13:4 But you, however, are inventors of lies; 1
all of you are worthless physicians! 2
VII. The Epilogue (42:7-17)
42:7 After the Lord had spoken these things to Job, he 6 said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My anger is stirred up 7 against you and your two friends, because you have not spoken about me what is right, 8 as my servant Job has.
1 tn The טֹפְלֵי־שָׁקֶר (tofÿle shaqer) are “plasterers of lies” (Ps 119:69). The verb means “to coat, smear, plaster.” The idea is that of imputing something that is not true. Job is saying that his friends are inventors of lies. The LXX was influenced by the next line and came up with “false physicians.”
2 tn The literal rendering of the construct would be “healers of worthlessness.” Ewald and Dillmann translated it “patchers” based on a meaning in Arabic and Ethiopic; this would give the idea “botchers.” But it makes equally good sense to take “healers” as the meaning, for Job’s friends came to minister comfort and restoration to him – but they failed. See P. Humbert, “Maladie et medicine dans l’AT,” RHPR 44 (1964): 1-29.
3 tn Heb “his”; the referent (Job) has been specified in the translation to indicate whose friends they were.
4 tn The perfect verb should be given the category of potential perfect here.
5 tc This is one of the eighteen “corrections of the scribes” (tiqqune sopherim); it originally read, “and they declared God [in the wrong].” The thought was that in abandoning the debate they had conceded Job’s point.
6 tn Heb “the
7 tn Heb “is kindled.”
8 tn The form נְכוֹנָה (nÿkhonah) is from כּוּן (kun, “to be firm; to be fixed; to be established”). Here it means “the right thing” or “truth.” The Akkadian word kenu (from כּוּן, kun) connotes justice and truth.