The a law as necessary, too, as that which com- are unsearchable.-[" El.'s object is now to pels the sparks to fly upward. According to present God under such aspects as to win Job, this view of the connection the in ver. 7 is and his description of Him is Infinite power diargumentative as well as that in ver. 6. rected by Infinite goodness." DAV.] ! source of misery is not without, for MAN him- in which there is no searching, i. e., which are self is the source of it. As regards the tense of it follows that if Imperf. (Niph., or more not to be searched out; comp. 1, ver. 4. probably Hoph.) the two propositions are co-ordinated in time; evil is not wont to spring from the earth, for man is wont to be born to trouble. If Perf. (Pual), which seems preferable, the internal necessity of suffering in man himself is conceived as logically antecedent to the relation of man to the external world. His afflictions came not from without, for he was born under a law which subjects him to it. Elzas renders ver. 7 a: "For then man would be born to trouble." But this is to miss the point of ver. 6, which is to deny not the natural and necessary character of suffering (for that is implied in ver. 7), but the internality and materiality of its cause.-E.] Ver. 4. Who giveth rain on the face of the land [and sendeth water on the face of the fields].-, lit.; all that is without, the open air [colloquial English: "out of doors"], in contrast with that which is covered, enclosed. Hence it means either a street, court, market-place, when the stand-point of the speaker is within a house, or the open country, field, plain, when the stand-point is within a city or a camp. The latter is the case here, as also in ch. xviii. 17. [According to Ges. (Lex. 1, b) the contrast between and is that of "tilled land" and "the deserts." To this Conant makes two valid objections: (1) There is nothing to indicate such a limitation of (tilled land); (2) the distinctive meaning of Hence it is best to take generally, of the earth at large, in a more limited sense, 66 the fields."] The agency of ”.is obscured חוצות 4. Third Division. Exhortation to repentance, as the only means whereby Job could be restored to the Divine favor, and to the enjoyment of his former prosperity, ch. v. 8-27. a. Fourth Double Strophe. Job should trust-rain-showers and of spring water (D, comp. fully turn to God, the helper in every time of Ps. civ. 10) in making the earth fruitful is an need, and the righteous Judge, vers. 8-16. image of frequent occurrence with Oriental writers in general, and with the writers of Scripture in particular, to illustrate the wonderful exercise of God's power and grace in helping, delivering, and restoring life; comp. Ps. lxv. 10 seq.; cxlvii. 9 seq.; Jer. xiv. 22, as also the more comprehensive description in Jehovah's discourse, ch. xxxviii. 25. [He who makes the barren places fruitful can also change suffering into joy." DEL.] First Strophe. [Job encouraged to turn trustfully to God by a description of the beneficent operations of God in nature and among men], vers. 8-11. Ver. 8. Nevertheless I—I would turn to God. Now comes a new turn in this maguificent discourse of Eliphaz-the hortatory part. .... El. for the first time fully conceives as a whole Job's attitude. Job's complaints and murmurs against God terrify and distress him, and with the recoil and emotion of horror he cries: But I would have recourse unto God!... The antithetic transition here is as strong as possible, being made by three elements, the particle of opposition (D, ch. i. 11; ii. 5), the addition by the pronoun I, and these two intensified and made to stand out with solemn emphasis in utterance, by being loaded with distinctive accents." DAV.] For the conditional sense of , comp. Ges. 127 [Conant's Ed., ? 125], 5 [Green, Gr. 8 263, 1]. ,הַשָׂם tion for T Ver. 11. To set the low in a high place, and the mourning raise up to prosperity.This being the moral purpose of those mighty beneficent activities of God; comp. Ps. lxxiv. 