and leaning upon R. Chija bar-Abba, R. Eliezer perceived him and hid himself from him (ומטמר לח מקמי). Then said R. Jochanan: This Babylonian insulted him (R. Chija) by two things; first that he did not salute him, and then that he hid himself. But R. Jakob bar-Idi answered him, it is the custom with them for the less not to salute the greater, - a custom which confirms Job's words: Young men saw me and his themselves.”
56. In Beidhâwi, if I remember rightly, this expression occurs once, Arab. ‘l-tdrr‛blbls'l-tqwy, i.e., “clothing one's self in the armour of the fear of God.”
57. There is an old Arabic defective verb, bayya, which signifies ”to seek an asylum for one's self,” e.g., anâ baj, I come as one seeking protection, a suppliant, in the usual language synon. of Arab. dachala, and thereby indicating its relationship to the Hebr. בּוא, perhaps the root of בּית (בּתּים), the ת of which would then not be a radical letter, but, as according to Ges. Thes. in זית, used only in the forming of the word, and the original meaning would be “a refuge.” Traced to a secondary verb, אבה (properly to take up the fugitive, qabila-l-bı̂ja) springing from this primitive verb, אב would originally signify a guardian, protector; and from the fact of this name denoting, according to the form פּעל, properly in general the protecting power, the ideal femin. in אבות (Arab. abawât’ and the Arabic dual abawain (properly both guardians), which embraces father and mother, would be explained and justified. Thus the rare phenomenon that the same אבה signifies in Hebr. “to be willing,” and in Arab. “to refuse,” would be solved. The notion of taking up the fugitive would have passed over in the Hebrew, taken according to its positive side, into the notion of being willing, i.e., of receiving and accepting (אבּל, qabila, e.g., 1Ki 20:8, לא תעבה = la taqbal); in the Arabic, however, taken according to its negative side, as refusing the fugitive to his pursuer, into that of not being willing; and the usage of the language favours this: abâhu ‛aleihi, he protected him against (Arab. ‘lâ) the other (refused him to the other); Arab. abı̂yun = ma'bin, protected, inaccessible to him who longs for it; Arab. ibyat, the protection, i.e., the retention of the milk in the udder. Hence אביון, from the Hebrew signif. of the verb, signifies one who desires anything, or a needy person, but originally (inasmuch as אבה is connected with Arab. byy) one who needs protection; from the Arabic signif. of Arab. ‘abâ, one who restrains himself because he is obliged, one to whom what he wants is denied. To the Arab. ibja (defence, being hindered) corresponds in form the Hebr. אבה, according to which אניות אבה, Job 9:26, may be understood of ships, which, with all sails set and in all haste, seek the sheltering harbour before the approaching storm. We leave this suggestion for further research to sift and prove. More on Job 34:36. - Wetzst.
58. The name is a puzzle, and does not accord with any of the mythical birds mentioned in the Zendavesta (vid., Windischmann, Zoroastrische Studien, 1863, S. 93). What Lewysohn, Zoologie des Talmuds, S. 353, brings forward from the Greek by way of explanation is untenable. The name of the bird, Vâresha, in an obscure passage of the Bundehesch in Windischmann, ib. S. 80, is similar in sound. Probably, however, אורשׁינא is one and the same word as Simurg, which is composed of si (= sin) and murg, a bird (Pehlvi and Parsi mru). This si (sin) corresponds to the Vedic çjena, a falcon, and in the Zend form, çaêna (çîna), is the name of a miraculous bird; so that consequently Simurg = Sinmurg, Parsi Cînamru, signifies the Si- or Cîna-bird (comp. Kuhn, Herabkunft des Feuers, 1859, S. 125). In אורשינא the two parts of the composition seem to be reversed, and אור to be corrupted from מור. Moreover, the Simurg is like the phoenix only in the length of its life; another mythological bird, Kuknus, on the other hand (vid., the art. Phönix in Ersch u. Gruber), resembles it also in rising out of its own ashes.
59. According to Ovid, Metam. xv. 396, the phoenix makes its nest in the palm, and according to Pliny, h. n. xiii. 42, it has its name from the palm: Phoenix putatur ex hujus palmae argumento nomen accepisse, iterum mori ac renasci ex se ipsa; vid., A. Hahmann, Die Dattelpalme, ihre Namen und ihre Verehrung in der alten Welt, in the periodical Bonplandia, 1859, Nr. 15, 16. Masius, in his studies of nature, has very beautifully described on what ground “the intelligent Greek gave a like name to the fabulous immortal bird that rises again out of its own ashes, and the palm which ever renews its youth.” Also comp. (Heimsdörfer's) Christliche Kunstsymbolik, S. 26, and Augusti, Beiträge zur christl. Kunst-Geschichte und Liturgik, Bd. i. S. 106-108, but especially Piper, Mythologie der christl. Kunst (1847), i. 446f.
60. Not without reference to Clemens Romanus, in his I. Ep. ad Corinth. c. xxv., according to which the phoenix is an Arabian bird, which lives five hundred years, then dies in a nest which it builds of incense, myrrh, and spices, and leaves behind it the larva of a young bird, which, when grown up, brings the nest with the bones of its father and places it upon the altar of the sun at the Egyptian Heliopolis. The source of this is Herodotus ii. 73) who, however, has an egg of myrrh instead of a nest of myrrh); and Tacitus, Ann. vi. 28, gives a similar narrative. Lactantius gives a different version in his poem on the phoenix, according to which this, the only one of its race, “built its nest in a country that remained untouched by the deluge.” The Jewish tragedy writer, Ezekiêlos, agrees more nearly with the statement of Arabia being the home of the phoenix. In his drama Ἐξαγωγή, a spy sent forward before the pilgrim band of Israel, he states that among other things the phoenix was also seen; vid., my Gesch. der jüd. Poesie, S. 219.
61. Without attempting thereby to explain the phenomenon observed above, we nevertheless regard it as worthy of remark, that in general the palm is not a common tree either in Syria or in Palestine. “At present there are not in all Syria five hundred palm-trees; and even in the olden times there was no quantity of palms, except in the valley of the Jordan, and on the sea-coast.” - Wetzst.
62. Vid., G. Seyffarth, Die Phoenix-Periode, Deutsche Morgenländ. Zeitschr. iii. (1849) 63ff., according to which alloê (Hierogl. koli) is the name of the false phoenix without head-feathers; bêne or bêni (Hierogl. bnno) is the name of the true phoenix with head-feathers, and the name of the palm also. Alloê, which accords with חול, is quite secured as a name of the phoenix.
63. From the root Arab. kl (on its primary notion, vid., my review of Bernstein's edition of Kirsch's Syr. Chrestomathie, Ergänzungsblatt der A.L.Z. 1843, Nr. 16 and 17) other derivatives, as Arab. kl', klb, klt, klṯ, klj, kld, klz, etc., develop in general the significations to bring, take, or hold together, enclose, and the like; but Arab. lkḥ in particular the signification to draw together, distort violently, viz., the muscles of the face in grinning and showing the teeth, or even sardonic laughing, and drawing the lips apart. The general signification of drawing together, Arab. šdd, resolves itself, however, from that special reference to the muscles of the face, and is manifest in the IV form Arab. kâlaḥa, to show one's self strict and firm (against any one); also more sensuously: to remain firm in one's place; of the moon, which remains as though motionless in one of its twenty-eight halting-places. Hence Arab. dahrun kâliḥun, a hard season, zmân šdı̂d and kulâḥun, kalâḥi (the latter as a kind of n. propr. invariably ending in i, and always without the article), a hard year, i.e., a year of failure of the crops, and of scarcity and want. If it is possible to apply this to כּלח without the hazardous comparison of Arab. qḥl, qlḥm, etc. so supra, p. 300], the primary signification might perhaps be that of hardness, unbroken strength; Job 5:26, “Thou wilt go to the grave with unbroken strength,” i.e., full of days indeed, but without having thyself experienced the infirmities and burdens of the aetas decrepita, as also a shock brought in “in its season” is at the highest point of ripeness; Job 30:2 : “What (should) the strength of their hands profit me? as for them, their vigour is departed.” - Fl.
64. Arab. ams is manifestly connected with Arab. ms', msy, first by means of the IV form Arab. ‘msy; it has, however, like this, nothing to do with “darkness.” Arab. mas'â’ is, according to the original sources of information, properly the whole afternoon until sunset; and this time is so called, because in it the sun Arab. tamsû or tamsı̂, touches, i.e., sinks towards the horizon (from the root Arab. ms with the primary notion stringere, terere, tergere, trahere, prehendere, capere). Just so they say Arab. ‘l-šmsu tadluk, properly the sun rubs; Arab. taṣı̂f, connects itself; Arab. tušaffir, goes to the brink (Arab. šufr, šafı̂r), all in the same signification. Used as a substantive, Arab. amsu followed by the genitive is la veille de..., the evening before ... , and then generally, the day before ... , the opposite of Arab. gadu with the same construction, le lendemain de - . It is absolutely impossible that it should refer to a far distant past. On the contrary, it is always used like our “yesterday,” in a general sense, for a comparatively near past, or a past time thought of as near, as Arab. gd is used of a comparatively near future, or a future time thought of as near. Zamachschari in the Kesschâf on Sur. xvii. 25: It is a duty of children to take care of their aged parents, “because they are so aged, and to-day (el-jauma) require those who even yesterday (bi-l-emsi) were the most dependent on them of all God's creatures.” It never means absolutely evening or night. What Gesenius, Thes., cites as a proof for it from Vita Timuri, ii. 428 - a supposed Arab. amsı̂y, vespertinus - is falsely read and explained (as in general Manger's translation of those verses abounds in mistakes); - both line 1 and line 9, Arab. ‘msy, IV form of ms', is rhetorically and poetically (as “sister of Arab. kân”) of like signification with the general Arab. kân or ṣâr. An Arab would not be able to understand that אמשׁ שׁואה וּמשׁאה otherwise than: “on the eve of destruction and ruin,” i.e., at the breaking in of destruction and ruin which is just at hand or has actually followed rapidly upon something else. - Fl.
65. Huldrich Zwingli, in the Greek Aldine of 1518 (edited by Andrea of Asola), which he has annotated throughout in the margin, one of the choicest treasures of the Zurich town library, explains ἅλιμα by θαλάσσια, which was natural by the side of the preceding περικυκλοῦντες. We shall mention these marginal notes of Zwingli now and again.
