HarperCollins Study Bible
Page 199
15.19 Nowhere else does wisdom literature before Sirach allude to the tradition about Israel’s inheriting the land. The remark about an absence of strangers (cf. Joel 4.17) does not support such an association with the earlier tradition, for strangers certainly dwelt in the newly occupied land.
JOB 16
Job Reaffirms His Innocence
1Then Job answered:
2“I have heard many such things;
miserable comforters are you all.
3Have windy words no limit?
Or what provokes you that you keep on talking?
4I also could talk as you do,
if you were in my place;
I could join words together against you,
and shake my head at you.
5I could encourage you with my mouth,
and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.
6“If I speak, my pain is not assuaged,
and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?
7Surely now God has worn me out;
he hasa made desolate all my company.
8And he hasa shriveled me up,
which is a witness against me;
my leanness has risen up against me,
and it testifies to my face.
9He has torn me in his wrath, and hated me;
he has gnashed his teeth at me;
my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
10They have gaped at me with their mouths;
they have struck me insolently on the cheek;
they mass themselves together against me.
11God gives me up to the ungodly,
and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
12I was at ease, and he broke me in two;
he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces;
he set me up as his target;
13his archers surround me.
He slashes open my kidneys, and shows no mercy;
he pours out my gall on the ground.
14He bursts upon me again and again;
he rushes at me like a warrior.
15I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin,
and have laid my strength in the dust.
16My face is red with weeping,
and deep darkness is on my eyelids,
17though there is no violence in my hands,
and my prayer is pure.
18“O earth, do not cover my blood;
let my outcry find no resting place.
19Even now, in fact, my witness is in heaven,
and he that vouches for me is on high.
20My friends scorn me;
my eye pours out tears to God,
21that he would maintain the right of a mortal with God,
asb one does for a neighbor.
22For when a few years have come,
I shall go the way from which I shall not return.
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a Heb you have
b Heb you have
c Syr Vg Tg: Heb and
16.7–17 Cf. Lam 3.
16.15 Sackcloth was worn during mourning and in periods of intense grief connected with repentance or prayer for forgiveness.
16.17 Job insists that his supplication is pure despite Eliphaz’s charge in 15.14. The prophets railed against people who prayed with blood-stained hands.
16.18 The Israelites believed that unrequited blood of innocent victims cried out until a vindicator acted, as in the case of Abel, the first victim of fraternal rivalry (Gen 4.10). A heavenly advocate was known in Mesopotamia.
16.19 Job’s witness, already in God’s presence, is thought to be sufficiently powerful to exact justice from the deity. In 9.33 Job dismissed any such possibility of a mediator between himself and God.
16.22 Here Job anticipates the lapse of time before his demise. Only a god could return from the netherworld (cf. the Sumerian account of Inanna’s descent into the netherworld and the Akkadian “Descent of Ishtar to the Netherworld”).
17.13 Ossuaries were shaped like houses.
JOB 17
Job Prays for Relief
1My spirit is broken, my days are extinct,
the grave is ready for me.
2Surely there are mockers around me,
and my eye dwells on their provocation.
3“Lay down a pledge for me with yourself;
who is there that will give surety for me?
4Since you have closed their minds to understanding,
therefore you will not let them triumph.
5Those who denounce friends for reward—
the eyes of their children will fail.
6“He has made me a byword of the peoples,
and I am one before whom people spit.
7My eye has grown dim from grief,
and all my members are like a shadow.
8The upright are appalled at this,
and the innocent stir themselves up against the godless.
9Yet the righteous hold to their way,
and they that have clean hands grow stronger and stronger.
10But you, come back now, all of you,
and I shall not find a sensible person among you.
11My days are past, my plans are broken off,
the desires of my heart.
12They make night into day;
‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’a
13If I look for Sheol as my house,
if I spread my couch in darkness,
14if I say to the Pit, ‘You are my father,’
and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’
15where then is my hope?
Who will see my hope?
16Will it go down to the bars of Sheol?
Shall we descend together into the dust?”
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a Meaning of Heb uncertain
JOB 18
Bildad Speaks: God Punishes the Wicked
1Then Bildad the Shuhite answered:
2“How long will you hunt for words?
Consider, and then we shall speak.
3Why are we counted as cattle?
