15:8 Do you listen in on God’s secret council? 1
Do you limit 2 wisdom to yourself?
15:4 But you even break off 3 piety, 4
and hinder 5 meditation 6 before God.
36:27 He draws up drops of water;
they distill 7 the rain into its mist, 8
36:7 He does not take his eyes 9 off the righteous;
but with kings on the throne
he seats the righteous 10 and exalts them forever. 11
1 tn The meaning of סוֹד (sod) is “confidence.” In the context the implication is “secret counsel” of the
2 tn In v. 4 the word meant “limit”; here it has a slightly different sense, namely, “to reserve for oneself.”
3 tn The word פָּרַר (parar) in the Hiphil means “to annul; to frustrate; to destroy; to break,” and this fits the line quite well. The NEB reflects G. R. Driver’s suggestion of an Arabic cognate meaning “to expel; to banish” (“Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 77).
4 tn Heb “fear,” “reverence.”
5 tn The word גָּרַע (gara’) means “to diminish,” regard as insignificant, occasionally with the sense of “pull down” (Deut 4:2; 13:1). It is here that Eliphaz is portraying Job as a menace to the religion of society because they dissuade people from seeking God.
6 tn The word שִׂיחָה (sikhah) is “complaint; cry; meditation.” Job would be influencing people to challenge God and not to meditate before or pray to him.
5 tn The verb means “to filter; to refine,” and so a plural subject with the drops of water as the subject will not work. So many read the singular, “he distills.”
6 tn This word עֵד (’ed) occurs also in Gen 2:6. The suggestion has been that instead of a mist it represents an underground watercourse that wells up to water the ground.
7 tc Many commentators accept the change of “his eyes” to “his right” (reading דִּינוֹ [dino] for עֵינָיו [’enayv]). There is no compelling reason for the change; it makes the line commonplace.
8 tn Heb “them”; the referent (the righteous) has been repeated from the first part of the verse for clarity.
9 tn Heb “he seats them forever and exalts them.” The last verb can be understood as expressing a logical consequence of the preceding action (cf. GKC 328 §111.l = “he seats them forever so that he exalts them”). Or the two verbs can be taken as an adverbial hendiadys whereby the first modifies the second adverbially: “he exalts them by seating them forever” or “when he seats them forever” (cf. GKC 326 §111.d). Some interpret this verse to say that God seats kings on the throne, making a change in subject in the middle of the verse. But it makes better sense to see the righteous as the subject matter throughout – they are not only protected, but are exalted.