66. Thus Wetzstein in his Reise in den beiden Trachonon und um das Haurangebirge.
67. The description of these eaters of the steppe plants corresponds exactly to the reality, especially if that race, bodily so inferior, is contrasted with the agricultural peasant, and some allowance is made for the figure of speech Arab. mubâlagat (i.e., a description in colours, strongly brought out), without which poetic diction would be flat and devoid of vividness in the eye of an Oriental. The peasant is large and strong, with a magnificent beard and an expressive countenance, while e.g., the Trachonites of the present day (i.e., the race of the W'ar, יער), both men and women, are a small, unpleasant-looking, weakly race. It is certain that bodily perfection is a plant that only thrives in a comfortable house, and needs good nourishment, viz., bread, which the Trachonite of the present day very rarely obtains, although he levies heavy contributions on the harvest of the villagers. Therefore the roots of plants often serve as food. Two such plants, the gahh (גח) and the rubbe halı̂le (רבּה חלילה), are described by my Reisebericht. A Beduin once told me that it should be properly called rubh lêle (רבח לילה), “the gain of a supper,” inasmuch as it often takes the place of this, the chief meal of the day. To the genus rubbe belongs also the holêwâ (חליוא); in like manner they eat the bulbous plant, qotên (קטין); of another, the mesha‛(משׁע), they eat leaves, stem, and root. I often saw the poor villagers (never Beduins) eat the broad thick fleshy leaves of a kind of thistle (the thistle is called Arab. šûk, shôk), the name of which is ‛aqqub (עקּוּב); these leaves are a handbreadth and a half in length, and half a handbreadth in width. They gather them before the thorns on the innumerable points of the serrated leaves become strong and woody; they boil them in salt and water, and serve them up with a little butter. Whole tribes of the people of the Ruwala live upon the small brown seed (resembling mustard-seed) of the semh (שׂמח). The seeds are boiled up a pulp. - Wetzst.
68. Zwingli observes here: Sigma only once. Codd. Anex. and Sinait. have the reading εμασωντο, which he prefers.
69. Vid., Meyer, Botanische Erläuterungen zu Strabons Geographie, S. 108ff.
70. Wetzstein also inclines to refer the description to the Ituraeans, who, according to Apuleius, were frugum pauperes, and according to others, freebooters, and are perhaps distinguished from the Arabes Trachonitae (if they were not these themselves), as the troglodytes are from the Arabs who dwell in tents (on the troglodytes in Eastern Hauran, vid., Reisebericht, S. 44, 126). “The troglodyte was very often able to go without nourishment and the necessaries of life. Their habitations are not unfrequently found where no cultivation of the land was possible, e.g., in Safa. They were therefore the rearers of cattle or marauders. The cattle-rearing troglodyte, because he cannot wander about from one pasture to another like the nomads who dwell in tents, often loses his herds by a failure of pasture, heavy falls of snow (which often produce great devastation, e.g., in Hauran), epidemics, etc. Losses may also arise from marauding attacks from the nomads. Still less is this marauding, which is at enmity with all the world, likely to make a race prosperous, which, like the troglodyte, being bound to a fixed habitation, cannot escape the revenge of those whom it has injured.” - Wetzst.
71. The root Arab. nk is developed in Hebr. נכה, הכּה, in Arab. naka'a and nakâ, first to the idea of outward injury by striking, hewing, etc.; but it is then also transferred to other modes of inflicting injury, and in Arab. nawika, to being injured in mind. The root shows itself in its most sensuous development in the reduplicated form Arab. naknaka, to strike one with repeated blows, fig. for: to press any one hard with claims. According to another phase, the obscene Arab. nâka, fut. i, and the decent Arab. nakaḥa, signify properly to pierce. - Fl.
72. The Arab. verb watara shows its sensuous primary signification in Arab. watarun, יתר, cord, bow-string, harp-string (Engl. string): to stretch tight, to extend, so that the thing continues in one line. Hence then Arab. watrun, witrun, separate, unequal, singulus, impar, opp. Arab. šaf‛un, bini, par, just as fard, single, separate, unequal (opp. zaug, a pair, equal number), is derived from farada, properly, so to strain or stretch out, that the thing has no bends or folds; Greek εξαπλοῦν (as in the Shepherd of Hermas: ἐπάνω λεντίου ἐξηπλωμένον λίνον καρπάσινον), an original transitive signification still retained in low Arabic (vid., Bocthor under Étendre and Déployer). Then from Arab. watara spring the secondary roots Arab. tatara and tarâ, which proceed from the VIII form (ittatara). The former (tatara) appears only in the Arab. adverb tatran and tatrâ, sigillatim, alii post alios, singly one after another, so that several persons or things form a row interrupted by intervals of space of time; the latter (tara) and its IV form (atra) are equivalent to wâtara, to be active at intervals, with pauses between, as the Arabs explain: ”We say Arab. atrâ of a man when he so performs several acts which do not directly follow one another, that there is always a [Arab.] fatrat, intermissio, between two acts.” Hence also תּרין, תּרתּין, duals of an assumed sing. תּר, singulus (um), תּרתּ singula, therefore prop. duo singuli (a), duae singulae, altogether parallel to the like meaning thinâni (ithnâni’, thinaini (ithnaini), שׁנים; fem. thintâni (ithnatâni), thintaini (ithnataini), שׁתּים instead of שׁנתּים, from an assumed sing. thin-un (ithn-un), thint-un (ithnat-un), from Arab. tanâ, שׁנה, like bin (ibn), bint (ibnat), בּן, בּת (= בּנת, hence בּתּי
73. One ought to have a correct idea of a Hauranitish mezbele. The dung which is heaped up there is not mixed with straw, because in warm, dry countries no litter is required for the cattle, and comes mostly from single-hoofed animals, since small cattle and oxen often pass the nights on the pastures. It is brought in a dry state in baskets to the place before the village, and is generally burnt once every month. Moreover, they choose days on which the wind if favourable, i.e., does not cast the smoke over the village. The ashes remain. The fertile volcanic ground does not need manure, for it would make the seed in rainy years too luxuriant at the expense of the grain, and when rain fails, burnt it up. If a village has been inhabited for a century, the mezbele reaches a height which far surpasses it. The winter rains make the ash-heaps into a compact mass, and gradually change the mezbele into a firm mound of earth in the interior of which those remarkable granaries, biâr el-ghalle, are laid out, in which the wheat can be completely preserved against heat and mice, garnered up for years. The mezbele serves the inhabitants of the district as a watch-tower, and on close oppressive evenings as a place of assembly, because there is a current of air on the height. There the children play about the whole day long; there the forsaken one lies, how, having been seized by some horrible malady, is not allowed to enter the dwellings of men, by day asking alms of the passers-by, and at night hiding himself among the ashes which the sun has warmed. There the dogs of the village lie, perhaps gnawing at a decaying carcase that is frequently thrown there. Many a village of Hauran has lost its original name, and is called umm el-mezâbil from the greatness and number of these mounds, which always indicate a primitive and extensive cultivation for the villages. And many a more modern village is built upon an ancient mezbele, because there is then a stronger current of air, which renders the position more healthy. The Arabic signification of the root זבל seems to be similarly related to the Hebrew as that of the old Beduin seken (שכן), “ashes,” to the Hebrew and Arabic משכן, “a dwelling.” - Wetzst.
74. Vid., Deutsche Morgenländ. Zeitschr. ix. (1855), S. 741, and Proverbs, S. 11.
75. In Mugir ed-dîn's large history of Jerusalem and Hebron (kitâb el-ins el-gelı̂l), in an article on Job, we read: God had so visited him in his body, that he got the disease that devours the limbs (tegedhdhem), and worms were produced (dawwad) in the wounds, while he lay on a dunghill (mezbele), and except his wife, who tended him, no one ventured to come too near him. In a beautiful Kurdic ballad “on the basket dealer” (zembilfrosh), which I have obtained from the Kurds in Salihîje, are these words:Veki Gergis beshara beri | Jusuf veki abdan keri | bikesr' Ejub kurman deri | toh anin ser sultaneti | to men chalaski 'j zahmeti.
    “When they divided Gergîs with a saw
    And sold Joseph like a slave,
    When worms fed themselves in Job's body,
    Then Thou didst guide them by a sure way:
    Thou wilt also deliver me from need.”
    More concerning these worms of Job in the description of the monastery of Job. - Wetzst.)
76. The reading wavers between הרני and הרני, for the latter form of writing is sometimes found even out of pause by conjunctive accents, e.g., 1Sa 28:15; Psa 118:5.
77. Vid., my Anekdota der mittelalterlichen Scholastik unter Juden und Moslemen, S. 347.
78. The Arab. verb bg’ is still extensively used in Syria, and that in two forms: Arab. bg' ybgy and bg' ybg’. In Damascus the fut. i is alone used; whereas in Hauran and the steppe I have only found fut. a. Thus e.g., the Hauranite poet Kâsim el-Chinn says: “The gracious God encompass thee with His favour and whatever thy soul desires (wa-l-nefsu ma tebghâ), it must obtain its desire” (tanûlu munâhû, in connection with which it is to be observed that Arab. bâl, fut. u is used here in the signification adipisci, comp. Fleischer on Job 15:29 [supra i. 270, note]). - Wetzst.
79. lxx Aldina: ἐγὼ δὲ ἀπέχων ἀγαθοῖς, which Zwingli rightly corrects ἐπέχων (Codd. Vat., Alex., and Sinait.).
80. Whereas Codd. Alex., Vat., and Sinait., ἄνευ φιμοῦ, which is correctly explained by κημοῦ in Zwingli's Aldine, but gives no sense.
81. It is worth while to cite a passage from Shaw's Travels in Barbary, ii. 348 (transl.), here: “When the ostriches are running and fighting, they sometimes make a wild, hideous, hissing noise with their throats distended and beaks open; at another time, if they meet with a slight opposition, they have a clucking or cackling voice like our domestic fowls: they seem to rejoice and laugh at the terror of their adversary. During the loneliness of the night however, as if their voice had a totally different tone, they often set up a dolorous, hideous moan, which at one time resembles the roar of the lion, and at another is more like the hoarser voice of other quadrupeds, especially the bull and cow. I have often heard them groan as if they were in the greatest agonies.” In General Doumas' book on the Horse of the Sahara, I have read that the male ostrich (delı̂m), when it is killed, especially if its young ones are near, sends forth a dolorous note, wile the female (remda), on the other hand, does not utter a sound; and so, when the ostrich digs out its nest, one hears a languishing and dolorous tone all day long, and when it has laid its egg, its usual cry is again heard, only about three o'clock in the afternoon.
82. Also in the Merg district east of Damascus, which is peopled by an ancient unmixed race, because the fever which prevails there kills strangers, remnants of the dı̂n Ibrâhı̂m have been preserved despite the penetrating Islamism. There the mulaqqin (Souffleur), who says the creed into the grave as a farewell to the buried one, adds the following words: “The muslim is my brother, the muslima my sister, Abraham is my father (abı̂), his religion (dı̂nuh) is mine, and his confession (medhebuh) mine.” It is indisputable that the words muslim (one who is submissive to God) and islâm (submission to God) have originally belonged to the dı̂n Ibrâhı̂m. It is also remarkable that the Moslem salutation selâm occurs only as a sign in war among the wandering tribes, and that the guest parts from his host with the words: dâimâ besât el-Chalı̂l̂ lâ maqtû‛walâ memnû‛, i.e., mayest thou always have Abraham's table, and plenty of provisions and guests. - Wetzst.
83. The manual of ethics by Ghazzâli is entitled mı̂zân el-a‛mâl in the original, מאזני צדק in Bar-Chisdai's translation, vid., Gosche on Ghazzâli's life and works, S. 261 of the volume of the Berliner Akademie d. Wissensch. for 1858.
