1 Ver. 2. Poised. IX, implying weight-lifting up, so as to hang in free suspension. There may refer to the grief and suffering laid together, or as denoting coincidence; at one-like 1; the two ends of the beam in one horizontal line; expressive of great exactness. for, great misfortune,—extreme wretchedness-a sighing onomatope, like our word woe. See HUPPELD's very fuli explanation of the word Ps. v. 10. T Ver.3. Incoherent. Primary sense of 7 is swallowing, as our translation gives it. The secondary sense is confused and difficult utterance, as though the words were choked or swallowed. Ver. 6. The white of eggs. This comparison that seems so little poetical, is evidently significant of the unsavoriness and tastelessness of the counsel just given. How vapid is all your moralizing as contrasted with the pungency of my insupportable anguish! See the remarks of A. B. Davidson, a late but most admirable commentator, who is very full on this and the following verse. Ver. 7. pn 217. Lit., diseases of my food, sickness of my food, or food of sickness-unsavory, or that makes me sick. 5 Ver. 9. Comp. iv. 21, and Isaiah xxxviii. 12. • Ver. 10. Endure; 10. Most modern commentators follow Schultens in his deduction of this once occurring word from the Arabic Ty, to paw the ground as a horse, thence getting the sense of exultation. It seems ex. travagant, and out of harmony with the other language. Better take it from the Chaldaic D, which has the sense of burning. Hence also, as senses in use, those of contracting drawing ones-self firmly up. See the example given, BUXTORF, Chald. Lex. 1481, from BERESCHITH RABBA, rhy 10. anima ejus contrahitur, retrocedit in eo. Our Eng. Ver. harden myself is not far from this idea. Though He spare not, or, let Him not spare. The 3d clause. Literally: For I have not denied the words of the Holy One. 7 Ver. 13. in, from the substantive verb ". Anything substantial and real in distinction from the failing and the evanescent. 8 Ver. 14. Such is Dr. CONANT's clear rendering of this difficult passage. ; primary sense, melting. Hence failing (liquescentem), allegoria pereuntis. See Glass. Philologia Sa cra, 1712. 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Not so my friends-illusive as the brook, The companies of Sheba hope in vain. Confounded are they where they once did trust; A fearful spectacle ye see, and gaze in terror. Or from your wealth be liberal for my sake? Or from the invader's power redeem my life? At wind-such words as one may utter in despair? And now, I will not speak before you what is false. Ver. 16. Hide themselves. It does not represent a frozen stream, but a dark scene of winter, or of the rainy season, when the wadys are full. It is the snow falling on the swollen waters and immediately disappearing; the same exquisite image that Burns so happily employs: Or as the snow falls in the river, A moment white, then gone forever. 10 Ver. 17. Deserted of their springs. 13cut off from their fountains. The word 1 occurs but once. It is best derived from the Syriac coarctarit. The sense drying up is closely allied to this, and also to that of heating, which is commonly given to the verb. See DILLMANN and UMBREIT. 19 Ver. 20. They reach the spot; . Right up to it-on its very brink. 13 15', literally, blush with shame. The expression is not too strong when we think of the sickening disappointment of men travelling days in the desert, sustained by the hope of the cooling water, and finding at last only the parched bed of the wady. 14 Ver. 22. For my sake, '¶ÿɔ. A wider sense than : לי : For me, pro me-propter me, as though by way of ransom or deliverance from an enemy. See note 953 to Noldius' Concordance of Hebrew Particles. thinking of some great and terrible enemy, who is not God. Comp. xvi. 9, 11. 15 Ver. 23. Hostile hand. Job seems to be ever 16 Ver. 27. As though. The language is evidently comparative. 17 Ver. 27. Or traffic made. ̃ ̃ɔ with the sense emit, like the corresponding Arabic, and as used Deut. ii. 6; Hos. iit. 2. SO SCHLOTTMANN und verhandelt euern Freund. 18 Ver. 29. The rendering of DELITZSCH. 11 Ver. 18. Zöckler here, we think, is right in referring лn to the streams themselves, instead of rendering it caravans like many others. The process is by way of evaporation; "they go up into tohu," the waste atmosphere. It is not easy to apply this language to the caravans, though it is admirably descriptive of the drying up of the streams. The 19 Ver. 30. Conscience, the palate, when used verb, they twist to one side, well represents an aban-metaphorically, denotes the moral rather than the intellecdoned channel. tual judgment. 1 Ver. 2. Labors end; Merces, reward, is sometimes the ellipsis toy, work; but end suits better here. 2 Ver. 3.. Number out; the active used for the passive, say the grammarians; but that explains nothing. There must be a reason for the idiom. Compare Job iv. 19; xviii. 18; xix. 26; xxxiv. 