Why are we stupid in your sight?
4You who tear yourself in your anger—
shall the earth be forsaken because of you,
or the rock be removed out of its place?
5“Surely the light of the wicked is put out,
and the flame of their fire does not shine.
6The light is dark in their tent,
and the lamp above them is put out.
7Their strong steps are shortened,
and their own schemes throw them down.
8For they are thrust into a net by their own feet,
and they walk into a pitfall.
9A trap seizes them by the heel;
a snare lays hold of them.
10A rope is hid for them in the ground,
a trap for them in the path.
11Terrors frighten them on every side,
and chase them at their heels.
12Their strength is consumed by hunger,b
and calamity is ready for their stumbling.
13By disease their skin is consumed,c
the firstborn of Death consumes their limbs.
14They are torn from the tent in which they trusted,
and are brought to the king of terrors.
15In their tents nothing remains;
sulfur is scattered upon their habitations.
16Their roots dry up beneath,
and their branches wither above.
17Their memory perishes from the earth,
and they have no name in the street.
18They are thrust from light into darkness,
and driven out of the world.
19They have no offspring or descendant among their people,
and no survivor where they used to live.
20They of the west are appalled at their fate,
and horror seizes
those of the east.
21Surely such are the dwellings of the ungodly,
such is the place of those who do not know God.”
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a Or Disaster is hungry for them
b Cn: Heb It consumes the limbs of his skin
18.4 Bildad’s system of reward and retribution will make no exception for Job, who must be guilty.
18.5–21 Nothing occurs on earth that was not decreed in heaven.
18.5–6 In the Bible a lamp often points metaphorically to life, as in Othello’s speech (“Put out the light, and then put out the light”).
18.13 Death here is a mythical figure (see 7.15). In Canaanite mythology no record of Mot’s firstborn has survived. Perhaps one should translate “Death, the firstborn.”
18.15 In magical practices of the ancient world, according to the Odyssey (22.480–81, 492–94), sulphur was sprinkled over a site to purge it.
18.16–20 Several examples of merism (a figure of speech in which parts symbolize the whole) occur here, e.g., roots and branches; farmlands (earth) and grazing lands (street); the Hebrew word can carry either sense); kin (people) and residences (where they used to live); and they of the west and those of the east.
18.17, 19 The two means of surviving death at the time of the author, memory and offspring, are denied Job.
18.20 West, east, perhaps former and subsequent generations rather than geographical designations.
JOB 19
Job Replies: I Know That My Redeemer Lives
1Then Job answered:
2“How long will you torment me,
and break me in pieces with words?
3These ten times you have cast reproach upon me;
are you not ashamed to wrong me?
4And even if it is true that I have erred,
my error remains with me.
5If indeed you magnify yourselves against me,
and make my humiliation an argument against me,
6know then that God has put me in the wrong,
and closed his net around me.
7Even when I cry out, ‘Violence!’ I am not answered;
I call aloud, but there is no justice.
8He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass,
and he has set darkness upon my paths.
9He has stripped my glory from me,
and taken the crown from my head.
10He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone,
he has uprooted my hope like a tree.
11He has kindled his wrath against me,
and counts me as his adversary.
12His troops come on together;
they have thrown up siegeworksa against me,
and encamp around my tent.
13“He has put my family far from me,
and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
14My relatives and my close friends have failed me;
15the guests in my house have forgotten me;
my serving girls count me as a stranger;
I have become an alien in their eyes.
16I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer;
I must myself plead with him.
17My breath is repulsive to my wife;
I am loathsome to my own family.
18Even young children despise me;
when I rise, they talk against me.
19All my intimate friends abhor me,
and those whom I loved have turned against me.
20My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh,
and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
21Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends,
for the hand of God has touched me!
22Why do you, like God, pursue me,
never satisfied with my flesh?
23“O that my words were written down!
O that they were inscribed in a book!
24O that with an iron pen and with lead
they were engraved on a rock forever!
25For I know that my Redeemera lives,
and that at the last heb will stand upon the earth;c
26and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
then ind my flesh I shall see God,e
27whom I shall see on my side,f
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!
28If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’
and, ‘The root of the matter is found in him’
29be afraid of the sword,
for wrath brings the punishment of the sword,
so that you may know there is a judgment.”