84. It is something characteristically Semitic to express the notion of destruction by the figure of burning up with fire [vid. supra, p. 449, note], and it is so much used in the present day as a natural inalienable form of thought, that in curses and imprecations everything, without distinction of the object, is to be burned; e.g., juhrik, may (God) burn up, or juhrak, ought to burn, bilâduh, his native country, bedenuh, his body, ‛ênuh, his eye, shawâribuh, his moustache (i.e., his honour), nefesuh, his breath, ‛omruh, his life, etc. - Wetzst.
85. On this pleonastic Beth obj. (el-Bâ el-mezı̂de) vid., Samachschari's Mufassal, ed. Broch, pp. 125, 132 (according to which it serves “to give intensity and speciality”), and Beidhâwi's observation on Sur. ii. 191. The most usual example for it is alqa bi-jedeihi ila et-tahlike, he has plunged his hands, i.e., himself, into ruin. The Bâ el-megâz (the metaphorical Beth obj.) is similar; it is used where the verb has not its most natural signification but a metaphorical one, e.g., ashada bidhikrihi, he has strengthened his memory: comp. De Sacy, Chrestomathie Arabe, i. 397.
86. Also in the Jerusalem Talmud, where R. Johanan, eating nothing which he did not also share with his slave, refers to these words of Job. Comp. also the story from the Midrash in Guiseppe Levi's Parabeln Legenden und Ged. aus Thalmud und Midrasch, S. 141 (Germ. transl. 1863): The wife of R. Jose began a dispute with her maid. Her husband came up and asked the cause, and when he saw that his wife was in the wrong, told her so in the presence of the maid. The wife said in a rage: Thou sayest I am wrong in the presence of my maid? The Rabbi answered: I do as Job did.
87. זכר and הזכיר, to remember; זרע and הזריע, to sow, to cover with seed; חרשׁ and החרישׁ, both in the signification silere and fabricari; לעג and הלעיג, to mock, Job 21:3; משׁל and המשׁיל, dominari, Job 25:2; נטה and הטה, to extend, to bow; קנה ;w and הקנה (to obtain by purchase); קצר and הקציר, to reap, Job 24:6, are all similar. In Arab. the Kal nahaituhu signifies I put him aside by going on one side (nahw or nâhije), the Hiph. anhaituhu, I put him aside by bringing him to the side (comp. ינחם, Job 12:23).
88. Vid., Freund's Lat. Wörterbuch s. v. adorare, and K. Fr. Hermann's Gottesdienstliche Alterth. der Griechen, c. xxi. 16, but especially Excursus 123 in Dougtaeus' Analecta.
89. Vid., the collection in Lud. Krehl's Religion der vorislamischen Araber, 1863.
90. Vid., Osiander in the Deutsche Morgenl. Zeitschr. xvii. (1863) 795.
91. In his great work, Ueber die Ssabier und den Ssabismus, 2 Bdd. Petersburg, 1856.
92. Gesenius derives the noun פיד from the verb פיד, but the Arabic, which is the test here, has not only the verb fâda as med. u and as med. i in the signification to die, but also in connection with el̇feid (fêd) the substantival form el-fı̂d (= el-môt), which (= fiwd, comp. p. 26, note) is referable to fâda, med. u. Thus Neshwân, who in his Lexicon (vol. ii. fol. 119) even only knows fâda, med. u, in the signif. to die (comp. infra on Job 39:18, note).
93. In the spring of 1860 - relates Wetzstein - as I came out of the forest of Gôlan, I saw the water of Râm lying before us, that beautiful round crater in which a brook that runs both summer and winter forms a clear but fishless lake, the outflow of which underground is recognised as the fountain of the Jordan, which breaks forth below in the valley out of the crater Tell el-Kadi; and I remarked to my companion, the physician Regeb, the unusual form of the crater, when my Beduins, full of astonishment, turned upon me with the question, “What have you Franks heard of the origin of this lake?” On being asked what they knew about it, they related how that many centuries ago a flourishing village once stood here, the fields of which were the plain lying between the water and the village of Megdel Shems. One evening a poor traveller came while the men were sitting together in the open place in the middle of the village, and begged for a supper and a resting-place for the night, which they refused him. When he assured them that he had eaten nothing since the day before, an old woman amidst general laughter reached out a gelle (a cake of dried cow-dung, which is used for fuel), and drove him out of the village. Thereupon the man went to the village of Nimra (still standing, south of the lake), where he related his misfortune, and was taken in by them. The next morning, when the inhabitants of Nimra woke, they found a lake where the neighbouring village had stood.
94. Pusey also (The Minor Prophets with Commentary, P. i. 1861) improves “like men” by translating “like Adam.”
95. In a similar figure a Rabbinic proverb says (with reference to Mal 2:13), that the altar of God weeps over him who separates himself from the wife of his youth.
96. The lexicographers explain the Arab. zḥl by zâla (זול), to stand away from, back, to retreat, or tanahha, to step aside; Piel, Hiph., to push any one aside, place anything back; Hithpa., to keep one's self on one side; adj. זחל, זחיל, זחוּל, etc., standing back. Thus the town of Zahla in the plain of the Lebanon takes its name from the fact that it does not stand out in the plain, but is built close at the foot of the mountain in a corner, and consequently retreats. And zuhale (according to the Kamus) is an animal that creeps backwards into its hole, e.g., the scorpion; and hence, improperly, a man who, as we say with a similar figure, never comes out of his hole, always keeps in his hole, i.e., never leaves his dwelling, as zuhal in general signifies a man who retires or keeps far from active life; in connection with which also the planet Saturn is called Zuhal, the retreating one, on account of its great distance from the rest. Slippery (of ground) is זחלוּל, because it draws the foot backwards (muzhil) by its smoothness, and thus causes the walker to fall. A further formation is זחלק, to be slippery, and to slip in a slippery place; beside which, זלק, a word of similar meaning, is no longer used in Syria. According to this Arabic primary notion of zḥl, it appears זחלי ארץ, Mic 7:17, is intended to describe the serpents not as creeping upon the earth, but as creeping into the earth (comp. the name of the serpent, achbi' at el-ard, those that hide themselves in the earth); but in Talmud. and Aram. זחל used of animals has the general signification to creep, and of water, to glide (flow gently down). The primary notion, to glide (to slip, creep, flow gently, labi), is combined both in the derivatives of the root זח and in those of the root זל with the notion of a departing and retreating motion. - Wetzst. and Fl.
97. God took a small piece of His own life - says the tradition among the Karens, a scattered tribe of Eastern India - blew into the nostrils of His son and daughter, and they became living beings, and were really human.
98. Vid., Nöldecke in Genfey's Zeitschrift, 1863, S. 383.
99. Nevertheless Zamachschari does not derive Arab. nâwâ, to treat with enmity, from Arab. n', but from nwy, so that nâwa fulânan signifies “to have evil designs against any one, to meditate evil against one.” The phrases iluh ‛alêji nijât, he has evil intentions (wicked designs) against me, nı̂jetuh zerı̂je aleik, he has evil intentions against thee, and similar, are very common. - Wetzst.
100. Vid., Pinsker's Likkute Kadmoniot, p. קמג.
101. He refers to b. Aboda zara 42a: If a heathen have broken an idol to pieces (שׁפּה) to derive advantage from the pieces, both the (shattered) idol and the fragments (שׁפּוּיין) are permitted (since both are deprived of their heathenish character).
102. Vid., Luzzatto's Grammatica della Lingua Ebraica (1853), §54. Ewald's (§21) view, that in these instances the pointed Aleph is to be read as j (therefore ruju), is unfounded; moreover, the point over the Aleph is certainly only improperly called Dagesh, it might at least just as suitably be called Mappik.
103. Wetzstein is inclined to regard פדע as a metathesis of דפע, Arab. df‛: thrust (tear, hold) him back from the gave. A proper name, fed‛ân, which often occurs among the Beduins, is of uncertain signification; perhaps it would serve as an explanation of פדעהו.
104. In his introduction, p. 76, Schlottmann says: “The conceptions of Wisdom and of the Revealing Angel were already united in that of the Eternal Word in the ante-Christian, Jewish theology. Therein the fact of the divine revelation in Christ found the forms in which it could accommodate itself to the understanding, and stimulate succeeding ages to further thought and penetration.” Thus it is: between the Chokma of the canonical books and the post-biblical development of the philosophy of religion (dogmatism) which culminates in Philo, there is an historical connection, and, indeed, one that has to do with the development of redemption. Vid., Luth. Zeitschrift, 1863, S. 219ff.
105. The Talmud. טרפשׁא דליבא (Chullin, 49b) signifies, according to the customary rendering, the pericardium, and טרפשׁא דכבדא (ib. 46a) the diaphragm, or rather the little net (omentum minus). Originally, however, the former signified the cushion of fat under the pericardium on which the heart rests, especially in the crossing of the furrows; the latter the accumulation of fat on the porta (πύλη) and between the laminae of the little net. For טרפשׁ is correctly explained by שׁומן, fat. It has nothing to do with τράπεζα (an old name for a part of the liver), with which Ges. after Buxtorf connects it.
106. In Arabic swy (sawa) is the most general expression for “to be worth, to cost,” usually with the acc. of price, but also with li, e.g., in the proverb hal ka‛ke mâ tiswe li-hal da‛ke, this (wretched) bite of bread (of subsistence) is not worth this (excessive) pressure after it. Accordingly ולא שׁוה לי would signify: it (what I suffered) came not equal to me (did not balance me), which at any rate is equivalent to ”it did not cost my life” (Wetzst.), but would be indistinctly expressed.
107. Bedae Opp. ed. Basil. iii. col. 602f. 786. The commentary also bears the false name of Jerome Hieronymus, and as a writing attributed to him is contained in tom. v. Opp. ed. Vallarsi.
108. Opp. ed. Prais, i. col. 777.
109. Catena in Job. Londin. p. 484, where it is further said, Ὅθεν λογιζόμεθα καὶ τόν θεὸν μήτε ἐπαινέσαι τὸν Ελιοὺς, ἐπειδὴ μὴ νενόηκε τοῦ Ἰὼβ τοὺς λόγους, μήτε μὴν καταδικάσαι, ἐπειδὴ μὴ ἀσεβείας αὐτὸν κατέκρινε.
110. Edition 1805, S. 101, 142.
111. Vid., Riehm, Blätter der Erinnerung an F. W. C. Umbreit (1862), S. 58.
112. Thus the writer of a treatise in the 3rd vol. of Bernstein's Analekten, entitled: Der Satan als Irrgeist und Engel des Lichts.
113. The preparation is negative only so far as Elihu causes Job to be silent and to cease to murmur; but Jehovah drawn from him a confession of penitence on account of his murmuring. This positive relation of the appearing of Jehovah to that for which Elihu negatively prepares the way, is rightly emphasized by Schlottm., Räbiger (De l. Iobi sententia primaria, 1860, 4), and others, as favourable to the authenticity.
114. Vid., Hengstenberg, Lecture on the Book of Job.
115. Jacob Hoffmann (of St. Gallen), Gedult Iobs, Basel, 1663 (a rare little book which I became acquainted with in the town library of St. Gallen).
116. On this subject see my Art. Hiob in Herzog's Real-Encyklopädie, vi. 116-119, and comp. Kahnis, Dogmatik, i. 306-309, and my Für und wider Kahnis (1863), S. 19-21.
