CHAPTER XVI. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Then answered Job and said: Of things like these, abundance have I heard. Though I should speak, my grief is not assuaged; 1 Ver. 3. Emboldens. This sense of 7'' is deter-hold, because of its numbers: my domestic congregation. mined by vi. 25, 1 Kings ii. 8 (Niph.), and Mic. ii. 10, withoat going to the Arabic. 2 Ver. 4. Array, 77. The word on Hiphil means more than simply joining. It denotes association in bands (fœdus junxit), or a concert of speech and action between his assailants. Ver. 5. Thus with my mouth. E. V. inserts the adversative word but, giving a different turn to the sense; as though he had said: 0, no; instead of, that I would have strengthened you. There is, however, nothing that warrants it. The style is direct, seemingly ironical, but full of pathetic reproach. The emphasis of the first clause is on mouth: with my mouth merely, and not from the heart. The game idea in the second clause in T. The words in brackets, or something like them, are but the complement of the idea. Three passages, Prov. xxiv. 11; Ps. lxxviii. 50; Job xxxiii. 18, to cite no others, place the meaning of ' here beyond doubt. In the first it is a holding back from slaughter (rescuing); in the second, from death; and in the third, from corruption. The word thus gets, even when standing alone, the general sense of delivering or saving. CONANT comes nearest to this by rendering uphold. DELITZSCH, to soothe (lindern), is without authority. 4 Ver. 6. What (pain) from me departs? Literally, what goeth from me? but the reference to his unlessened sorrow is evident. 5 Ver. 7. Ah, surely now. The pathetic participle The sudden change of person increases the pathos. Ver. 8. A sight to see. Literally it is for a witness or a signecce signum. The accompanying action would probably be Job's showing them his emaciated countenance. 10 Ver. 9. His anger rends. By most commentators the language here and in some of the verses below is used in reference to God. It is, however, not easy to believe that this is wholly so. Raschi says, without any seeming doubt on the matter, IA JN, “The enemy here is Satan:" Mine enemy sharpens his eye at me. Job must have had some idea of a great persecutor who was not God, and who is spoken of in the Prologue. Or the two ideas may perhaps be mingled. Beginning to complain of God, as usual, the mind turns to this other adversary. Or it may be supposed that the imagination, in his half-maddened state (see Remarks on ix. 35), brings up before him the appearance of a furious mocking fiend, and then the picture takes the plural form. It is a company of fiends: They gape upon me with their mouths; and that brings out the language of ver. 11: God hath delivered me unto the evil one; he hath cast me off into the hands of the wicked, or the malignant; the word being 6 Ver. 7. Made desolate. ' demands a stronger used very much as the New Testament uses rovnpós. Some sense here than weary. T: 7 Ver. 1. Household. So CONANT and DELITZSCH. It may be my clan or tribe, but here it is used of his house of this language may have reference to his human accusers, such as the second and third clauses of ver. 10; but the other view is more in accordance with his frenzied state, or all these thoughts may be regarded as mingled together. 11 12 13 14 With scorn they smite me on the cheek; Into the hands of the malignant12 hath he cast13 me forth. Seized by the neck, and dashed" me to the ground; Then raised me up, and set me for his mark. His archers compass me about; He pours my gall upon the earth. He cleaves my reins-he spareth not; He breaketh me with breach on breach ;15 He runs upon me like a man of war. 11 Ver. 10. Fill their ranks. By this rendering the nearly related Hebrew and Arabic senses of are combined. 12 Ver. 11. Malignant. So by may be rendered, whatever application is given to it. 13 Ver. 11. Cast me forth; ', once occurring, but having clearly the sense of the Arabic, precipitem dedit. LXX έρριψε. 14 Ver. 12. Dashed. DD, dashed in pieces—a very strong word. The context shows the action intended. The view we may have of this awful language, as spoken of God or Satan, does not affect the correctness of the translation. 