you will seek me, but I shall not be.”
next chapter
* * *
a Or as the thread runs out
7.1 In the Mesopotamian creation account Enuma Elish, human beings were created for the purpose of menial service to the gods.
7.5 The Testament of Job develops this idea, stating that the pious hero picked up a worm that had fallen off his skin and placed it back where it belonged.
7.6 Whereas Eliphaz thought Job—and the poor generally—had hope, Job rejected such optimism for caravaneers (6.20) and for himself. A Hebrew wordplay between hope and thread occurs here. The medieval Jewish scholar Ibn Ezra noted that humans weave the threads of daily life.
7.12, 15 Both Sea and Dragon echo Canaanite myths about the sea as a chaotic force. Baal, the weather god, defeated the sea god. The Hebrew word for death recalls the Canaanite deity Mot.
7.14 Both Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon emphasize God’s use of psychological torment through nightmares to punish the wicked (e.g., Sir 40.1–10; Wis 18.17–19).
7.16 Ecclesiastes uses the word for breath (hevel, rendered “vanity” there) thirty-eight times to characterize life as futile, absurd, and empty. This word also was applied to idols.
7.17–18 A parody of Ps 8.4.
7.20 Job accepts Eliphaz’s notion that virtue and vice in human beings amount to nothing in God’s sight and reverses the usual idea of divine guardianship. Job thinks the one who watches over him has evil intentions.
7.21 This verse may allude ironically to Enoch, who according to Gen 5.24 walked with God and “was no more” because God took him.
JOB 8
Bildad Speaks: Job Should Repent
1Then Bildad the Shuhite answered:
2“How long will you say these things,
and the words of your mouth be a great wind?
3Does God pervert justice?
Or does the Almightya pervert the right?
4If your children sinned against him,
he delivered them into the power of their transgression.
5If you will seek God
and make supplication to the Almighty,a
6if you are pure and upright,
surely then he will rouse himself for you
and restore to you your rightful place.
7Though your beginning was small,
your latter days will be very great.
8“For inquire now of bygone generations,
and consider what their ancestors have found;
9for we are but of yesterday, and we know nothing,
for our days on earth are but a shadow.
10Will they not teach you
and tell you and utter words out of their understanding?
11“Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh?
Can reeds flourish where there is no water?
12While yet in flower and not cut down,
they wither before any other plant.
13Such are the paths of all who forget God;
the hope of the godless shall perish.
14Their confidence is gossamer,
a spider’s house their trust.
15If one leans against its house, it will not stand;
if one lays hold of it, it will not endure.
16The wicked thrivea before the sun,
and their shoots spread over the garden.
17Their roots twine around the stoneheap;
they live among the rocks.b
18If they are destroyed from their place,
then it will deny them, saying, ‘I have never seen you.’
19See, these are their happy ways,c
and out of the earth still others will spring.
20“See, God will not reject a blameless person,
nor take the hand of evildoers.
21He will yet fill your mouth with laughter,
and your lips with shouts of joy.
22Those who hate you will be clothed with shame,
and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”
next chapter
* * *
a Traditional rendering of Heb Shaddai
b Traditional rendering of Heb Shaddai
c Heb He thrives
d Gk Vg: Meaning of Heb uncertain
e Meaning of Heb uncertain
8.3–7 Bildad addresses Job’s legal challenge, denying that God bends the rules of justice and asserting that Job’s children deserved their fate. The promise of prosperity in the end accords with conventional wisdom, but Bildad’s understanding of Job’s former status (v. 7, your beginning was small) does not coincide with the grand picture in the story.
8.8–10 Wisdom is the accumulation of past insights, according to Bildad.
8.11 Two impossible questions (cf. Prov 6.27–28). The words for papyrus and reeds derive from Egyptian terms.
8.13 In 6.8 Job had asked that his hope, death, be granted, but here Bildad pronounces a verdict on all evil persons, one that stretches language itself: their hope perishes.
8.14–19 The image of misplaced trust, the fragility of a spider’s web, reinforces that of a wilted flower in v. 12, both of which gain force as a result of the juxtaposition alongside what—at first—appears a more promising image of well-watered roots.
8.20 Bildad cannot know that both God and the narrator attested to Job’s integrity.
8.22 Bildad’s speech ends with the same Hebrew word that concludes Job’s complaint in 7.21.
JOB 9
Job Replies: There Is No Mediator
1Then Job answered:
2“Indeed I know that this is so;
but how can a mortal be just before God?
3If one wished to contend with him,
one could not answer him once in a thousand.