15; Luke i. 52, etc. is not simply a variaas the LXX., Vulg, and several modern commentators, e. g., Heiligstedt, Del. [Con.], explain; at the same time it does not need to be resolved (as by Ewald and Hahn) into: 66 'inasmuch as he sets;" it is simply declarative of purpose, like the examples of the telic infinitive several times occurring in the Hebraistic Greek of Zacharias's song of praise, Luke i. 72, 73, 77, 79 (Tov dovvat, Tov katεvývval, etc.) ["The issue of all the Divine proceeding in nature, unsearchable, uncountable though ble and save the wretched." DAV.] In the seits wonders were, was ever to elevate the hum with, sedulo adire aliquem, to turn to any one with entreaty, supplicating help; comp. Deut. xii. 5; also ch. viii. 5 of our book. To the Most High would I commit my cause.-As in the preceding part of the verse God is called (the strong, the mighty one), as here He is called cond member this infinitive construction with o, for the first time by Eliphaz. In regard is continued by the Perf. precisely as in ch. to the significance of this change, comp. Del. :xxviii. 25 (Dillmann ["Because the purpose is is God as the mighty one; D is God in the totality of His variously manifested nature." 77, causa, plea, as elsewhere (comp. on 346 b.) "To set in a high place," to exalt to ch. iii. 4). a high position, as in 1 Sam. ii. 8; Luke i. 52. Vers. 9-11. A description of the wondrous, lit. : "dirty," squalidi, sordidi, i. e., greatness of God, as a ground of encouragement mouruers; comp. ch. xxx. 28; Ps. xxxv. 14 for the exhortation contained in ver. 8. y, lit., to mount, 66 T: TT not merely one that is to be realized, but one that has often been realized already, the Inf. is continued in the Perf." DILLM.], comp. Ewald, Ver. 9. Who doeth great things which [18]; xxxviii. 7 [6]. IT or climb up to prosperity, a bold poetic construction of a verb in itself intransitive with an accusative of motion. Second Strophe. Vers. 12-16. Continuation of the description of the exalted activity of God as a helper of the needy, and a righteous avenger. Ver. 12. Who brings to nought the devices of the crafty. (Partic. without the art., as in ver. 9), lit., who breaks to pieces, D'py, as in ch. xv. 5, "the crafty, cunning, twisted" (from Dy, "to twist, to wind"). So that their hands cannot do the thing to be accomplished.-, "so that not' (comp. Ewald, & 345, a.). [n, with vowel written defectively in the tone-syilable. Comp. Ewald, 198, a; and Ges., 74, Kal., Rem. 6]. , lit., essentiality, subsistence, firmness (from ), hence the opposite of , well-being and wisdom in one: a favorite notion of the authors of the Old Testament Chokmah-Literature; comp. my Com. on Proverbs, Introd., p. 5, also on ch. ii. 7 (p. 54). As may be seen from the translation of the Sept., which is essentially correct, où un оthoovoi anvis, the passage may be translated: so that their hands shall bring about nothing real, nothing solid" (comp. Hahn, Delitzsch, Dillmann [Carey, Merx]). ness, judicially inflicted by God, of an obscuration of the soul in ungodly men may be seen in ch. xii. 24 seq.; Is. xix. 13 seq.; lix. 10; Deut. xxviii. 29 (comp. the typical fundamental passage in Gen. xix. 11; also 2 Kings vi. 18; Wisd. xix. 16). Ver. 15. And so He saveth the needy from the sword out of their mouth, and from the hand of the strong.-yu, Imperf. consec., as in ch. iii. 21. ["Vav consec. introducing the ultimate residuum of all this commotion and confusion, the result of the whole combined Divine efficiency, when the Divine tendency... has reached its object; so He saves." DAV.] D (instead of which some MSS. read: 7, "from the sword of their mouth ") is equivalent to: "from the sword which goes forth out of their mouth;" comp. Ps. lvii. 5 (4); lix. 8 (7); lxiv. 4 (3); and other passages in which swords, or spears, or arrows of the mouth appear as a figurative expression for maliciously wicked slanders or injurious assaults on the good name of others [and comp. ver. 21 below, showing that Eliphaz regards this as one of the evils most to be dreaded. The explanation here given is adopted by Umbreit, Delitzsch, Hengstenberg. Merx, Renan, Bernard, Barnes, Wordsworth, Noyes, Rodwell, although there is some variation in regard to the relation of the two expressions; some the sword, even from their mouth," others, like taking the second in apposition to the first, "from Zöckler, regarding the second as qualifying the first: the sword which goeth out of their mouth." Others view the second as explanatory of the first, which is taken as the leading term: "from the sword, which is their mouth, . . which is their organ of devouring, is to them what his mouth is to a wild beast," Davidson, and so substantially Schlottmann and Lee. Others, e. g., Hirzel, take "sword," "mouth," hand," as three independent terms, designating the instrution to the violation of the ninth commandment ments and organs of the wicked.