117. Seinecke (Der Grundgedanke des B. Hiob, 1863) places it, with Ewald, 100-200 years later; and, moreover, asserts that the book of Job has no foundation whatever in oral tradition - Job is the Israel of the exile, Uz is Judaea, etc.
118. Philippus Presbyter was a disciple of Jerome. His Comm. in Iobum is extant in many forms, partly epitomized, partly interpolated (on this subject, vid., Hieronymi Opp. ed. Vallarsi, iii. 895ff.). The commentary of Beda, dedicated to a certain Nectarius (Vecterius), is fundamentally that of this Philippus.
119. Eze 25:8 is also to be read אמר according to the Masora and old editions (as אבד Deu 7:20, אכל Deu 12:23, אחז 1Ki 6:6), for distinction from the imperatives, which have Chateph-Segol.
120. Vid., Grätz in Frankel's Monatsschrift, 1861, i.
121. The mode of writing with ס instead of שׂ is limited in the book of Job, according to the Masora, to Job 34:26, Job 34:37.
122. We cannot in any case, with Wetzst., explain the אבי אבי, 2Ki 2:12; 2Ki 13:14, according to the above, so that the king of Israel adjured the dying prophet by the national army and army of the faithful not to forsake him, as an Arab is now and then adjured in most urgent and straitened circumstances “by the army of Islam;” vid., on the other hand, 2Ki 6:21, comp. Job 5:13; Job 8:9 (בּנך). Here rather, if an Arabian parallel be needed, the usual death wail, bi-abı̂ anta (thou wast dear as a father to me), e.g., in Kosegarten, Chrestom. p. 140, 3, is to be compared. אבי, 1Sa 24:12, might more readily, with Ew. §101, c, be brought in here and regarded as belonging to the North Palestine peculiarities of the book of Kings; but by a comparison of the passages cited, this is also improbable.
123. Vid., Hupfeld in the Zeitschr. für Kunde des Morgenl. ii. 441f.
124. The signification expandere also underlies the noun fishshe, the lungs (in Egypt.); the signification discutere (especially carminare, to card wool), which the Talmud. פשׁפשׁ also has, is only a shade of the same signification; the origin of the trop. signification fatuum esse is clear from ‘gaus fashûsh, empty nuts. The rice from the Palestine valley of Hûle, it is somewhere said, is worse than the Egyptian, because (what is a fault in the East) in cooking tufeshfish, i.e., it bursts, breaks in pieces (comp. on the other hand: if the seed for sowing sinks to the bottom when put into water, it is good; if it swims on the surface, jefûsh, it is bad). The Piel of this fashsha signifies to cause the water to overflow, trop. fashshasha qalbahu, he gave air to his heart, i.e., he revealed a secret which burdened him. A proverb says: the market (with its life and changing scenes) is a feshshâsh of cares, i.e., consoles a trouble heart. In the Hiph. one says in like manner proverbially, el-bukâ jufishsh, weeping removes the anguish of the soul. - Wetzst.
125. The Targ. translates אור, Job 36:30, Job 36:32, by מטרא, pluvia, according to the erroneous opinion of R. Jochanan: כל אורה שׁנאמר באליהוא אינו אלא בירידת גשׁמים. Aben-Ezra and Kimchi explain even עלי־אור, Isa 18:4, according to this passage. The lxx translates Job 36:30: ἰδοὺ ἐκτενεῖ ἐπ ̓ αὐτὸν ἠδώ (Cod. Alex. επ αυτον το τοξον; Cod. Sinait. επ αυτην ηωδη (with the corrections ηδω and τοξον), probably according to the reading אידו for אורו. But what connection have ἠδώ and rainbow?
126. Vid., Bickel, De indole ac ratione versionis Alex. in interpretando l. Iobi, p. 50. Cod. Sinait. has, like Cod. Vat.: αναγγελει περι αυτου φιλον (corr. φιλος) αυτου κς κτησις και περι αδικαις.
127. Arab. hawâ is originally χαίνειν, to gape, yawn, hiare, e.g., hawat et-ta‛natu, the stab gapes (imperf. tahwı̂, inf. huwı̂jun), “when it opens its mouth” - the Turkish Kamus adds, to complete the picture: like a tulip. Thence next hâwijatun, χαίνουσα χαῖνον, i.e., χᾶσμα = hûwatun, uhwı̂jatun, huwâatun, mahwâtun, a cleft, yawning deep, chasm, abyss, βάραθρον, vorago; hawı̂jatunand hauhâtun (a reduplicated form), especially a very deep pit or well. But these same words, hâwijatun, hûwatun, uhwı̂jatun, mahwâtun, also signify, like the usual Arab. hawa'â'un, the χάσμα between heaven and earth, i.e., the wide, empty space, the same as ‘gauwun. The wider significations, or rather applications and references of hawâ: air set in motion, a current of air, wind, weather, are all secondary, and related to that primary signification as samâ, rain-clouds, rain, grass produced by the rain, to the prim. signification height, heaven, vid., Mehren, Rhetorik d. Araber, S. 107, Z. 14ff. This hawâ, however, also signifies in general: a broad, empty space, and by transferring the notion of “empty” to mind and heart, as the reduplicated forms hûhatun and hauhâtun: devoid of understanding and devoid of courage, e.g., Koran xiv. 44: wa-af'i-datuhum hawâun, where Bedhâwî first explains hawâ directly by chalâ, emptiness, empty space, i.e., as he adds, châlijetun ‛an el-fahm, as one says of one without mind and courage qalbuhu hawâun. Thence also hauwun, emptiness, a hole, i.e., in a wall or roof, a dormar-window (kauwe, kûwe), but also with the genit. of a person or thing: their hole, i.e., the space left empty by them, the side not taken up by them, e.g., qa‛ada fi hauwihi, he set himself beside him. From the signification to be empty then comes (1) hawat el-mar'atu, i.e., vacua fuit mulier = orba oiberis, as χήρα, vidua, properly empty, French vide; (2) hawâ er-ragulu, i.e., vacuus, inanis factus est vir = exanimatus (comp. Arab. frg, he became empty, euphemistic for he died
128. This dhârijât is also differently explained; but the first explanation in Beidhâwi (ii. 183, Fleischer's edition) is, “the winds which scatter (blow away) the dust and other things.”
129. This “atraha” is, moreover, a pure invention of our ordinary Arabic lexicons instead of ittaraha (VIII form): (1) to throw one's self, (2) to throw anything from one's self, with an acc. of the thing. - Fl.
130. The word is therefore a metaphor taken from the balance, and it may be observed that the Syro-Arabic, on account of the most extensive application of the balance, is unusually rich in such metaphors. Moreover, the Arabic has no corresponding noun: the teflı̂s (a balance) brought forward by Ges. in his Thes. and Handwörterbuch from Schindler's Pentaglotton, is a word devoid of all evidence from original sources and from the modern usage of the language, in this signification.
131. Vid., the art. Gold, S. 91, 101, in Ersch and Gruber. The Indian traditions concerning Uttaraguru (the “High Mountain”), and concerning the northern seat of the god on wealth Kuvêra, have no connection here; on their origin comp. Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, i. 848.
132. The verb צּפּה, obducere, does not belong here, but to צפח, and signifies properly to flatten (as רקע, to make thin and thick by striking), comp. Arab. ṣfḥ, to strike on something flat (whence el-musâfaha, the salutation by striking the hand), and Arab. ṣf‛, to strike with the flat hand on anything, therefore diducendo obducere.
133. Zur Kritik des B. Hiob, 1861, S. 34.
134. Vid., Herzog's Real-Encyklopädie, art. Hiob, S. 119.
135. The correct accentuation is מחשׁיך with Mercha, עצה with Athnach, במלין with Rebia mugrasch, bly (without Makkeph) with Munach.
136. Alex. v. Humboldt, Kosmos, ii. 48 (1st edition), comp. Tholuck, Vermischte Schriften, i. 354.
137. A man or woman of great beauty is called suhêli, suhelı̂je. Thus I heard a Hauranitish woman say to her companion: nahâr el-jôm nedâ,shuft ledsch (Arab. lk) wâhid Suhêli, To-day is dew, I saw a Suhêli, i.e., a very handsome man, for thee. - Wetzst.
138. Since the Hauranites say of snow as of fire: jahrik, it burns (brûlant in French is also used of extreme cold), Job 1:16 might also be understood of a fall of snow; but the tenor of the words there requires it to be understood of actual fire.
139. The verb כום is still in general use in the Piel (to heap up, form a heap, part. mukauwam, heaped up) and Hithpa. (to accumulate) in Syria, and kôm is any village desolated in days of yore whose stones form a desolate heap comp. Fleischer, De Glossis Habichtianis, p. 41f.]. If, according to Kamus, in old Jemanic kı̂m in the sense of mukâwim signifies a confederate (synon. chilt, gils), the כּימה would be a confederation, or a heap, assemblage (coetus) of confederates. Perhaps the כימה was regarded as a troop of camels; the Beduins at least call the star directly before the seven-starred constellation of the Pleiades the hâdi, i.e., the singer riding before the procession, who cheers the camels by the sound of the hadwa (חדוה
140. In June 1860 I witnessed a quarrel in an encampment of Mo'gil-Beduins, in which one accused the others of having rendered it possible for the enemy to carry off his camels through their negligence; and when the accused assured him they had gone forth in pursuit of the marauders soon after the raid, and only turned back at sunset, the man exclaimed: Ye came indeed to my assistance as Suhêl to Gedî (פזעתם לי פזע סהיל ללגדי). I asked my neighbour what the words meant, and was informed they are a proverb which is very often used, and has its origin as follows: The Gedî (i.e., the Pole-star, called mismâr, משׂמר, in Damascus) slew the Na‛sh (נעשׁ), and is accordingly encompassed every night by the children of the slain Na‛sh, who are determined to take vengeance on the murderer. The sons (on which account poets usually say benı̂ instead of benât Na‛sh) go first with the corpse of their father, and the daughters follow. One of the latter is called waldâne, a lying-in woman; she has only recently given birth to a child, and carries her child in her bosom, and she is still pale from her lying-in. (The clear atmosphere of the Syrian sky admits of the child in the bosom of the waldâne being distinctly seen.
141. Thus A. Weber in his Abh. über die vedischen Nachrichten von den naxatra (halting-places of the moon), 1860 (comp. Lit. Centralbl. 1859, col. 665), refuted by Steinschneider, Hebr. Bibliographie, 1861, Nr. 22, S. 93f.
142. The names “the Ram, the Bull,” etc., are, according to Epiphanius, Opp. i. p. 34f. (ed. Petav.), transferred from the Greek into the Jewish astrology, vid., Wissenschaft Kunst Judenthum, S. 220f.
143. No Arab. word offers itself here for comparison: tuchaj, a cock, has different consonants, and if Arab. škâ in the sense of Arab. šâk, fortem esse, were to be supposed, שׂכוי would be a synon. of גּבר, which is likewise a name of the cock.