15 Ver. 14. Breach on breach. It can hardly be doubted that the reference here is to the calamity after calamity that Satan brought upon Job as told in the Prologue. It is certainly uncritical to suppose that Job's great enemy is wholly lost sight of in the subsequent chapters. Nothing, too, could be more undramatic. 16 Ver. 17. For no wrong I had done. Compare the precisely similar construction Isai. liii. 9, Dony, badly rendered: "because he had done no wrong"-rather: for no wrong he had done. 17 Ver. 18. Cover not my blood. There seems certainly here the idea of the murderer and the pursuing avenger of blood. Can Job mean to speak of God in this way? or does he not rather intend the Evil One, by whose idea he seems haunted, whatever might have been the measure of his knowledge of such a being. In the Prologue, Satan appears as his murderer-the same who is called áveрwπóктоvos, John viii. 44-a homicide from the beginningthe old murderer who slew the human race. There seems to be something of the same cry against him, xix. 25. It is implied in the words: I know that my Goel (my avenger), my Redeemer liveth-my nearest of kin. The language immediately suggests the cry of Abel's blood. 18 Ver. 19. My witness. This pathetic and solemn appeal to the Witness in the Heavens furnishes strong evidence that Job could not have had God in view in any of the harsh language which so marks this chapter. 19 Ver. 21. That He himself. There can be no other subject for than God, however strange the aspect it seems to give the sentence. Such is the view entertained by the best commentators, though some of them, like DELITZSCH, give the verb the sense of deciding (CONANT: do justice to), instead of the truer sense of arguing, pleading for. The pure, unmodified idea of the Hiphil is that of arguing, reasoning, contending in words; but whether for or against is to be determined by the context and the subject matter. It may mean the arguing of a mediator, an arbiter, or an advocate. The places in Job that are decisive of the meaning here are ix. 33: There is no arbiter between us; xiii. 3; where noin is equivalent to "speaking to, or pleading with the Almighty;" xiii. 15: “I will defend my ways (plead my cause) before Him." Again, the preposition D in this place modifies it to the same sense as in chap. xxiii. 7. It is true that there the form is Niphaly, but that only gives it a middle or deponent bearing, without affecting the general idea. It denotes, in the Niphal, mutual pleading, reasoning together as in Isaiah i. 18. The present passage, and Job xxiii. 7, are the only ones where we find the verb connected with D, which seems consistent only with the sense of arguing or pleading for. The idea of arguing against would here be certainly much out of place. Deciding for" (DELITZSCH), or "doing justice to" (CONANT), do not differ much from the idea of arguing for, but they unnecessarily mar the pathos of the passage, whilst DELITZSCH's rendering, "against God," instead of with God (D), seems entirely unwarranted. It may present a difficulty to the Rationalist, this "pleading of God with God;" but the mystery, the strange idea, contained in suffer, and He is the only one who knows how innocent he the tearful prayer which his extreme and helpless misery is." Melancholy, indeed, it is to think how blind the otherforces from the soul of Job is cleared up in the New Testa-wise acute eye of the Rationalist to the deep spirituality of a ment. UMBREIT also gives this translation, making God the thought so tender, and at the same time so sublime! subject of, but the view he presents of it is certainly 20 Ver. 21. As one. In the 1 is comparative, as is often the case. characteristic: "Job, in a melancholy, but ingenious way, says to God, that he must stand by him against God (Gott muss mir beistehen gegen Gott), for it is He who lets him A Ver. 22. Come and go, both directions, like the Greek its full meaning. The Hebrew includes pxoμal. It demands here 4 Ah! who is He that gives His hand for mine! (Not they). Their heart from insight Thou hast closed; 5 "When one for booty friends betrays, 7 Mine eye is dim from grief; 1 Ver. 1. My breath is short. It seems best here to follow the primary sense of han to bind tight—funem adstringit, contorsit. It