-E] In addireferred to in the first member, the second mem Ver. 13. Who captures the wise in their craftiness. ` denotes here those who are wise in a purely worldly sense, who are wise only in their own and in others' estimation, who are therefore gogoì tov aiāvos Tovrov, 1 Cor. i. 20; comp. ch. iii. 19, where the idea conveyed by the expression cogía TOν KÓØμOV TOνTov is explained by a special reference to the passage under consideration. The translation of the passage there presented is more correct than that of the LXX., especially in the rendering of Dy by v Tavovрyía avτāv. For (comp. Ex. xxi. 24; Prov. i. 4; viii. 5), or even the masculine form Dy, which is found indeed only in the passage before us, unmistakably signifies "cunning, shrewdness," in the bad sense, not simply "sa-ber of the verse mentions acts of violent oppresgacity" (opóvnois, LXX.) ["He captures them in their craftiness' means according to most: He brings it to pass, that the plans, which they have devised for the ruin of others, result in ruin to themselves.' So Grotius: suis eos retibus capit, suis jugulat gladiis. According to this view is of the instrument. Better, however, is: in their craft, or in the exercise of their craftiness. He captures the wise not when their wisdom has forsaken them, and they make a false step, but at the very point where they make the highest use of it." HENGST.]-And the counsel of the cunning is overset; lit., is precipitated, pushed over (1, 3 Perf. Niph.), and so made void, to wit, by God's judicial in tervention. Ver. 14. By day they run against darkness, and as in the night they grope at noonday., they strike upon, stumble on, run into, i. e., they encounter dark ness]. “as in the night, i. e., as though it were night. Similar descriptions of a blind The TT: T sion, or assaults on the liberty and life of men, Ver. 16. Thus there is hope (again) to the poor [ from 7, to hang down, and so to be thee; i. e., of course provided thou wilt really be made better by thy chastisement. The further promises of Divine help, ver. 20 seq., are also subject to the same condition. To the number six seven is added in order to remove the definiteness of the former, and to make prominent only the general idea of multiplicity. Similar enumerative forms of expression are to be found in Amos i and ii.; also in Prov. vi. 16; xxx. 15, 18, 21; comp. also Mic. v. 5; Eccles. lax, languid, feeble, according to Gesenius: to wave, to totter, and so to be tottering loose, wretched, according to Fürst], but iniquity shuts her mouth.-For the absolute construction of "hope," to wit, to hope for deliverance and exaltation through God's assisting power and grace, comp. ch. xiv. 7: xix. 10. În regard to the etymology of p, the standard word for hope in the Old Testament, comp. my Dissert. De vi ac notione voc. ¿λrís in N. To. (1856), p. 5 seq., the full-toned form, with double fem. ending, for hy, which also stands death.-17, lit., "he has redeemed thee." for hy (Ps. xcii. 16). Comp. Ewald, 178 g. is immediately followed by verbs in the imperf., Perf. of certainty (Gesen., 126 [124], 4), which [also 186, c., Ges., 79, f., Green, ₹ 61, 6, a.] as in ch. xi. 20; xvii. 6, etc. In the second For the phrase 12, to be dumb, i. e., to be member, "out of the hands of the sword" ("T? ashamed, to own oneself vanquished, comp. then) is equivalent to "out of the power of the repetition of the present passage in Ps. cvii. 42; sword," or "from its stroke" (Delitzsch). Com T: xi. 2. Ver. 20. In famine He redeems thee from also Is. lii. 15, and Job xxi. 5. [SCHLOTTMANN: "The beginning of this stro-pare Is. xlvii. 14; Jer. xviii. 21; Ps. lxiii. 