144. The Semitic is rich in such words as describe the couching posture of beasts of prey lying in wait for their prey, which then in general signify to lie in wait, lurk, wait (רצד, רבץ, Arab. rbṣ, lbd, wkkd); Arab. q‛d lh, subsedit ei, i.e., insidiatus est ei, which corresponds to ישׁבו, Job 38:40, also belongs here, comp. Psalter, i. 500 note.
145. It is a dirty yellow with a white belly, single-hoofed and long-eared; its hornless head somewhat resembles that of the gazelle, but is much later; its hair has the dryness of the hair of the deer, and the animal forms the transition from the stag and deer genus to the ass. It is entirely distinct from the mahâ or baqar el-wahsh, wild ox, whose large soft eyes are so much celebrated by the poets of the steppe. This latter is horned and double-hoofed, and forms the transition from the stag to the ox distinct from the ri'm, ראם, therefore perhaps an antelope of the kind of the Indian nîlgau, blue ox, Portax tragocamelus. I have not seen both kinds of animals alive, but I have often seen their skins in the tents of the Ruwalâ. Both kinds are remarkable for their very swift running, and it is especially affirmed of the ferâ that no rider can overtake it. The poets compare a troop of horsemen that come rushing up and vanish in the next moment to a herd of ferâ. In spite of its difficulty and hazardousness, the nomads are passionately given to hunting the wild ass, and the proverb cited by the Kâmûs: kull es-sêd bigôf el-ferâ (every hunt sticks in the belly of the ferâ, i.e., compared with that, every other hunt is nothing), is perfectly correct. When the approach of a herd, which always consists of several hundred, is betrayed by a cloud of dust which can be seen many miles off, so many horsemen rise up from all sides in pursuit that the animals are usually scattered, and single ones are obtained by the dogs and by shots. The herd is called gemı̂le, and its leader is called ‛anûd (ענוּד),as with gazelles. - Wetzst.
146. The National Grammarians call this exception to the rule, that the muta is aspirated when the preceding word ends with a vowel, אתי מרחיק (veniens e longinquo), i.e., the case, where the word ending with a vowel is Milel, whether from the very first, or, when the second word is a monosyllable or has the tone on the penult., on account of the accent that has retreated (in order to avoid two syllables with the chief tone coming together); in this case the aspirate, and in general the initial letter (if capable of being doubled) of the second monosyllabic or penultima-accented word, takes a Dagesh; but this is not without exceptions that are quite as regular. Regularly, the second word is not dageshed if it begins with ו, כ, ל, ב, or if the first word is only a bare verb, e.g., עשׂה לו, or one that has only ו before it, e.g., ועשׂה פסח; the tone of the first word in both these examples retreats, but without the initial of the second being doubled. This is supplementary, and as far as necessary a correction, to what is said in Psalter, i 392, Anm.
147. Since ra'ima, inf. ri'mân, has the signification assuescere, ראם, רים, רימנא (Targ.) might describe the oryx as a gregarious animal, although all ruminants have this characteristic in common. On ראם, Arab. r'm, vid., Seetzen's Reise, iii. S. 393, Z 9ff., and also iv. 496.
148. Vid., Sundevall, Die Thierarten des Aristoteles (Stockholm, 1863), S. 64f.
149. J. W. von Müller (Das Einhorn von gesch. u. naturwiss. Standpunkte betrachtet, 1852) believed that in a horn in the Ambras Collection at Vienna he recognised a horn of the Monocerôs (comp. Fechner's Centralblatt, 1854, Nr. 2), but he is hardly right. J. W. von Müller, Francis Galton (Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa, 1853), and other travellers have heard the natives speak ingenuously of the unicorn, but without seeing it themselves. On the other hand, Huc and Gabet (Journeyings through Mongolia and Thibet, Germ. edition) tell us “a horn of this animal was sent to Calcutta: it was 50 centimetres long and 11 in circumference; from the root it ran up to a gradually diminishing point. It was almost straight, black, etc ... . Hodgson, when English consul at Nepal, had the good fortune to obtain an unicorn ... . It is a kind of antelope, which in southern Thibet, that borders on Nepal, is called Tschiru. Hodgson sent a skin and horn to Calcutta; they came from an unicorn that died in the menagerie of the Raja of Nepal.” The detailed description follows, and the suggestion is advanced that this Antilope Hodgsonii, as it has been proposed to call the Tschiru, is the one-horned oryx of the ancients. The existence of one-horned wild sheep (not antelopes), attested by R. von Schlagintweit (Zoologischer Garten, 1st year, S. 72), the horn of which consists of two parts gradually growing together, covered by one horn-sheath, does not depreciate the credibility of the account given by Huc-Gabet (to which Prof. Will has called my attention as being the most weighty testimony of the time). Another less minute account is to be found in the Arabic description of a journey (communicated to me by Prof. Fleischer) by Selîm Bisteris (Beirût, 1856): In the menagerie of the Viceroy of Egypt he saw an animal of the colour of a gazelle, but the size and form of an ass, with a long straight horn between the ears, and what, as he says, seldom go together) with hoofs, viz. - and as the expression Arab. ḥâfr, horse's hoof (not Arab. chuff, a camel's hoof), also implies - proper, uncloven hoofs, - therefore an one-horned and at the same time one-hoofed antelope.
150. It does, however, as it appears, actually occur, that the female leaves the work of hatching to the sun by day, and to the male at night, and does not sit at all herself; vid., Funke's Naturgeschichte, revised by Taschenberg (1864), S. 243f.
151. We take this remark from Doumas, Horse of the Sahara. The following contribution from Wetzstein only came to hand after the exposition was completed: “The female ostriches are called רננים not from the whirring of their wings when flapped about, but from their piercing screeching cry when defending their eggs against beasts of prey (chiefly hyaenas), or when searching for the male bird. Now they are called rubd, from sing. rubda (instead of rabdâ), from the black colour of their long wing-feathers; for only the male, which is called חיק (pronounce hêtsh), has white. The ostrich-tribe has the name of בּת יענה bat (Arab. bdt 'l-wa‛nat), 'inhabitant of the desert,' because it is only at home in the most lonely parts of the steppe, in perfectly barren deserts. Neshwân the Himjarite, in his ‘Shems el-'olûm’ (MSS in the Royal Library at Berlin, sectio Wetzst. I No. 149, Bd. i.f. 110b), defines the word el-wa‛na by: ארץ ביצא לא תנבת שׁיא, a white (chalky or sandy) district, which brings forth nothing; and the Kâmûs explains it by ארץ צלבּה, a hard (unfruitful) district. In perfect analogy with the Hebr. the Arabic calls the ostrich abu (and umm) es-sahârâ, 'possessor of the sterile deserts.' The name יענים, Lam 4:3, is perfectly correct, and corresponds to the form יעלים (steinbocks); the form פעל (Arab. f‛l) is frequently the Nisbe of פעל and פעלה, according to which יען = בּת היענה and יעל = בּת היּעלה, 'inhabitant of the inaccessible rocks.' Hence, says Neshwân (against the non-Semite Firûzâbâdi), wa‛l(יעל and wa‛la) is exclusively the high place of the rocks, and wa‛il (יעל exclusively the steinbock. The most common Arabic name of the ostrich is na‛âme, נעמה, collective na‛âm, from the softness (nu‛ûma, נעוּמה) of its feathers, with which the Arab women (in Damascus frequently) stuff cushions and pillows. Umm thelâthin, 'mother of thirty,' is the name of the female ostrich, because as a rule she lays thirty eggs. The ostrich egg is called in the steppe dahwa, דּחוה (coll. dahû), a word that is certainly very ancient. Nevertheless the Hauranites prefer the word medha, מדחה. A place hollowed out in the ground serves as a nest, which the ostrich likes best to dig in the hot sand, on which account they are very common in the sandy tracts of Ard ed-Dehanâ (דהנא), between the Shemmar mountains and the Sawâd (Chaldaea). Thence at the end of April come the ostrich hunters with their spoil, the hides of the birds together with the feathers, to Syria. Such an unplucked hide is called gizze (גזּה). The hunters inform us that the female sits alone on the nest from early in the day until evening, and from evening until early in the morning with the male, which wanders about throughout the day. The statement that the ostrich does not sit on its eggs, is perhaps based on the fact that the female frequently, and always before the hunters, forsakes the eggs during the first period of brooding. Even. Job 39:14 and Job 39:15 do not say more than this. But when the time of hatching (called el-faqs, פקץ) is near, the hen no longer leaves the eggs. The same observation is also made with regard to the partridge of Palestine (el-hagel, חגל) which has many other characteristics in common with the ostrich.
     That the ostrich is accounted stupid (Job 39:17) may arise from the fact, that when the female has been frightened from the eggs she always seeks out the male with a loud cry; she then, as the hunters unanimously assert, brings him forcibly back to the nest (hence its Arabic name zalı̂m, 'the violent one'). During the interval the hunter has buried himself in the sand, and on their arrival, by a good shot often kills both together in the nest. It may also be accounted as stupidity, that, when the wind is calm, instead of flying before the riding hunters, the bird tries to hide itself behind a mound or in the hollows of the ground. But that, when escape is impossible, it is said to try to hide its head in the sand, the hunters regard as an absurdity. If the wind aids it, the fleeing ostrich spreads out the feathers of its tail like a sail, and by constantly steering itself with its extended wings, it escapes its pursuers with ease. The word המריא, Job 39:18, appears to be a hunting expression, and (without an accus. objecti) to describe this spreading out of the feathers, therefore to be perfectly synonymous with the תערישׁ (Arab. t'rı̂š) of the ostrich hunters of the present day. Thus sings the poet Râshid of the hunting race of the Sulubât: 'And the head (of the bride with its loosened locks) resembles the (soft and black) feathers of the ostrich-hen, when she spreads them out (‛arrashannâ). They saw the hunter coming upon them where there was no hiding-place, And stretched their legs as they fled.' The prohibition to eat the ostrich in the Thora (Lev 11:16; Deu 14:15) is perhaps based upon the cruelty of the hunt; for it is with the rarest exceptions always killed only on its eggs. The female, which, as has been said already, does not flee towards the end of the time of brooding, stoops on the approach of the hunter, inclines the head on one side and looks motionless at her enemy. Several Beduins have said to me, that a man must have a hard heart to fire under such circumstances. If the bird is killed, the hunter covers the blood with sand, puts the female again upon the eggs, buries himself at some distance in the sand, and waits till evening, when the male comes, which is now shot likewise, beside the female. The Mosaic law might accordingly have forbidden the hunting of the ostrich from the same feeling of humanity which unmistakeably regulated it in other decisions (as Exo 23:19; Deu 22:6., Lev 22:28, and freq.).)
152. A verse of a poem of Ibn-Dûchi in honour of Dôkân ibn-Gendel runs: Before the crowding (lekdata) of Taijâr the horses fled repulsed, And thou mightest hear the sound of the bell-carriers (hawı̂da mubershemât) of the warriors (el-menâir, prop. one who thrusts with the lance). Here hawı̂d signifies the sound of the bells which those who wish to announce themselves as warriors hang about their horses, to draw the attention of the enemy to them. Mubershemât are the mares that carry the burêshimân, i.e., the bells. The meaning therefore is: thou couldst hear this sound, which ought only to be heard in the fray, in flight, when the warriors consecrated to death fled as cowards. Taijâr (Têjâr) is Sâlih the son of Cana'an (died about 1815), mentioned in p. 456, note 1, a great warrior of the wandering tribe of the ‘Aneze. - Wetzst.
