13:2 What you know, 1 I 2 know also;
I am not inferior 3 to you!
15:2 “Does a wise man answer with blustery knowledge, 4
or fill his belly 5 with the east wind? 6
35:16 So Job opens his mouth to no purpose; 7
without knowledge he multiplies words.”
38:2 “Who is this 8 who darkens counsel 9
with words without knowledge?
42:3 you asked, 10
‘Who is this who darkens counsel
without knowledge?’
But 11 I have declared without understanding 12
things too wonderful for me to know. 13
1 tn Heb “Like your knowledge”; in other words Job is saying that his knowledge is like their knowledge.
2 tn The pronoun makes the subject emphatic and stresses the contrast: “I know – I also.”
3 tn The verb “fall” is used here as it was in Job 4:13 to express becoming lower than someone, i.e., inferior.
4 tn The Hebrew is דַעַת־רוּחַ (da’at-ruakh). This means knowledge without any content, vain knowledge.
5 tn The image is rather graphic. It is saying that he puffs himself up with the wind and then brings out of his mouth blasts of this wind.
6 tn The word for “east wind,” קָדִים (qadim), is parallel to “spirit/wind” also in Hos 12:2. The east wind is maleficent, but here in the parallelism it is so much hot air.
7 tn The word הֶבֶל (hevel) means “vanity; futility; to no purpose.”
8 tn The demonstrative pronoun is used here to emphasize the interrogative pronoun (see GKC 442 §136.c).
9 sn The referent of “counsel” here is not the debate between Job and the friends, but the purposes of God (see Ps 33:10; Prov 19:21; Isa 19:17). Dhorme translates it “Providence.”
10 tn The expression “you asked” is added here to clarify the presence of the line to follow. Many commentators delete it as a gloss from Job 38:2. If it is retained, then Job has to be recalling God’s question before he answers it.
11 tn The word לָכֵן (lakhen) is simply “but,” as in Job 31:37.
12 tn Heb “and I do not understand.” The expression serves here in an adverbial capacity. It also could be subordinated as a complement: “I have declared [things that] I do not understand.”
13 tn The last clause is “and I do not know.” This is also subordinated to become a dependent clause.