g Or you will look around
11.4 Zophar emphasizes purity (cf. 11.15, blemish), but Job had concentrated on moral integrity.
11.6 This appeal to divine compassion, a forgetting of some evil and letting Job off lightly, clashes with a strict notion of reward and punishment. The struggle to hold together both sides of the equation, justice and mercy, gave rise to the creedal statement in Ex 34.6–7, part of which occurs often in confessional literature of the Bible (cf. Neh 9.17, 31; Ps 86.15; Joel 2.13; Jon 4.2). Wisdom’s hiddenness is noted in Sir 6.22: “For wisdom is like her name; she is not readily perceived by many.”
11.8 Cf. Sir 1.3.
11.12 A proverbial “impossible task,” like Ovid’s “then will the stag fly.” Gen 16.12 describes Ishmael as a wild ass of a man. This proverb in Job views ignorance, not morality, as the thing that separates mortals from deity.
11.13 Another discussion of divine justice that isolates the heart as the decisive organ in need of attention, Ps 73, clarifies the issue. The problem, according to Zophar and this psalmist, is one of cognition.
11.20 Against the background of promised hope for those who truly purify themselves, Zophar threatens Job with perishing refuge and empty hope, precisely what he had asked for (3.3; 10.18–22).
JOB 12
Job Replies: I Am a Laughingstock
1Then Job answered:
2“No doubt you are the people,
and wisdom will die with you.
3But I have understanding as well as you;
I am not inferior to you.
Who does not know such things as these?
4I am a laughingstock to my friends;
I, who called upon God and he answered me,
a just and blameless man, I am a laughingstock.
5Those at ease have contempt for misfortune,b
but it is ready for those whose feet are unstable.
6The tents of robbers are at peace,
and those who provoke God are secure,
who bring their god in their hands.c
7“But ask the animals, and they will teach you;
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
8ask the plants of the earth,d and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
9Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the LORD has done this?
10In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of every human being.
11Does not the ear test words
as the palate tastes food?
12Is wisdom with the aged,
and understanding in length of days?
13“With Gode are wisdom and strength;
he has counsel and understanding.
14If he tears down, no one can rebuild;
if he shuts someone in, no one can open up.
15If he withholds the waters, they dry up;
if he sends them out, they overwhelm the land.
16With him are strength and wisdom;
the deceived and the deceiver are his.
17He leads counselors away stripped,
and makes fools of judges.
18He looses the sash of kings,
and binds a waistcloth on their loins.
19He leads priests away stripped,
and overthrows the mighty.
20He deprives of speech those who are trusted,
and takes away the discernment of the elders.
21He pours contempt on princes,
and looses the belt of the strong.
22He uncovers the deeps out of darkness,
and brings deep darkness to light.
23He makes nations great, then destroys them;
he enlarges nations, then leads them away.
24He strips understanding from the leadersa of the earth,
and makes them wander in a pathless waste.
25They grope in the dark without light;
he makes them stagger like a drunkard.
next chapter
* * *
a Meaning of Heb uncertain
b Or whom God brought forth by his hand; Meaning of Heb uncertain
c Or speak to the earth
d Heb him
e Heb adds of the people
12.2 Sarcasm.
12.3 Not inferior to you. Twice in this speech Job insists on equality with the friends, here and in 13.2. The story goes further; it describes his superiority over all others.
12.4 The reference indicates a vital relationship (called upon…answered me) with God.
12.6 In their hands. A reference to idolatry?
12.7 Animals, Hebrew Behemoth. This allusion to Behemoth, frighteningly described in 40.15–24, seems out of place, hence the translation animals or “cattle” despite the singular verb in Hebrew (Behemoth is plural in form).
12.9 The only mention of the LORD (Yahweh) in the poetic dialogue between Job and the three friends; cf. the concluding observation in 28.28.
12.12 Because the next verse challenges the point of this statement, it seems that Job cites a proverb in order to refute it.
JOB 13
1“Look, my eye has seen all this,
my ear has heard and understood it.
2What you know, I also know;
I am not inferior to you.
3But I would speak to the Almighty,b
and I desire to argue my case with God.
4As for you, you whitewash with lies;
all of you are worthless physicians.
5If you would only keep silent,
that would be your wisdom!
6Hear now my reasoning,
and listen to the pleadings of my lips.
7Will you speak falsely for God,
and speak deceitfully for him?
8Will you show partiality toward him,
will you plead the case for God?