is stricture and shortness in the breathing, 2 Ver. 1. Quenched. -. Their light is gone out. See Prov. xiii. 9. s Ver. 2. Were it not. DN makes a strong affirming when there is supposed to be a silent apodosis. It is a kind of imprecation, as though one should say coarsely, or strongly, "I'll be cursed, if it is not so, or so." In this way it comes in Hebrew, and is very frequent in Arabic. There are two reasons against it here, though adopted by so many commentators: 1st, There is nothing in the context that demands anything so strong; 2d, the idea of a silent apodosis is not to be resorted to where there is an open one so clearly expressed. The conjecture may be hazarded that by mockeries, here, ' (illusiones) Job had in view the mocking fiends, whom his imagination, or something more real, perbaps. had brought out, as in xvi. 9, 10-the "gaping mouths," the "gnashing teeth," the "glaring eye." They may be supposed to come from the same cause, whether it be his bodily or mental state, that produced the "scaring visions," vii. 14. It was these mocking illusions that drove him to frenzy. Were it not for these, he could more calmly bear the taunts of his friends, one of which may have been, perhaps, the very language which Job repeats from them, ver. 5. 4 Ver. 3. Calmly rest: 1. Literally, lodges; in Kal., pernoctare, to lodge all night. DELITZSCH, lingers; CONANT, dwells. An affecting picture of helpless suffering-spoken of them, but addressed to God-as appears in next verse. 5 Ver. 3. Lay down now. ♦ Ver. 3. Be my surety. : lay down the pledge. y; the same word used in Hezekiah's supplication, Isaiah xxxviii. 14. Addressed to God. The same wondrous thought we have xvi. 21. 7 Ver. 3. Ah who. The interrogative, here, does not so much express doubt as wonder at the thought of Him, the marvellous Surety. 8 Ver. 4. From insight, that is, from seeing this mystery of God pleading with God for man, and becoming surety with himself. 9 Ver. 5. For booty, p?n, for a division of the spoil. This verse looks like a proverbial saying which Job quotes For booty he betrays his friends; the second clause being consequential; as proverbs of this 12 13 14 15 16 But still the righteous man holds on his way; The clean of hand still goes from strength to strength. My days are past, My plans asunder1 rent, [PAUSE]. My soul's most cherished thoughts. For day, they give13 me night, To the face of darkness light is drawing's near. My hope, alas !1 who seeth it? To the gates of Sheol it is going down, 12 Ver. 11. Asunder rent, 1p). The figure of the weaver's loom; UMBREIT. Compare Isaiah xxxviii. 12. 13 Ver. 12. They give-light is drawing near. 1.-They put. But who are they? See Note Job vii. 3. They may be the invisible enemies whom Job fears to name; or if he refers to the friends it may be with a like aversion. The first is the more probable. The common grammatical explanation: the active used for the passive, is an evasion. Many commentators almost reverse the sense above given, by supposing Job to have represented the sophistical reasoning of the friends: "They put (as they suppose) day for night." DELITZSCH, "They explain night as day," a very forced rendering. UMBREIT: “They would change night into day"—that is, encourage and flatter Job. They had never done this, or, in any way, tried to make things look fair to him; since the verses, ch. xi. 16-19, are only conditional predictions. There seems, moreover, no good reason why in may not have the sense above given to it as most literally translated: for day-instead of day. The second clause, too, has been made more difficult than would seem necessary. It is true that in Hebrew the preposition following is usually or ; but in such a case as this, there is nothing unnatural in regarding it as denoting a short distance from, so as to make the proper preposition-just like the Latin prope abest. The light is near (that is but a short distance from) the face or edge of the darkness (see Job xxvi. 10), like the sun in an eclipse just going into the penumbra, or into the total shadow. And this agrees admirably with the context. Relationally, and, though seeming opposites, are so near akin that they are sometimes united to denote both from and to the point which may be