13:5 If only you would keep completely silent! 1
For you, that would be wisdom. 2
16:3 Will 3 there be an end to your 4 windy words? 5
Or what provokes 6 you that you answer? 7
16:4 I also could speak 8 like you,
if 9 you were in my place;
I could pile up 10 words against you
and I could shake my head at you. 11
21:34 So how can you console me with your futile words?
Nothing is left of your answers but deception!” 12
24:25 “If this is not so, who can prove me a liar
and reduce my words to nothing?” 13
1 tn The construction is the imperfect verb in the wish formula preceded by the infinitive that intensifies it. The Hiphil is not directly causative here, but internally – “keep silent.”
2 tn The text literally reads, “and it would be for you for wisdom,” or “that it would become your wisdom.” Job is rather sarcastic here, indicating if they shut up they would prove themselves to be wise (see Prov 17:28).
3 tn Disjunctive questions are introduced with the sign of the interrogative; the second part is introduced with אוֹ (’o, see GKC 475 §150.g).
4 tn In v. 3 the second person singular is employed rather than the plural as in vv. 2 and 4. The singular might be an indication that the words of v. 3 were directed at Eliphaz specifically.
5 tn Heb “words of wind.”
6 tn The Hiphil of מָרַץ (marats) does not occur anywhere else. The word means “to compel; to force” (see 6:25).
7 tn The LXX seems to have gone a different way: “What, is there any reason in vain words, or what will hinder you from answering?”
8 tn For the use of the cohortative in the apodosis of conditional sentences, see GKC 322 §109.f.
9 tn The conjunction לוּ (lu) is used to introduce the optative, a condition that is incapable of fulfillment (see GKC 494-95 §159.l).
10 tn This verb אַחְבִּירָה (’akhbirah) is usually connected to חָבַר (khavar, “to bind”). There are several suggestions for this word. J. J. Finkelstein proposed a second root, a homonym, meaning “to make a sound,” and so here “to harangue” (“Hebrew habar and Semitic HBR,” JBL 75 [1956]: 328-31; see also O. Loretz, “HBR in Job 16:4,” CBQ 23 [1961]: 293-94, who renders it “I could make noisy speeches”). Other suggestions have been for new meanings based on cognate studies, such as “to make beautiful” (i.e., make polished speeches).
11 sn The action is a sign of mockery (see Ps 22:7[8]; Isa 37:22; Matt 27:39).
12 tn The word מָעַל (ma’al) is used for “treachery; deception; fraud.” Here Job is saying that their way of interpreting reality is dangerously unfaithful.
13 tn The word אַל (’al, “not”) is used here substantivally (“nothing”).
14 tn Heb “his”; the referent (Job) has been specified in the translation to indicate whose friends they were.
15 tn The perfect verb should be given the category of potential perfect here.
16 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.