4He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength
—who has resisted him, and succeeded?—
5he who removes mountains, and they do not know it,
when he overturns them in his anger;
6who shakes the earth out of its place,
and its pillars tremble;
7who commands the sun, and it does not rise;
who seals up the stars;
8who alone stretched out the heavens
and trampled the waves of the Sea;d
9who made the Bear and Orion,
the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;
10who does great things beyond understanding,
and marvelous things without number.
11Look, he passes by me, and I do not see him;
he moves on, but I do not perceive him.
12He snatches away; who can stop him?
Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’
13“God will not turn back his anger;
the helpers of Rahab bowed beneath him.
14How then can I answer him,
choosing my words with him?
15Though I am innocent, I cannot answer him;
I must appeal for mercy to my accuser.a
16If I summoned him and he answered me,
I do not believe that he would listen to my voice.
17For he crushes me with a tempest,
and multiplies my wounds without cause;
18he will not let me get my breath,
but fills me with bitterness.
19If it is a contest of strength, he is the strong one!
If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?b
20Though I am innocent, my own mouth would condemn me;
though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse.
21I am blameless; I do not know myself;
I loathe my life.
22It is all one; therefore I say,
he destroys both the blameless and the wicked.
23When disaster brings sudden death,
he mocks at the calamityc of the innocent.
24The earth is given into the hand of the wicked;
he covers the eyes of its judges—
if it
is not he, who then is it?
25“My days are swifter than a runner;
they flee away, they see no good.
26They go by like skiffs of reed,
like an eagle swooping on the prey.
27If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint;
I will put off my sad countenance and be of good cheer,’
28I become afraid of all my suffering,
for I know you will not hold me innocent.
29I shall be condemned;
why then do I labor in vain?
30If I wash myself with soap
and cleanse my hands with lye,
31yet you will plunge me into filth,
and my own clothes will abhor me.
32For he is not a mortal, as I am, that I might answer him,
that we should come to trial together.
33There is no umpired between us,
who might lay his hand on us both.
34If he would take his rod away from me,
and not let dread of him terrify me,
35then I would speak without fear of him,
for I know I am not what I am thought to be.e
next chapter
* * *
a Or trampled the back of the sea dragon
b Or for my right
c Compare Gk: Heb me
d Meaning of Heb uncertain
e Another reading is Would that there were an umpire
f Cn: Heb for I am not so in myself
9.2 Just before God. Job takes up Eliphaz’s point (4.17), using a different expression (“just with El” rather than “more just than Eloah”).
9.3 Morality gives way to legality here. The concept once in a thousand occurs in Eccl 7.28 to indicate the rarity of virtuous men (cf. Sir 16.3, where childlessness is said to be preferable to having ungodly children).
9.5–10 This hymn, reminiscent of 5.9–16, uses participles expressing chaotic might, whereas Eliphaz stressed power in its ordering capacity. With Job praise has assumed the tone of attack. God’s self-manifestation was often associated with an earthquake, and the Israelites coined the epithet “Worker of wonders” to designate this majestic deity.
9.8 An allusion to a combat myth of creation similar to that of the Mesopotamian Tiamat, the biblical Tehom. The same imagery occurs in 9.13 with reference to Rahab, a mythic figure that features prominently in Psalms and Second Isaiah (chs. 40–55, sixth century BCE).
9.9 Four constellations are mentioned here, two of which are also referred to in the similar hymnic fragment in Am 5.8 (perhaps two more in 5.9).
9.15 The universe is perverse when an innocent person must plead for mercy; guilty individuals are the ones for whom the quality of mercy comes into play.
9.16 Job has given up on any hope of obtaining justice in the presence of blind power.
9.17 The addition of the particle translated by without cause carries explosive force in light of its function in the story.
9.19–21 Daring to assert his own integrity against all odds, Job quickly takes it back and rejects life. This time, unlike 7.16 (where the NRSV adds “my life”), the object of the verb “reject,” or loathe (9.21), is expressed. The cumulative testimony of the book supports Job’s initial claim, for everyone has attested to his integrity—the narrator (1.1), God (1.8; 2.3), Job’s wife (2.9), Eliphaz (4.6, implicitly), and Bildad (8.20).
9.22 Here Job abandons belief in any positive connection between virtue and reward.
9.24 Virtual monotheism permitted Job no alternative to this disturbing conclusion about divine villainy.
9.33 Because God acts as plaintiff, judge, and prosecuting attorney, Job longs for an arbiter to judge between him and the deity, but promptly discards this wishful thinking.