regarded as either that of contact, or of separation: As Deut. iv. 32, nps, 2 Sam. vii. 1; Haggai ii. 18, and other places, for which see NOLDIUS, Concord. Partic., pa. 441. The naturalness of this is more easily acknowledged when it is considered that the Arabic verbs of nearness are generally followed by ♫ instead of, and especially is this the case with this very verb, where it has the sense of being near (propinquus fuit). Near from, they say, instead of near to. This seems to be SCHLOTTMANN's rendering, and CONANT's expressive version is closely allied to it: "light is just before darkness,"—just going out. DILLMANN and others take as comparative: her als das Angesicht der Finsterniss; but this makes no clear sense. 14 Ver. 15. Alas! The interjection is justified by the pathos of the repetition: My hope; yes, my hope, alas; with the emphasis on the pronoun. 15 Ver. 16. Gates: '7]. UMBREIT, ROSENMUELLER, and Job xxxviii. 17; Ps. cvii. 18. It is the idea of returnless- ness No traveller returns. HOMER uses this same figure of gates or bars. See Iliad xxi. 72, múλas Aidao, the gates of Hades. In the Odyss. xi. 571, Hades is called evpurudès d@, "the house of the wide gates to indicate the vast population it encloses." There is the same idea of separation in a strange Arabic word Barzach, meaning the interstice, or separating interval, whether of space or time, between the present and the coming world. Among other places the Barzach, until the day of the Resurrection." in the Koran, see Surat. xxiii. 102, "Behind 16 Ver. 16. In dust., Dy hy, here, must have the same meaning with Dy, vií. 22. 1 Ver. 1. Of words a prey. D'♫ ♪p, huntings or catchings of words. For this rendering see the conclusive reasons given by EWALD and DELITZSCH. How long will ye: It is addressed to all. Bildad makes the shortest speeches, and he reproves the other two, as well as Job, for their prolixity. 2 Ver. 5. Yet true it holds. D), yea, verily, so it is. UMBREIT, allerdings. It is the view so often presented by him and the others in opposition to an opinion, which they suppose Job to hold, that God favors the wicked. This misunderstanding gives the key to much of their language. See INT. THEISM, pa. 33. Bildad means to reaffirm it in spite of all Job may say. 3 Ver. 7. Straitened. Comp. Prov. iv. 12. 4 Ver. 7. Casts him down. Comp. Job v. 13. 5 Ver. 8. His own chosen way. The Hithpahel, , denotes one's way of life whether good or bad. (Comp. Gen. v. 22; xvii. 1, etc. Ps. xxxix. 7, et al.) There is also in the Hithpahel more or less of the reflexive sense the way of his choice-and that makes a parallelism with the verse above-"by his own feet." און EWALD, DILLMANN, MERX, ROSENMUELLER, et al. HIRZEL and DELITZSCH make it construct of 18, though the rendering of DELITZSCH much obscures the idea. The VULGATE renders it strength attenuetur fame robur ejus. The Syriac (Peschito) the best of the old versions, especially of Job, gives the rendering the translator has adopted, "his sorrow shall be hungry:" It hungers after him like a ravenous beast ready to devour." See the figures ver. 13. 7 Ver. 13. To eat. The Fut, form 7", in its connection here with the preceding verse, has the force of the infinitive. 8 Ver. 13. Death's first-born. It is an awful personification. Diseases are Death's sons, but the strongest among them, the mighty first-born, is the terrible elephantiasis. If Bildad really meant Job's disease, and Job himself, as the true subject of such a fearful picture as he has drawn, has a strange idea here. The D, ver. 13, are Job's sons then may he indeed be regarded as coarse and cruel. Raschi and daughters; D, ver. 14, is his wife. 9 Ver. 14. King of Terrors. The awful King; if we may thus render in, taking it, as most commentators do, for . As coming from a, it would mean Ver. 12. His woe. The rendering strength here as strictly king of wastings, or of emaciations, which would make it in harmony with the idea of Death in the verse above: though it were ¡, vires, instead of the construct of, caor as Homer larity, trouble-makes no satisfactory sense. It is adopted by CONANT from E. V., and maintained by many commentators, would style him by a similar figure (see Odys. xi. 491): מלך בלהות The Father of Diseases is the |