153. Less unfavourable to this rendering is the following, that אברה signifies the long feathers, and אבר the wing that is composed of them (perhaps, since the Talm. אברים signifies wings and limbs, artus, from אבר = הבר, Arab. hbr, to divide, furnish with joints), although נוצה (from נצה, to fly) is the more general designation of the feathers of birds.
154. Vid., the beautiful description in Charles Boner's Forest Creatures, 1861.
155. In the astronomical representations the hippopotamus is in the neighbourhood of the North Pole in the place of the dragon of the present day, and bears the name of hes-mut, in which mut = t. mau, “the mother.” Hes however is obscure; Birch explains it by: raging.
156. Staring from its primary signification (made firm, fast), Arab. srı̂r, שׁרירא can signify e.g., also things put together from wood: a throne, a hand-barrow, bedstead and cradle, metaphor. the foundation. Wetzst. otherwise: “The שׂרירי הבטן are not the sinews and muscles, still less 'the private parts' of others, but the four bearers of the animal body = arkân el-batn, viz., the bones of the מתנים, Job 40:16, together with the two shoulder-blades. The Arab. sarı̂r is that on which a thing is supported or rests, on which it stands firmly, or moves about. Neshwân (i. 280) says: ‛sarı̂r is the substratum on which a thing rests,' and the sarı̂r er-ra's, says the same, is the place where the head rests upon the nape of the neck. The Kâmûs gives the same signification primo loco, which shows that it is general; then follows in gen. Arab. muḍṭaja‛, “the support of a thing.”
157. Wetzst. otherwise: One may compare the Arab. chafaḍa, fut. i, to hold, sit, lie motionless (in any place), from which the signification of desiring, longing, has been developed, since in the Semitic languages the figure of fixing (ta‛alluq) the heard and the eye on any desired object is at the basis of this notion (wherefore such verbs are joined with the praep. בּ). According to this, it is to be explained, “his tail is motionless like (the short and thick stem of) The cedar,” for the stunted tail of an animal is a mark of its strength to a Semite. In 1860, as I was visiting the neighbouring mountain fortress of el-Hosn with the octogenarian Fêjâd, the sheikh of Fîk in Gôlân, we rode past Fêjâd's ploughmen; and as one of them was letting his team go slowly along, the sheikh cried out to him from a distance: Faster! faster! They (the steers, which thou ploughest) are not oxen weak with age, nor are they the dower of a widow (who at her second marriage receives only a pair of weak wretched oxen from her father or brother); but they are heifers (3-4 year-old steers) with stiffly raised tails (wadhujûluhin muqashmare, מקשׁמר an intensive קשׁוּר or שׁלאנן comp. שׁלאנן, Job 21:23).
158. Another Targ., which translates גבריה ושׁעבוזוהי, penis et testiculi ejus, vid., Aruch s.v. שׁעבז.
159. According to Fleischer, fachidh signifies properly the thick-leg (= thigh), from the root fach, with the general signification of being puffed out, swollen, thick.
160. In the choice of the word ישׂרגו, the mushâgarat ed-dawâlı̂ (from שׁגר = שׂרג), “the interweaving of the vine branches” was undoubtedly before the poet's eye; comp. Deutsch. Morgenl. Zeitschr. xi. 477: “On all sides in this delightful corner of the earth (the Ghûta) the vine left to itself, in diversified ramifications, often a dozen branches resembling so many huge snakes entangled together, swings to and fro upon the shining stem of the lofty white poplar.” And ib. S. 491: “a twisted vine almost the thickness of a man, as though formed of rods of iron (comp. Job 40:18).”
161. The noun מטיל is also found in the Lexicon of Neshwân, i. 63: “מטיל is equivalent to ממטוּל, viz., that which is hammered out in length, used of iron and other metals; and one says חדידה מטילה of a piece of iron that has been hammered for the purpose of stretching it.” The verb Neshwân explains: “מטל said of iron signifies to stretch it that it may become long.” The verb מטל can be regarded as a fusion of the root מדד (מטט, טוּט, comp. מוטה, and Arab. mûṭ Beduin: to take long steps) with the root טוּל, to be long. - Wetzst. The above explanation of the origin of the verb מטל seems to us more probable.
162. Ibn-Koreisch in Pinsker, Likkute, p. קנא, explains it without exactness by sebikat hadı̂d, which signifies a smelted and formed piece of iron.
163. Whether בּליל, Job 6:5; Job 24:6, signifies mixed provender (farrago), or perhaps ripe fruit, i.e., grain, so that jabol, Jdg 19:21, in the signification “he gave dry provender consisting of barley-grain,” would be the opposite of the jahushsh (יחשׁ) of the present day, “he gives green provender consisting of green grass or green barley, hashı̂sh,” as Wetzst. supposes, vid., on Isa 30:24.
164. The Arab. ḍâl or Dûm-tree, which likes hot and damp valleys, and hence is found much on the northern, and in great numbers on the eastern, shores of the Sea of Galilee, is called in the present day sidra, collect. sidr; and its fruit, a small yellow apple, dûma, collect. dûm, perhaps “the not ending, perennial,” because the fruit of the previous year only falls from the tree when that of the present year is ripe. Around Bagdad, as they told me, the Dûm-tree bears twice a year. In Egypt its fruit is called nebq (נבק, not nibq as in Freytag), and the tree is there far stronger and taller than in Syria, where it is seldom more than about four and twenty feet high. Only in the Wâdi 's-sidr on the mountains of Judaea have I seen several unusually large trunks. The Kâmûs places the signification “the sweet Dûm-tree” first of all to Arab. ḍâl, and then “the wild D.” In hotter regions there may also be a superior kind with fine fruit, in Syria it is only wild - Neshwân (ii. 192) says: “dâla, collect. dâl, is the wild Dûm-tree,” - yet I have always found its fruit sweet and pleasant to the taste. - Wetzst.
165. Forms like גּלל, צלל, are unknown to the language, because it was more natural for ease of pronunciation to make the primary form סבבּ into סב than into סבב, גּללו (vid., p. 449), צללו, might more readily be referred to גּלל, צלל (in which the first a is a helping vowel, and the second a root vowel); but although the form קטל and the segolate forms completely pass into one another in inflection, still there does not exist a safe example in favour of the change of vowels of קטל into קטלי; wherefore we have also derived אגלי, Job 38:28, from אגל, not from אגל, although, moreover, ̇̇ frequently enough alternates with ̇̇ (e.g., ישׁעך), and a transition into ̇̇ of the ̇̇ weakened from ̇̇ (e.g., ידכם) also occurs. But there are no forms like נטפי = נטפי from נטף in reality, although they would be possible according to the laws of vowels. In Ges. Handwörterb. (1863) גּללו stands under גּלל (according to the form לבב, which, however, forms לבבו) and צללו under סלל ( a rare noun-form, which does not occur at all from verbs double Ayin).
166. Certainly one would have expected ירדּן like גּרזן, while ירדּן like יעבּץ, יעזר, appears formed from רדן; nevertheless ירדּן (with changeable Ssere) can be understood as a change of vowel from ירדּן (comp. ישׁב for ישׁב).
167. Vid., Grehm, Aus dem Leben des Nilpferds, Gartenlaube 1859, Nr. 48, etc.
168. Vid., Grässe, Beiträge, S. 94ff.
169. Herodotus was acquainted with this name (χάμψαι = κροκόδειλοι); thus is the crocodile called also in Palestine, where (as Tobler and Joh. Roth have shown) it occurs, especially in the river Damûr near Tantûra.
170. Les naturalistes - says Chabas in his Papyr. magique, p. 190 - comptent cinq espèces de crocodiles vivant dans le Nil, mais les hieroglyphes rapportent un plus grand nombre de noms déterminés par le signe du crocodile. Such is really the case, apart from the so-called land crocodile or σκίγκος (Arab. isqanqûr), the Coptic name of which, hankelf (according to Lauth ha. n. kelf, ruler of the bank), is not as yet indicated on the monuments. Among the many old Egyptian names for the crocodile, Kircher's charuki is, however, not found, which reminds one of the Coptic karus, as κροκόδειλος of κρόκος, for κροκόδειλος is the proper name of the Lacerta viridis (Herod. ii. 69). Lauth is inclined to regard charuki as a fiction of Kircher, as also the name of the phoenix, αλλοη (vid., p. 562). The number of names of the crocodile which remain even without charuki, leads one to infer a great variety of species, and crocodiles, which differ from all living species, have also actually been found in Egyptian tombs; vid., Schmarda, Verbreitung der Thiere, i. 89.
171. Dieterici, Reisebilder, i. 194: “We very often saw the animal lying in the sand, its jaws wide open and turned towards the warm sunbeams, while little birds, like the slender white water-wagtail, march quietly about in the deadly abyss, and pick out worms from the watery jaws.” Herodotus, ii. 68, tells exactly the same story; as the special friend of the crocodile among little birds, he mentions τὸν τροχῖλον (the sand-piper, Pluvianus Aegyptius).
172. The eyes of the crocodile alone by themselves are no hieroglyph: how could they have been represented by themselves as crocodile's eyes? But in the Ramesseum and elsewhere the crocodile appears with a head pointing upwards in company with couching lions, and the eyes of the crocodile are rendered specially prominent. Near this group it appears again in a curved position, and quite small, but this time in company with a scorpion which bears a disc of the sun. The former (κροκοδείλου δύο ὀφθαλμοί) seems to me to be a figure of the longest night, the latter (κροκόδειλος κεκυφώς in Horapollo) of the shortest, so that consequently ἀνατολή and δύσις do not refer to the rising and setting of the sun, but to the night as prevailing against or succumbing to the day (communicated by Lauth from his researches on the astronomical monuments). But since the growth of the day begins with the longest night, and vice versâ, the notions ἀνατολή and δύσις can, as it seems to me, retain their most natural signification; and the crocodile's eyes are, notwithstanding, a figure of the light shining forth from the darkness, as the crocodile's tail signifies black darkness (and Egypt as the black land).
173. Prof. Will refers the figure not to the third eyelid or the membrana nictitans, but to that spot on the choroidea, glistening with a metallic lustre, which the crocodile has in common with most animals of the night or the twilight, therefore to the brilliancy of its eye, which shines by virtue of its lustrous coating; vid., the magnificent head of a crocodile in Schlegel's Amphibien-Abbildungen (1837-44).
174. On the various kinds of Egyptian arrows, vid., Klemm. Culturgeschichte, v. 371f.
175. The Egyptio-Arabic usage has here more faithfully preserved the ancient signification of the word (vid., Fleischer, Glossae, p. 37) than the Syro-Arabic; for in Syria cut but still unthreshed corn, whether lying in swaths out in the field and weighted with stones to protect it against the whirlwinds that are frequent about noon, or corn already brought to the threshing-floors but not yet threshed, is called qashsh. - Wetzst.
176. In Arabic also this substantival form is intensive, e.g., lebbûn, an exceedingly large kind of tile, dried in the open air, of which farm-yards are built, nearly eight times larger than the common tile, which is called libne (לבנח).