11. phe: But I would turn to God,' is again in ap- Poetry personifies everything, invests everything ["The word 'hands' should not be left out. pearance courteous, friendly, mild. But even with form and life here we see lurking in the background that self-buted to the sword, so elsewhere are a mouth, As here hands' are attrisufficient hardness of Eliphaz which has already Ex. xvii. 3, a face, Lev. xxvi. 37. been noticed. Baldly and sharply expressed the the Old Testament assigned to the grave, to lions, relation of this strophe to the one which pre- bears, to the dog, the snare, the flame." HENGSTENBERG]. cedes and the one which follows is this: Third Strophe-Thy way is wrong; Fourth StropheMy way is right; Fifth Strophe-It will be well for thee if thou followest me."] b. Fifth Double Strophe. Job will have occasion to regard his present suffering as a blessing, if, being accepted as wholesome chastisement, it should result in his repentance, and thus in the restoration even of his external prosperity, vers. 17-27. First Strophe. Vers. 17-21. [The happy results of submission to the Divine chastisement, principally on the negative side, as restoration and immunity from evil]. Hands are in thou art hidden; i. e., when thou art slan- Ver. 17. Lo, happy the man whom God correcteth. The same thought expressed, and derived perhaps from this passage, in Prov. iii. 11 seq. (Heb. xii. 5 seq.), and Ps. xciv. 12. Comp. Elihu's further expansion of the same thought of the wholesomeness of the Divine chastisements in ch. xxxiii. and seq. in, to reprove, admonish, to wit, through the discipline of actual events, through suffering and providential dispensations: comp. ch. xiii. 10Therefore despise not the chastening of the Almighty, of which one may be guilty by, which in the following verse is written perverse moroseness and rebelliousness, by refusing to accept the needed and salutary teach, a form etymologically more correct, from ing of the Divine dispensation, and in general, signifies any catastrophe, or devastation, by a want of submission to God's will. by poetic abbreviation for, Gen. xvii. 1. Comp. the remarks of the editor on the passage. Ver. 18. For He woundeth and also bindeth up, etc.-Comp. the similar passages in Hos. vi. 1; Deut. xxxii. 39; Lam. iii. 31 seq. - he, i. e., one and the same. The form is made as though it were derived from a verb, D; comp. Ges., 75 [74], Rem. 21 c. [Green, 2 165, 3]. Ver. 19. In six troubles He will deliver thee, and in seven no evil shall befall The whether by flood, or hail, or storm, etc. Ver. 22. At destruction and at famine thou shalt laugh.-["The promises of El. now continue to rise higher, and sound more delightful and more glorious." DEL.] A continuation of the description of the new state of happiness to which the sufferer will be promoted on condition of a contrite submission to the Divine chastisement. p with, to laugh, or mock at anything, as in ch. xxxix. 7, 18; xli. 21.-, Aram. equivalent to 2, famine, dearth; comp. ch. xxx. 3.—And thou shalt TT: ! emphatic by position (comp. Mic. v. 4, pasture of the flocks]. not be afraid before the wild beasts of the land. ["Thou needest not be afraid," , different from No (ver. 21), the latter is objective, merely stating a fact, the former subjective, throwing always over the clause the state of mind of the speaker as an explanation of it-expressing both the statement and the mental state of feeling or thought out of which the statement issued. As Ew. (Lehrb. 320, 1, a.) accurately puts it,, like, denies only according to the feeling or thought of the speaker, thou shalt have no reason to, needest not (Con.) and thou shalt visit thy habitation, and shalt fear." DAV.] Wild beasts were in ancient times not sin." Hengstenberg, adopting this renderthe object of far graver terror in the east, and a ing, xplains: in looking over thy possessions scourge of far more frequent occurrence than thou shalt find thou art not treated by God as a to-day. Comp. Gen. xxxvii. 20, 33; xliv. 28;siuner, but as a friend, being richly blessed by Lev. xxvi. 6; Prov. xxii. 13; xxvi. 13, etc.; also Ezekiel's well-known combination of the four judgments: the sword, famine, wild beasts, and the pestilence (Ezek. v. 17; xiv. 21). Him; an explanation which involves a needless constraint of the expression.-E] The thought is rather the same with that expressed in Schil ler's fine lines: Er zählt die Häupter seiner Lieben, Und sieh, ihm fehlt kein theures Haupt.* Ver. 25. [In negative sentences, where the object of the verb is wanting, may be rendered "nothing." See Ewald, 303, c.] And thine offspring as the green herb of the earth -D'NYNY, used here of the issue of the body, as in ch. xxi. 8; xxvii. 14. Comp. the like promise in Ps. lxxii. 