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a Cn: Heb their way
b Or Vindicator
c Or that he the Last
d Heb dust
e Or without
f Meaning of Heb of this verse uncertain
g Or for myself
19.3 Ten times, a round number (cf. Gen 31.7; Num 14.22).
19.6 Closed his net, perhaps an image of a fowler, one that occurs in ancient Near Eastern political treaties as a threat against treacherous conduct.
19.8 Job’s view of the divine enclosure (walled up) differs from that of Satan, the Adversary, who spoke of it as protection from all harm (see 1.10).
19.9 The Hebrew word translated glory can also mean “wealth.”
19.16 This negative view of slaves does not recur in 31.13–15.
19.17 My own family, lit. “children of my womb,” may reflect the sexist views of the ancient Near East—a wife as a husband’s property—or it may be an oblique reference to a clan. Job appears to have forgotten that his children are dead, unless his speech merely accords with conventional laments familiar from Mesopotamia, e.g., “I Will Praise the Lord of Wisdom” and “The Babylonian Theodicy.”
19.20 Skin of my teeth, nothing.
19.24 Evidence exists for use of lead as a filler in small tablets and in an inscription, the Behistun Rock, that extols the achievements of the Persian king Darius. Job’s eloquence notwithstanding, the written word remains highly unclear in this instance, for its meaning defies understanding in vv. 25–27. The prophet Isaiah also mentions a permanent writing (30.8).
19.25–27 Redeemer, an avenger of blood, who, according to Num 35.19; Deut 19.6, would vindicate Job’s death by punishing the guilty, in this instance, God. The issue here is revenge, for Job has abandoned any notion of justice. Job’s cry resembles a Ugaritic text from the Baal cycle: “And I know that Aleyan Baal is alive,” presumably a confession of Baal’s annual revivification according to the agricultural calendar. Perhaps the Sumerian patron deity who intercedes with the High God furnishes the background for Job’s language.
JOB 20
Zophar Speaks: Wickedness Receives Just Retribution
1Then Zophar the Naamathite answered:
2“Pay attention! My thoughts urge me to answer,
because of the agitation within me.
3I hear censure that insults me,
and a spirit beyond my understanding answers me.
4Do you not know this from of old,
ever since mortals were placed on earth,
5that the exulting of the wicked is short,
and the joy of the godless is but for a moment?
6Even though they mount up high as the heavens,
and their head reaches to the clouds,
7they will perish forever like their own dung;
those who have seen them will say, ‘Where are they?’
8They will fly away like a dream, and not be found;
they will be chased away like a vision of the night.
9The eye that saw them will see them no more,
nor will their place behold them any longer.
10Their children will seek the favor of the poor,
and their hands will give back their wealth.
11Their bodies, once full of youth,
will lie
down in the dust with them.
12“Though wickedness is sweet in their mouth,
though they hide it under their tongues,
13though they are loath to let it go,
and hold it in their mouths,
14yet their food is turned in their stomachs;
it is the venom of asps within them.
15They swallow down riches and vomit them up again;
God casts them out of their bellies.
16They will suck the poison of asps;
the tongue of a viper will kill them.
17They will not look on the rivers,
the streams flowing with honey and curds.
18They will give back the fruit of their toil,
and will not swallow it down;
from the profit of their trading
they will get no enjoyment.
19For they have crushed and abandoned the poor,
they have seized a house that they did not build.
20“They knew no quiet in their bellies;
in their greed they let nothing escape.
21There was nothing left after they had eaten;
therefore their prosperity will not endure.
22In full sufficiency they will be in distress;
all the force of misery will come upon them.
23To fill their belly to the full
Goda will send his fierce anger into them,
and rain it upon them as their food.b
24They will flee from an iron weapon;
a bronze arrow will strike them through.
25It is drawn forth and comes out of their body,
and the glittering point comes out of their gall;
terrors come upon them.
26Utter darkness is laid up for their treasures;
a fire fanned by no one will devour them;
what is left in their tent will be consumed.
27The heavens will reveal their iniquity,
and the earth will rise up against them.
28The possessions of their house will be carried away,
dragged off in the day of God’sc wrath.
29This is the portion of the wicked from God,
the heritage decreed for them by God.”