9Will it be well with you when he searches you out?
Or can you deceive him, as one person deceives another?
10He will surely rebuke you
if in secret you show partiality.
11Will not his majesty terrify you,
and the dread of him fall upon you?
12Your maxims are proverbs of ashes,
your defenses are defenses of clay.
13“Let me have silence, and I will speak,
and let come on me what may.
14I will take my flesh in my teeth,
and put my life in my hand.c
15See, he will kill me; I have no hope;d
but I will defend my ways to his face.
16This will be my salvation,
that the godless shall not come before him.
17Listen carefully to my words,
and let my declaration be in your ears.
18I have indeed prepared my case;
I know that I shall be vindicated.
19Who is there that will contend with me?
For then I would be silent and die.
Job’s Despondent Prayer
20Only grant two things to me,
then I will not hide myself from your face:
21withdraw your hand far from me,
and do not let dread of you terrify me.
22Then call, and I will answer;
or let me speak, and you reply to me.
23How many are my iniquities and my sins?
Make me know my transgression and my sin.
24Why do you hide your face,
and count me as your enemy?
25Will you frighten a windblown leaf
and pursue dry chaff?
26For you write bitter things against me,
and make me reape the iniquities of my youth.
27You put my feet in the stocks,
and watch all my paths;
you set a bound to the soles of my feet.
28One wastes away like a rotten thing,
like a garment that is moth-eaten.
next chapter
a Traditional rendering of Heb Shaddai
b Gk: Heb Why should I take…in my hand?
c Or Though he kill me, yet I will trust in him
d Heb inherit
13.3 Judicial terminology becomes prominent as Job turns more and more to address God instead of the friends.
13.5 In Egypt “the silent one” indicated a professional sage, a person who governed the passions.
13.9 Internal irony.
13.15 I have no hope, lit. “I will not wait/hope.” The qere reading (an ancient alternative to what is written in the Hebrew text) suggests that a later reader considered Job’s language excessive and substituted “for him” (lit. “to him”) for “not,” yielding “I will for him wait/hope” (see the translation in text note d). Even this change hardly justifies a positive understanding of Job’s defiant last-ditch stand.
13.16 If sinners cannot appear before God and Job does so without harm, he achieves vindication regardless of the meaning one assigns to his words in 42.6. This verse therefore focuses the dramatic action of the book.
13.20 Agur in Prov 30.7–9 also asks two things of God: to banish deception from him and to give him neither poverty nor riches.
13.24 This reference to enemy contains a pun on Job’s name in Hebrew.
13.26 Job does not claim to be sinless, but he does assert that he has integrity, having done nothing to deserve such foul treatment.
JOB 14
1“A mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble,
2comes up like a flower and withers,
flees like a shadow and does not last.
3Do you fix your eyes on such a one?
Do you bring me into judgment with you?
4Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?
No one can.
5Since their days are determined,
and the number of their months is known to you,
and you have appointed the bounds that they cannot pass,
6look away from them, and desist,a
that they may enjoy, like laborers, their days.
7“For there is hope for a tree,
if it is cut down, that it will sprout again,
and that its shoots will not cease.
8Though its root grows old in the earth,
and its stump dies in the ground,
9yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put forth branches like a young plant.
10But mortals die, and are laid low;
humans expire, and where are they?
11As waters fail from a lake,
and a river wastes away and dries up,
12so mortals lie down and do not rise again;
until the heavens are no more, they will not awake
or be roused out of their sleep.
13O that you would hide me in Sheol,
that you would conceal me until your wrath is past,
that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!
14If mortals die, will they live again?
All the days of my service I would wait
until my release should come.
15You would call, and I would answer you;
you would long for the work of your hands.
16For then you would notb number my steps,
you would not keep watch over my sin;
17my transgression would be sealed up in a bag,
and you would cover over my iniquity.
18“But the mountain falls and crumbles away,
and the rock is removed from its place;
19the waters wear away the stones;
the torrents wash away the soil of the earth;
so you destroy the hope of mortals.
20You prevail forever against them, and they pass away;
you change their countenance, and send them away.
21Their children come to honor, and they do not know it;
they are brought low, and it goes unnoticed.
22They feel only the pain of their own bodies,
and mourn only for themselves.”
next chapter
* * *
a Cn: Heb that they may desist
b Syr: Heb lacks not
14.4 Does Job succumb to Eliphaz’s low estimate of mortals, calling them guilty as a result of birth? This view occurs in the Sumerian parallel to Job “A Man and His God.”