20; Ps. xlix. 15. In these and similar cases, it will be seen that the real or supposed agent is something fearful, or repulsive, as in Job xix. 26. There is a kind of superstition in it; an aversion to the mention of the name, as the Greeks feared to speak the name of the Furies. As remarked in note on vi. 23, Job seems to be haunted by the thought of invisible tormentors, as he had good reason to think from what is said in the introductory narrative, and as appears in the terrible language of ch. xvi. 9, 10. This fearful allusion appears, Ps. xlix. 15, ¡ , “Like sheep they put or thrust them (the wicked) into Sheol "-stabulant in Orco. The idiom passes into the Greek of the New Testament, Luke xii. 20: The Yuχήν σου ἀπαιτοῦσιν ἀπὸ σοῦ they demand thy soul of thee." Who are they? Fiends, evil beings, said the old interpreters; "they will come after thee." No good reason can be given why it is not the true interpretation. In some cases this reason does not appear so evident. It may be reverence or admiration rather than shuddering fear. As in Isaiah Ix. 11, the glorious description of the New Jerusalem: "Thy gates shall stand open day and night "-literally: "they shall keep them open." Instead of passive, it is the piel, most intensely active, . Who are they? The holy angels, or warders of the New Jerusalem. If not this precisely, something very glorious and mighty was in the mind of the prophet, leading him to use the expression. It is quite evident, however, that in Job xvii. 18: "THEY shall 20, and Ps. xlix. 15, the evil or fearful agents are in the thrust him out from light to darkness," as also in Job xxxiv. thoughts. See Glassius Phil, Sacra., 817. 3 Ver. 4. How Long. When shall I arise expresses eagerness, which is not wanted here. How long. See the passionate places where it occurs in the Psalms. T:' 4 Ver. 4. Be o'er, be gone; 17 for full form 773verbal noun from T. 6 Ver. 5. Worms; 7. Many commentators would render it rottenness; but there is no need of departing from the usual sense. suits מסס Ver. 5. Heals up; the Arabic sense of well here, to return, hence to be restored. D See Ps. lviii. 8. This is the interpretation now given by most commentators. 7 Ver. 6. Gleam of hope. DN the least particle, the very extremity; hence used as a negative to denote total privation-all gone. 8 Ver. 8. I shall be gone. Compare remarks in the Introductory Argument, p. 5: The pious soul's despondent grief at the thought of bidding farewell to God. Here the converse idea. 9 Ver. 11. Let me speak; 7. Paragogic future Language of entreaty. 10 And moan, П, to make a low murmuring sound -talk to ones-self. 17 For what is man that thou should'st make him of so great account? 18 That thou should'st set thy heart upon him? That thou should'st visit him each morning as it comes, And try him every moment? 19 How long wilt thou not look away from me? 20 21 22 Nor leave me till I draw my laboring" breath. Watcher of men, if I have sinned what can I do to thee? That thou should'st set me for thy mark; That I should be a burden unto thee ?15 Why not lift up [the burden of] my sin, For soon shall I lie down in dust And thou shalt seek me but I shall not be. 11 Ver. 13. Taken from Dr. CONANT'S Version, which is often rhythmical, although he did not aim at making it such. 12 Ver. 15. These bones. So CONANT, DAVIDSON, and most modern commentators. 13 Ver. 16. The meaning of this verse has been much discussed. The old rendering "I would not live always" seems too sentimental when unqualified. SCHLOTTMANN and others take from it the idea of suicide. I loathe life; I will not live. But this is repulsive. The version given exactly suits the condition of the sufferer. 14 Ver. 19. The rendering usually given is the literal one; and its correctness is put beyond doubt by the Arabic usage (see Hariri, Seance_xv., pp. 164, 167, De Sacy's Ed.) It denotes impatience: Let me have time to swallow. The version here adopted is merely a substitution of another expression giving the same idea. It is one of the very few cases in which the translator has thus attempted to modernize. 15 Ver. 20. Burden unto thee, We follow DELITZSCH here, who adopts the Jewish traditional reading of "y. 15 16 17 18 19 He leans upon his house, but it abideth not; Or like the herb so green before the sun, It strait disowns him; thee I've never seen. Lo this the joy of his brief way. ('Tis gone), but (like it) from the dust shall others spring. 1 Ver. 10. In parables. D is more poetical than D', and more sententious: sayings, adages, apologues, parables, (b) comparisons; suggesting the tropical language of the reed, the flag, and the spider, that immediately follows. p, from their heart: denoting here, as is most common in Hebrew, understanding, experience, rather than feeling. The literal rendering would give to the modern reader a false idea. Hence the paraphrase. 4 Ver. 11. Grows high, NY; proudly, gloriously. 6 Ver. 14. The well established sense of p is fastidire, to loathe, with when taken transitively. Intransitively, to be disgusting, or, when used of a thing, to disgust; Ezek. xvi. 47; Ps. xcv. 10; Niph. Ezek. xx. 43; xxxvi. 31; Hiph. used just above, would be consistent with P, hope; for confidence as derived from the ideas of strength, thickness, re- plant, for the person figured is kept in view, and the meta- Ps. cxix. 158; cxxxix. 21; see Gesenius. Thus viewed, it (p) because of your evil, – vip' shop. would be literally, his confidence (10) disgusis, like the sense Hieronymus gets, only he renders vecordia-nonplacebit ei vecordia sua. It becomes, or shows itself worthless to him. This is the idea given in the version above. The view which regards it as another form of ip = psp (to cut) seems arbitrary. Besides it would produce an incongruity of metaphor. The figure of cutting, if it had not been 6 Ver. 15. Grasps it. The figure is kept. breaking through the meshes of his web. The spider 7 Ver. 17. For the justification of this rendering, see Cant. iv. 12, and notes of ZöCKLER and DR. GREEN on that passage. 8 Ver. 18. See vii. 10; Ps. ciii. 16. The speaker enters so into his figure that he personifies the plant. Hence the personal him is to be preferred to the impersonal it. |