JOB 10
Job: I Loathe My Life
1“I loathe my life;
I will give free utterance to my complaint;
I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
2I will say to God, Do not condemn me;
let me know why you contend against me.
3Does it seem good to you to oppress,
to despise the work of your hands
and favor the schemes of the wicked?
4Do you have eyes of flesh?
Do you see as humans see?
5Are your days like the days of mortals,
or your years like human years,
6that you seek out my iniquity
and search for my sin,
7although you know that I am not guilty,
and there is no one to deliver out of your hand?
8Your hands fashioned and made me;
and now you turn and destroy me.f
9Remember that you fashioned me like clay;
and will you turn me to dust again?
10Did you not pour me out like milk
and curdle me like cheese?
11You clothed me with skin and flesh,
and knit me together with bones and sinews.
12You have granted me life and steadfast love,
and your care has preserved my spirit.
13Yet these things you hid in your heart;
I know that this was your purpose.
14If I sin, you watch me,
and do not acquit me of my iniquity.
15If I am wicked, woe to me!
If I am righteous, I cannot lift up my head,
for I am filled with disgrace
and look upon my affliction.
16Bold as a lion you hunt me;
you repeat your exploits against me.
17You renew your witnesses against me,
and increase your vexation toward me;
you bring fresh troops against me.a
18“Why did you bring me forth from the womb?
Would that I had died before any eye had seen me,
19and were as though I had not been,
carried from the womb to the grave.
20Are not the days of my life few?b
Let me alone, that I may find a little comfortc
21before I go, never to return,
to the land of gloom and deep darkness,
22the land of gloomd and chaos,
where light is like darkness.”
next chapter
* * *
a Cn Compare Gk Syr: Heb made me together all around, and you destroy me
b Cn Compare Gk: Heb toward me; changes and a troop are with me
c Cn Compare Gk Syr: Heb Are not my days few? Let him cease!
d Heb that I may brighten up a little
e Heb gloom as darkness, deep darkness
10.1 Again Job specifies the object of his disgust, although the language differs altogether: I loathe, lit. “my soul feels loathing.”
10.7 The phrase about an absence of anyone to deliver from the divine power points to Job’s hopelessness.
10.9 According to ancient tradition, the human dilemma after the Fall was precisely this, to return to dust. Does Job object to this curse, or does he think of premature death?
10.12, 14 The more common expression for divine protection returns here (cf. the irony when set alongside 2.6). In 10.14 the verb watch takes on a negative connotation, like watcher of humanity in 7.20.
10.18–20 Job’s attitude toward death changes (cf. 3.17–18, 21–22; 7.21).
10.22 An oxymoron, “it shines like darkness.”
JOB 11
Zophar Speaks: Job’s Guilt Deserves Punishment
1Then Zophar the Naamathite answered:
2“Should a multitude of words go unanswered,
and should one full of talk be vindicated?
3Should your babble put others to silence,
and when you mock, shall no one shame you?
4For you say, ‘My conducte is pure,
and I am clean in God’sf sight.’
5But O that God would speak,
and open his lips to you,
6and that he would tell you the secrets of wisdom!
F
or wisdom is many-sided.g
Know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves.
7“Can you find out the deep things of God?
Can you find out the limit of the Almighty?h
8It is higher than heaveni—what can you do?
Deeper than Sheol—what can you know?
9Its measure is longer than the earth,
and broader than the sea.
10If he passes through, and imprisons,
and assembles for judgment, who can hinder him?
11For he knows those who are worthless;
when he sees iniquity, will he not consider it?
12But a stupid person will get understanding,
when a wild ass is born human.g
13“If you direct your heart rightly,
you will stretch out your hands toward him.
14If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away,
and do not let wickedness reside in your tents.
15Surely then you will lift up your face without blemish;
you will be secure, and will not fear.
16You will forget your misery;
you will remember it as waters that have passed away.
17And your life will be brighter than the noonday;
its darkness will be like the morning.
18And you will have confidence, because there is hope;
you will be protecteda and take your rest in safety.
19You will lie down, and no one will make you afraid;
many will entreat your favor.
20But the eyes of the wicked will fail;
all way of escape will be lost to them,
and their hope is to breathe their last.”
next chapter
* * *
a Gk: Heb teaching
b Heb your
c Meaning of Heb uncertain
d Traditional rendering of Heb Shaddai
e Heb The heights of heaven
f Meaning of Heb uncertain
HarperCollins Study Bible Page 197