16 b. [The word found only in Isaiah and Job]. Ver. 26. Thou shalt go into the grave in Ver. 23. For with the stones of the field thou hast a league, and the wild beasts of the field are become friends to thee.The first half of the verse is a reason for the first member of ver. 22; the second half in like manner a reason for the second member. "Thou hast a league with the stones of the field" (lit., "thy league is with the stones," etc.; equivalent to), i. e., storms cannot injure thy tillage of the soil, they shall be far removed from thy fields (comp. Is. v. 2; 2 Kings iii. 19, 25). [The stones are personified; they conclude a treaty with the reformed Job, and promise not to injure him, not to be found stray-a ripe old age. -, etymologically related to ing over his tilled land." HENGST.] As regards, "to be full, to be completed" (to which it the contents of the entire strophe, compare the stands related as a variation, with a somewhat similar ideal descriptions of the paradisaical harmony that is one day to exist between men and harsher pronunciation, just as Пp, in ch. xxxix. the animate and inanimate creation, Hos. ii. 20 16, stands related to P), signifies, according [18], 23 [21] seq.; 1s. xi. 6 seq. [The view, to the parallel expression in in the second entertained among others by Barnes, that the member, the full ripeness of the life-period, the verse describes security in travelling ("it is to complete maturity of age. It is used somewhat be remembered that this was spoken in Arabia where rocks and stones abounded, and where differently in ch. xxx 2, where it denotes the full maturity of strength, complete unbroken travelling from that cause was difficult and dangerous"), is at variance with the picture here 138, n.) quite inappropriately assigns to it here vigor a sense which Fleischer in Delitzsch (II. given, which is that of security and happiness also. [So Fürst. Merx gives the same sense to in a settled, stationary condition; the picture of a prosperous proprietor of fields, pastures, flocks, the passage, but reads .-E.]-As sheaves not of a travelling Bedouin chief -E.] are gathered in their season. nibya, as the heap of sheaves mounts up, is gathered up," to wit, into the threshing-floor, which was an elevated place; comp. 2 Sam. xxiv. 16; Ps. i. 4, etc. The rendering of Um Ver. 24. And thou knowest (findest out by experience) that thy tent is peace.— , Perf. consec. with the tone on the last syllable, connected with ver. 22. "Thy tent is peace," i. e., the state of all thy possessions and household (comp. ch. viii. 22;, xi. 14; xii. 6, and often) is one of peace.-D is predicate, lit., The heads he numbers of his darlings, breit and Hahn: "as the sheaves are heaped Ver. 27. Lo, this we have searched out; so it is: hear it, and mark it well for thyself! A closing verse of warning, which, because it refers back to all that has been said by Eliphaz, stands outside of the last strophe. Comp. the similar short epiphonemas, or epimythions in ch. xviii. 21; xx. 29; xxvi. 14; also the short injunctions of the New Testament, enjoining men to mark and ponder that which is said, such as Matt. xi 15; xiii. 9; Rev. ii. 7; xiii. 18; xxii. 2, etc. The Plur., because Eliphaz speaks not in his own name alone, but also in that of his two friends, younger indeed than himself, but of whom he knows that their experience has been the same with his own. DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. root and growing, the soaring sparks, the "inward cord" (ch. v. 21), the sword of the mouth, and the scourge of the tongue, etc. In general it may be said that all that profound, physiological, or rather physico-theological Wisdom which forms the background of the discourse, and which accounts for the brilliant tints and fragrant aroma which are spread over the whole of it, evince the writer's purpose to represent the speaker as intellectually akin to Solomon, the student of nature among the sages (1 Kings iv. 29 seq.; v. 12), and as possessing a knowledge of God which if not accurate, such as belonged to the theocracy, was nevertheless truly monotheistic, such as belonged to the pious of the patriarchal world. 2. As regards the theological contents of this first discourse of Eliphaz, there is really scarcely anything to be pointed out in it which contravah, and the purity of the moral principles dicts the true Old Testament religion of Jehowhich rest on it.