177. Hence the Talmudic proverb (vid., Fürst's Perlenschnûre, S. 80): או איתותא או חברא כחברי איוב, either a friend like Job's friends or death!
178. According to b. Rosch ha-Schana, 26a, R. Akiba found the word קשׂיטה in Africa in the signification מעה (coin), as a Targ. (vid., Aruch, s.v. קשׂיטה) also translates; the Arab. קשׂת at least signifies balances and weight.
179. Job, like all the wealthier husbandmen in the present day, kept she-asses, although they are three times dearer than the male, because they are useful for their foals; it is not for the sake of their milk, for the Semites do not milk asses and horses. Moreover, the foals are also only a collateral gain, which the poor husbandman, who is only able to buy a he-ass, must forego. What renders this animal indispensable in husbandry is, that it is the common and (since camels are extremely rare among the husbandmen) almost exclusive means of transport. How would the husbandman, e.g., be able to carry his seed for sowing to a field perhaps six or eight miles distant? Not on the plough, as our farmers do, for the plough is transported on the back of the oxen in Syria. How would he be able to get the corn that was to be ground (tachne) to the mill, perhaps a day's journey distant; how carry wood and grass, how get the manure upon the field in districts that require to be manured, if he had not an ass? The camels, on the other hand, serve for harvesting (ragâd), and the transport of grain (ghalle), chopped straw (tibn), fuel (hatab), and the like, to the large inland towns, and to the seaports. Those village communities that do not possess camels for this purpose, hire them of the Arabs (nomads). - Wetzst.
180. Seetzen, Reisen durch Syrien, etc., i. 66.
181. Ed. Robinson, Palâstina, iii. 911 Germ. edit..
182. C. Ritter, Geogr. von Syr. u. Pal. ii. 842 = Erdkunde, xv. Pt. 2, p. 842].
183. Whether the word מישׁר, Deu 3:10, only signifies the plain of Hauran or its southern continuation, the eastern Belkâ, may be doubtful, because in that passage both the Amorite kingdoms are spoken of. But since it is the “cities” of the plain, of which the eastern Balkâ can have had but few or none, that are spoken of, מישׁר will surely exclude the latter.
184. On this name, which belongs to the modern geography of the country, comp. my Reisebericht über Hauran u. d. Trachonen, S. 87.
185. Catalogue of Arab. MSS collected in Damascus by J. G. Wetzstein. Berlin 1863, No. 46, p. 56.
186. The connection with Egypt, in which these legends place Job, is worthy of observation. - Del.
187. Orient. MSS in the Royal Library in Berlin, Sect. Sprenger, No. 7-10.
188. Reisebericht, S. 83-87.
189. Vid., p. 540, comp. p. 542, note 1, of the foregoing Commentary.
190. In the fair at Muzêrîb we again saw the sheikh of the Wêsîje-Beduins, whose guest we had been a week before at the Springs of Joseph in western Gôlân, where he had pitched his tent on a wild spot of ground that had been traversed by lava-streams. In answer to our question whether he still sojourned in that district, he said: “No, indeed! Nâzilin el-jôm bi-ard bethêne shêle (we are not encamped in a district that is completely bethêne).” I had not heard this expression before, and inquired what it meant. The sheikh replied, bethêne (Arab. buṯaynat) is a stoneless plain covered with rich pasture. I often sought information respecting this word, since I was interested about it on account of the Hebrew word בּשׁן, and always obtained the same definition. It is a diminutive form, without having exactly a diminutive signification, for in the language of the nomads it is an acknowledged fact that such a form takes the place of the usual form. The usual form is either bathne or bathane. The Kâmûs gives the former signification, “a level country.” That the explanation of the Kamus is too restricted, and that of the Sheikh of Wêjîje the more complete, may be shown from the Kamus itself. In one place it says, The word moreover signifies (a) the thick of the milk (cream); (b) a tender maiden; (c) repeated acts of benevolence. These three significations given are, however, manifestly only figurative applications, not indeed of the signification which the Kamus places Primo loco, but of that which the Sheikh of the Wêjîje gave; for the likening of a “voluptuously formed maiden,” or of repeated acts of benevolence, to a luxurious meadow, is just as natural to a nomad, as it was to the shepherd Amos (Amo 4:1) to liken the licentious women of Samaria to well-nourished cows of the fat pastures of Basan. Then the Kamus brings forward a collective form buthun (Arab. butun, perhaps from the sing. bathan = בּשׁן, like Arab. usud from asad) in the signification pastures (Arab. ryâd); pastures, however, that are damp and low, with a rich vegetation. That the word is ancient, may be seen from the following expression of Châlid ibn el-Welîd, the victor on the Jarmûk: “'Omar made me governor of Damascus; and when I had made it into the buthêne, i.e., a stoneless fertile plain (easy to govern and profitable), he removed me.” Jâkût also mentions this expression under Bethenîje. Châlid also uses the diminutive as the nomads do (he was of the race of Machzûm); probably the whole word belongs only to the steppe, for all the women who were called buthêne, e.g., the beloved of the poet Gemîl, and others mentioned in the “Dîwân of Love” (Dı̂wân es-sabâbe)
191. Orient. MSS in the Royal Library at Berlin; Sect. Sprenger, No. 5.
192. If writers mention Haurân alone, they mean thereby, according to the usage of the language of the Damascenes, and certainly also of the prophet Ezekiel (Eze 47:16, Eze 47:18), the plain of Haurân as far as the borders of the Belkâ, including the mountains of Haurân, the Legâ, and Gêdûr; it is only in the district itself, where special divisions are rendered necessary, that the three last mentioned parts are excluded. If writers mention Haurân and Bethenîje together, the context must determine whether the former signifies the whole, and the latter the part, as in the above quotation from Makdeshi, or whether both are to be taken as coordinate, as in a passage of Istachri (edited by Möller, Botha 1839): “And Haurân and Bethenîje are two provinces of Damascus with luxuriant corn-fields.” Here the words are related to one another as Auranitis (with the chief town Bostra) to Batanaea (with the chief town Adratum, i.e., Edre'ât), or as the Haurân of the Beduins and the Nukra of the same. The boundary between both is the Wâdi 'Irâ, which falls into the Zêdî south of Edre'ât.
193. Catalogue of Arab. MSS collected in Damascus, No. 26.
194. “Hill of the heaps of riders.” The hill is said to have been named after a great engagement which took place there in ancient days. Among the 'Aneze the gem‛, נמע, plur. gumû‛ is a division of 400-600 horsemen.
195. This appellation is erroneously given to the province of Petra (Palaestina tertia) in Burckhardt's Travels (Gesenius' edition, S. 676). Böcking also, Not. dign. or. pp. 139, 345, and 373, is guilty of this oversight. Comp. thereon, Mommsen, Verzeichniss der röm. Provinzen aufgesetzt um, 297, in the Transactions of the Berlin Acad. der Wissensch. 1862, S. 501f.
196. As is generally known, the black stone in Mekka and the Sachra in Jerusalem are more celebrated than the stone of Job; but less revered are the Mebrak en-nâka in Bosrâ, the thievish stone of Moses in the great mosque at Damascus, the doset en-nebî on the mountain of el-Hîgâne, and others.
197. The metre forms two spondeo-iambics and trochaeo-spondaics.
198. Comp. p. 576 of the foregoing Commentary.
199. On the word and subject, vid., p. 573 of the foregoing Commentary.
200. Vid., Gibbon, ed. Smith, ii. 333. - Tr.
201. Calendarium Syriacum Cazwinii, ed. Guil. Volck, Lips. 1859, p. 15.
202. Comp. A. v. Kremer, Mittelsyrien, etc., Vienna 1853, S. 10.
203. Jâkût says under Gêdûr, “It is a Damascene district, it has villages, and lies in the north of Haurân; according to others, it is reckoned together with Haurân as one district.” The last words do not signify that Gêdûr and Haurân are words to be used without any distinction; on the contrary, that Gêdûr is a district belonging to Haurân, and comprehended in it.
204. The name of this monastery, which is about a mile and a half north-east of the Dêr Ejûb, is erroneously called D. el-lebû in Burckhardt's Travels in Syria (ed. Gesenius, S. 449). The same may be said of D. en-nubuwwe in Annales Hamzae, ed. Gottwaldt, p. 118.
205. C. Ritter, Geogr. v. Syr. u. Pal. ii. 821 [Erdk. xv. Pt. 2, p. 821].
206. That the Sheikh Ahmed was permitted to take up his abode in the Monastery, was owing to a religious dread of his ancestor (gidd), ‘Abdel-Kâdir el-Gîlâni, and out of courteousness towards his partner.
207. In the present day the household is called ‛ashı̂ra, and all families of important in Haurân are and call themselves ‛ashâir (Arab. ‛šâ'r); but the ancient word batn does also occur, and among the Semitic tribes that have migrated to Mauritania it is still in use instead of the Syrian ‛ashı̂ra. Batn, collect. butûn, is the fellowship of all those who are traced back to the בּטן of one ancestral mother. Thus even in Damascus they say: nahn ferd batn, we belong to one family; in like manner in the whole of Syria: this foal is the batn of that mare, i.e., its young one; or: I sold my mare without batn, or with one, two, three-fourths of her batn, i.e., without her descendants, or so that the buyer has only 6 or 12 or 18 kı̂rât right of possession in the foals she will bear. In all these applications, batn is the progenies uteri, not the uterus itself; and, according to this, בני בטני, Job 19:17, ought to be explained by “all my relations by blood.”
208. These sudden attacks, at any rate, do not say anything in favour of the more southernly position of Ausitis. If the Beduin is but once on his horse or delûl, it is all the same to him whether a journey is ten days longer or shorter, if he can only find water for himself and his beast. This, however, both bands of marauders found, since the poet distinctly represents the attacks as having been made in the winter. The general ploughing of the fallow-lying wâgiha of a community (it is called shiqâq el-wâgiha), ready for the sowing in the following autumn, always takes place during January and February, because at this time of the year the earth is softened by the winter rains, and easy to plough. While engaged in this work, the poet represents Job's ploughmen as being surprised and slain. Hence, for the destruction of 500 armed ploughmen - and they were armed, because they could only have been slain with their weapons in their hands in consequence of their resistance - at least 2000 horsemen were necessary. So large a ghazwe is, however, not possible in the summer, but only in the winter, because they could not water at a draw-well, only at the pools (ghudrân) formed by the winter rains. For one of these raids of the Chaldaeans, Haurân, whither marauding bands come even now during the winter from the neighbourhood of Babylon in six or seven days, lay far more convenient than the country around Ma'ân and ‘Akaba, which is only reached from the Euphrates, even in winter, by going a long way round, since the Nufûd (sandy plains) in the east, and their western continuation the Hâlât, suck in the rain without forming any pools. On the other hand, however, this southern region lay nearer and more convenient for the incursions of the Sabaeans, viz., the Keturaean (Gen 25:3), i.e., Petraean tribe of this name. The greater or less distance, however, is of little consequence here. Thus, as the Shemmar of Negd from time to time make raids into the neighbourhood of Damascus, so even the tribes of Wâdi el-Korâ might also do the same. Moreover, as we observed above, the poet represents the sudden attacks as perpetrated by the Sabaeans and Chaldaeans, probably because they only, as being foreign and distant races which never had anything to do with Job and his men, and therefore were without any consideration, could practise such unwonted barbarities as the robbery of ploughing heifers, which a ghazwe rarely takes, and the murder of the ploughmen.