14. 8–22 From here until chs. 40, 42 Job only talks about God, not to God.
14.12 Job dismisses the daring thought of life after death, reconciling himself to future oblivion (like the author of Ecclesiastes). Other biblical writers ventured along paths rejected by Job, particularly Dan 12.2; Isa 26.19; and possibly Ps 73.23–28.
JOB 15
Eliphaz Speaks: Job Undermines Religion
1Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:
2“Should the wise answer with windy knowledge,
and fill themselves with the east wind?
3Should they argue in unprofitable talk,
or in words with which they can do no good?
4But you are doing away with the fear of God,
and hindering meditation before God.
5For your iniquity teaches your mouth,
and you choose the tongue of the crafty.
6Your own mouth condemns you, and not I;
your own lips testify against you.
7“Are you the firstborn of the human race?
Were you brought forth before the hills?
8Have you listened in the council of God?
And do you limit wisdom to yourself?
9What do you know that we do not know?
What do you understand that is not clear to us?
10The gray-haired and the aged are on our side,
those older than your father.
11Are the consolations of God too small for you,
or the word that deals gently with you?
12Why does your heart carry you away,
and why do your eyes flash,a
13so that you turn your spirit against God,
and let such words go out of your mouth?
14What are mortals, that they can be clean?
Or those born of woman, that they can be righteous?
15God puts no trust even in his holy ones,
and the heavens are not clean in his sight;
16how much less one who is abominable and corrupt,
one who drinks iniquity like water!
17“I will show you; listen to me;
what I have seen I will declare—
18what sages have told,
and their ancestors have not hidden,
19to whom alone the land was given,
and no stranger passed among them.
20The wicked writhe in pain all their days,
through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.
21Terrifying sounds are in their ears;
in prosperity the destroyer will come upon them.
22They despair of returning from darkness,
and they are destined for the sword.
23They wander abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’
They know that a day of darkness is ready at hand;
24distress and anguish terrify them;
they prevail against them, like a king prepared for battle.
25Because they stretched out their hands against God,
and bid defiance to the Almighty,b
26running stubbornly against him
with a thick-bossed shield;
27because they have covered their faces with their fat,
and gathered fat upon their loins,
28they will live in desolate cities,
in houses that no one should inhabit,
houses destined to become heaps of ruins;
29they will not be rich, and their wealth will not endure,
nor will they strike root in the earth;c
30they will not escape from darkness;
the flame will dry up their shoots,
and their blossomd will be swept awaye by the wind.
31Let them not trust in emptiness, deceiving themselves;
for emptiness will be their recompense.
32It will be paid in full before their time,
and their branch will not be green.
33They will shake off their unripe grape, like the vine,
and cast off their blossoms, like the olive tree.
34For the company of the godless is barren,
and fire consumes the tents of bribery.
35They conceive mischief and bring forth evil
and their heart prepares deceit.”
next chapter
* * *
a Meaning of Heb uncertain
b Traditional rendering of Heb Shaddai
c Vg: Meaning of Heb uncertain
d Gk: Heb mouth
e Cn: Heb will depart
15.2 The wind from the eastern desert was hot, so Eliphaz accuses Job of uttering hot air.
15.4 Although Job uses some form of this Hebrew word for meditation several times, only in this instance does anyone else do so.
15.7 A sarcastic response to Job’s challenge that the friends consult earth’s creatures in search for answers, this jibe undercuts any claim on Job’s part to decisive knowledge. The paucity of biblical references outside Genesis to the primal couple is noteworthy. The situation changes with Ben Sira, about 190 BCE (cf. Sir 25.24; 49.16).
15.8 Some prophets, e.g., Amos and Jeremiah, claim to have listened to the divine council where human destiny was decided (cf. Am 3.7; Jer 23.21–22).
15.10 Eliphaz’s assumption that length of years brought wisdom was not shared by Job or the youthful Elihu, but wisdom literature generally venerated old age even when conceding that some older people manifested folly. Suspicion about youthful rashness is best shown in 1 Kings 12.1–16.
15.14–16 Here Eliphaz links the notions of purity and morality, dismissing the human race as tainted. Such a religious system affords no rationale for Job’s relentless pursuit of vindication.
15.18 Lit. “which the wise have declared and have not concealed from their ancestors.”
HarperCollins Study Bible Page 198