* A confessor of Eloah, of Shaddai, he speaks altogether like a member of the theocracy, like a pious man belonging to Jehovah's commonwealth. "He is apparently right in everything; and it is certainly with full, conscious purpose that the poet introduces him into The writer is certainly far from being disposed the discussion with precisely such a discourse to put forth Eliphaz in the preceding discourse as the present; for only thus could a real enas an advocate of views which are decidedly un-tanglement arise with Job, and only thus could true, and opposed to God, or as a propounder the attention of readers be secured for Job's opof diabolical wisdom (copia vxiki damovibong, ponents" (DILLM.) What Eliphaz holds up beJas. iii. 15; comp. 1 Tim. iv. 1). If it had been fore Job, who, although indeed he does not blashis purpose to represent him as one who made pheme, does nevertheless utter imprecations, common cause with Satan, as an advocatus dia- and, in a state of extreme dejection, curses himboli, or the Evil One's armor-bearer, he would self, consists almost without exception of beaucertainly have made some such sentiment as that tiful and profound religious and ethical truths, of ch. ii. 9" renounce God and die”—the fun- to which Job can successfully oppose only one damental theme of his remarks. But this tone thing-that they do not touch him, who is just of remark is limited to Job's wife (and the fact as firmly convinced of their correctness as his is strongly indicative of the attitude of an unreopponents, that they cannot apply to his pecugenerate woman, who simply follows the impres- liar condition. So e. g. the position that God's sions of her own nature), who had lost alike her sentence of destruction falls not on the innocent patience and resignation to the will of God. but only on the wicked: a general fundamental The poet does not introduce any one of Job's truth of religion, which is not only most strifriends as sympathizing with it-least of all Eli-kingly confirmed by the issue of Job's own hisphaz, whose superiority to the experimental tory, but is also often enough emphasized by stand-point of the other two friends, and to the him in his subsequent discourses, and is exentire circle of their ethical and intellectual in-pressed in a manner altogether similar to what sight, is so definitely and significantly apparent. Even in respect of its formal aesthetic structure he has impressed on the discourse the characteristics which mark it as the product of a genuine devout oriental sage, a Chakam of the same category with Solomon, Heman, Ethan, Chalcol, Darda, etc. This is shown by the numerous correspondences of expression between this discourse and the noblest products of the Old Testament Chokman-literature as elsewhere to be met with correspondences which part in the subject-matter, such as the emphasis laid on the fear of God and God's remedial discipline (ch. iv. 6; v. 8; v. 17) as fundamental conditions of true prosperity, the use of the term fools" (ch. v. 2 seq.) in characterizing the wicked: in part in the language, as in the use of such expressions as (ch. iv. 21), (ch. v. 12), or of such poetic forms as the numeral expressions in ch. v. 19, or of such figures and similes as sowing and reaping, taking appear in we find in so many of the holy songs of the Psalter, beginning with the first Psalm, the Motto " of the entire collection. The same is no less true of the proposition concerning the universal sinfulness of all men, and indeed concerning the impurity even of the angels, when compared with the absolute holiness of God; a proposition which, presupposing, as it certainly does, the influences of a revolution from above (comp. ch. iv. 12 seq.), was the common property of all the pious and the wise of the Old Testament, and is one of the most conspicuous marks distinguishing the religious and moral knowledge, thought, and activity of those men from what is found in the heathen world. * Comp. CoCCEIUS: "The first discourse of Eliphaz, if you except the charge of impatience brought against Job (although that is stated mildly, and is not altogether without cause), and the offensive interpretation put on the words of Job, has in it nothing that is not holy, true, and excellent, and which is not most admirably adapted to strengthen patience," etc. |