209. Verbally, Job 3:14, which we, however, have interpreted differently, accords with this. - Del.
210. Reisebericht, S. 46; comp. Ritter, Syr. u. Pal. ii. 1019 [Erdk. xv. Pt. 2, p. 1019].
211. Here in the more contracted sense, the district of Gadara, Kefârât, and Irbid.
212. Burckhardt, Travels in Syr. and Pal. (ed. Gesenius, S. 392).
213. The word el-mı̂dân and el-mêdân signifies originally the hippodrome, then the arena of the sham-fight, then the place of contest, the battle-field, and finally a wide level place where a large concourse of men are accustomed to meet. In this sense the Damascenes have their el-mı̂dân, the Spanish cities their almeidân, and the Italians their corso.
214. Estôri ha-Parchi, the most renowned Jewish topographer of Palestine, in his work Caftor wa-ferach, completed in 1322 (newly edited by Edelmann, published by Asher, Berlin, 1852, S. 49), says דאר איוב lies one hour south of נבו, since he identifies Nawâ with the Reubenitish Nebô, Num 32:38, as Zora with יעזר, Num 32:35; so that he explains ארץ עוץ by ארץ יעזר, although he at the same time considers the name, according to Saadia, as one with אלגוטה (el Ghuta). His statements moreover are exact, as one might expect from a man who had travelled for seven years in all directions in Palestine; and his conclusion, ארץ עוץ היא ארץ קדם לארץ ישׂראל כנגד טבריא, perfectly accords with the above treatise. - Del.
215. In Jemen the Higâz, Syria may have been called Shâm in the earliest times. The name was taken into Syria itself by the immigration of the Jemanic tribes of Kudâ'a, and others, because they brought with them the name of Syria that was commonly used in their native land.
216. The remarkable fair at Muzêrîb can be traced back to the earliest antiquity, although Bosrâ at times injured it; but this latter city, from its more exposed position, has been frequently laid in ruins. It is probable that the merchants of Damascus pitched their tents for their Kasaba, i.e., their moveable fair, twice a year (in spring and in autumn) by the picturesque lake of Muzêrîb. If, with the tradition, we take the Nukra to be the home of Job, of the different ways of interpreting Job 6:19 there is nothing to hinder our deciding upon that which considers it as the greater caravan which acme periodically out of southern Arabia to Hauran (Bosrâ or Muzêrib). Têmâ with its well, Heddâg (comp. Isa 21:14), celebrated by the poets of the steppe, from which ninety camels (sâniât) by turns raise a constantly flowing stream of clear and cool water for irrigating the palms and the seed, was in ancient times, perhaps, the crossing point of the merchant caravans going from south to north, and from east to west. Even under the Omajad Cahlifs the Mekka pilgrim-route went exclusively by way of Têmâ, just as during the Crusades so long as the Franks kept possession of Kerak and Shôbak. An attempt made in my Reisebericht (S. 93-95) to substitute the Hauranitish Têmâ in the two previously mentioned passages of Scripture, I have there (S. 131) given up as being scarcely probable.
217. C. Ritter, Geogr. v. Syr. u. Pal. ii. 819ff. [Erdk. xv. 2, p. 819ff.] The information of Newbold, which is printed in the Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. Morgenl. Gesellschaft, i. 215f., is unfortunately little to be relied on, and is to be corrected according to the topography of the mound given above.
218. A small, desolated stone village, situated a quarter of an hour's journey from the mound of ‘Ashtarâ, which however has not a single house of any importance, has two names among the inhabitants of that region, either Chirbêt 'Ijûn en-Nîle (the ruins near the Nila-springs) or Chirbêt 'Ashtarâ, which can signify the ruins of ‘Ashtarâ and the ruins near ‘Ashtarâ. Since it is, however, quite insignificant, it will not be the village that has given the name to the mound, but the mound with its buildings, which in ancient days were perhaps a temple to Astarte, surrounded by a wall, has given the name to the village.
219. The meaning of “castle,” as defined by Burckhardt, Travels in Syr. etc. p. 657, should be borne in mind here. “The name of Kal'at or castle is given on the Hadj route, and over the greater part of the desert, to any building walled in and covered, and having, like a Khan, a large courtyard in its enclosure. The walls are sometimes of stone, but more commonly of earth, though even the latter are sufficient to withstand an attack of Arabs.” - Tr.
220. Some, in connection with this word, have erroneously thought of the city of Edre'ât, which Eusebius calls Ἀδρά in the immediately preceding article Ἀδραά, and in the art. Edraei'.
221. Wetzstein, Catal. Arab. MSS collected in Damascus, No. 1, p. 89.
222. Wetzst. Catal. Arab. MSS collected in Damascus, No. 24, p. 16.
223. Hamzae Isfahan. Annales, ed. Gottwald, Vorrede, p. xi.
224. If Nawâ is not also of Jewish origin, its name is nevertheless the old Semitic נוה, “a dwelling” (Job 5:3, Job 5:24; Job 8:6; Job 18:15), and not, as Jâkût supposes, the collective form of nawât, “the kernel of a date.”
225. No less than three renowned teachers from Nawâ appear in the Talmud and Midrash: ר שׁילא דנוה, Schila of Nawa (jer. Sabbath cap. ii., Wajikra rabba cap. xxxiv., Midrasch Ruth on ii. 19a), ר פלטיא דנוה (Midr. Koheleth on i. 4b) and ר שׁאול דנוה (ib. on xii. 9a). נוה is mentioned as an enemy of the neighbouring town of חלמיש in Wajikra rabba c. xxiii., Midr. Echa on i. 17a, and Midr. Schir on ii. 1. - Del.
226. On the name 'Us, as the name of men and people, may be compared the proper names 'As and ‘Aus, together with the diminutive ‘Owês, taken from the genealogies of the Arabs, since the Old Testament is wanting in words formed from the root עוץ, and none of those so named was a Hebrew. In Hebr. they might be sounded עוץ, and signify the “strong one,” for the verbal stems Arab. ‛ṣṣ, ‛wṣ, ‛ṣy (comp. Arab. ‛ṣb, ‛ṣr, ‛ṣm, and others) have the signif. “to be compressed, firm, to resist.”
227. On this word-formation comp. Reisebericht, S. 76.
228. Comp. Jos. Ant. xv. 10, 3; Zeitschr. für allg. Erdkunde, New Series, xiii. 213.
229. Eusebius in his Onomast. also correctly identifies the two words, at one time under Ἰτουραία, and the other time under Τραχωνῖτις. After what we have said elsewhere (Reisebericht, S. 91ff.) on the subject, surely no one will again maintain that the peaceful villages of the plain of Gêdûr were the abodes of the Ituraeans, the wildest of all people (Cic. Phil. ii. 11; Strabo, xvi. 2). Their principal hiding-places will have been the Trachonitis in the more restricted sense, but one may seek them also on the wooded mountains of Gôlân and in the gorges of the Makran. That Ptolemy and Josephus speak only of the Trachonites and never of the Ituraeans (in the passage Ant. xiii. 11, 3, Ἰδουμαία is to be read instead of Ἰτουραία), and Strabo, on the other hand, speaks only of the latter, favours the identity of the two; of like import is the circumstance, that Pliny (H. N. v. 23) makes the inhabitants of the region of Baetarra (Bêtirrâ) Ituraeans, and Josephus (Ant. xvii. 2) Trachonites. But in spite of the identity of the words Trachonitis and Ituraea, one must not at the same time overlook the following distinction. If the Trachonites are called after the country, it must be the description of all the inhabitants of the country, whereas the Ituraeans, if they gave the name to the country, are not necessarily its exclusive population. The whole of the district of which we speak has a twofold population in keeping with its double character (rugged rock and fruitful plain), viz., cattle-rearing freebooters in the clefts of the rocks, and peaceful husbandmen in the plain; the former dwelling in hair tents (of old also in caves), the latter in stone houses; the former forming the large majority, the latter the minority of the population of the district. If writers speak of the Ituraeans, they mean exclusively that marauding race that hates husbandry; but if they speak of the Trachonites, the connection must determine, whether they speak of both classes of the population, or only of the marauding Trachonites (the Ituraeans), or of the husbandmen of the plain (of the provinces of Batanaea and Auranitis). The latter are rarely intended, since the peaceful peasant rarely furnishes material for the historian.
230. From this custom, which is called the grandfather's “living again,” the habit, singular to us, of a father calling his son jâ abı̂, “my father!” or jâ bêjı̂, “my little father,” as an endearing form of address, is explained.
231. It need hardly be mentioned that one is not to think of the Hauranitish Bosrâ (Arab. bṣrâ), since this name of a city only came into use some centuries after Christ.
232. It is indeed possible that the Hebrew text is meant here, for Philo usually calls the Hebrew Χαλδαΐστί, and the Talmud describes the Jewish country-dialect as סורסי; it is possible, and even more probable, that it is a Syrian, i.e., Aramaean Targum - but not less possible that it is a Syrian original document. According to Malalas (ed. Dindorf, p. 12), Origen understands ἐκ τῆς Συριακῆς βίβλου elsewhere of a Hebrew original, but in c. Celsum iii. 6 he describes the Hebrew language in relation to the Syriac and Phoenician as ἑτέρα παρ ̓ ἀμθοτέρας, and the Homilies on Job in Opp. Origenis, ed. Delaure, ii. 851, say: Beati Iob scriptura primum quidem in Arabia Syriace scripta, ubi et habitabat. - Del.
233. We will spare ourselves the ungrateful task of an inquiry into the origin of this ‘Ais and his Protean nature. Biblical passages like Lam 4:21, or those in which the readings ארם and אדום are doubtful, or the erroneous supposition (Jos. Ant. viii. 7) that the Ben-Hadad dynasty in Damascus is of Edomitish origin, may have contributed to his rise. Moreover, he is altogether one and the same with the Edom of the Jerish tradition: he is called the father of Rûm, Asfar, Sôfar, Sîfûn (מלך חצפון), and Nidr (Hamz. Isfah. Ann. p. 79, l. 18, read Arab. ndr for ntsr, and Zeitschr. d. d. m. Gesellsch. ii. 239, 3, 6, read ennidr for ennefer), i.e., of the Messiah of the Christians (according to Isa 11:1)
234. Comp. p. 576, note, of the foregoing Commentary. The Arabic version of Walton's Polyglot translates after the Peschito in accordance with the Hebr. text: “on the ashes (er-remâd),” whereas the Arabic translation, of which Tischendorf brought back fifteen leaves with him from the East, and which Fleischer, in the Deutsch. Morgenl. Zeitschr. 1864, S. 288ff., has first described as an important memorial in reference to the history of MSS, translates after the Hexapla in accordance with the lxx: “on the dunghill (mezbele) outside the city.”-Del.
235. Translated by W. L. Gage, and published by T. and T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1866, 4 vols.