19:24 that with an iron chisel and with lead 1
they were engraved in a rock forever!
14:18 But as 2 a mountain falls away and crumbles, 3
and as a rock will be removed from its place,
22:24 and throw 4 your gold 5 in the dust –
your gold 6 of Ophir
among the rocks in the ravines –
24:8 They are soaked by mountain rains
and huddle 7 in the rocks because they lack shelter.
28:10 He has cut out channels 8 through the rocks;
his eyes have spotted 9 every precious thing.
29:6 when my steps 10 were bathed 11 with butter 12
and the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil! 13
18:4 You who tear yourself 14 to pieces in your anger,
will the earth be abandoned 15 for your sake?
Or will a rock be moved from its place? 16
1 sn There is some question concerning the use of the lead. It surely cannot be a second description of the tool, for a lead tool would be of no use in chiseling words into a rock. It was Rashi’s idea, followed by Dillmann and Duhm, that lead was run into the cut-out letters. The suggestion that they wrote on lead tablets does not seem to fit the verse (cf. NIV). See further A. Baker, “The Strange Case of Job’s Chisel,” CBQ 31 (1969): 370-79.
2 tn The indication that this is a simile is to be obtained from the conjunction beginning 19c (see GKC 499 §161.a).
3 tn The word יִבּוֹל (yibbol) usually refers to a flower fading and so seems strange here. The LXX and the Syriac translate “and will fall”; most commentators accept this and repoint the preceding word to get “and will surely fall.” Duhm retains the MT and applies the image of the flower to the falling mountain. The verb is used of the earth in Isa 24:4, and so NIV, RSV, and NJPS all have the idea of “crumble away.”
3 tc The form is the imperative. Eliphaz is telling Job to get rid of his gold as evidence of his repentance. Many commentators think that this is too improbable for Eliphaz to have said, and that Job has lost everything anyway, and so they make proposals for the text. Most would follow Theodotion and the Syriac to read וְשָׁתָּ (vÿshatta, “and you will esteem….”). This would mean that he is promising Job restoration of his wealth.
4 tn The word for “gold” is the rare בֶּצֶר (betser), which may be derived from a cognate of Arabic basara, “to see; to examine.” If this is the case, the word here would refer to refined gold. The word also forms a fine wordplay with בְצוּר (bÿtsur, “in the rock”).
5 tn The Hebrew text simply has “Ophir,” a metonymy for the gold that comes from there.
4 tn Heb “embrace” or “hug.”
5 tn Or “tunnels.” The word is יְאֹרִים (yÿ’orim), the word for “rivers” and in the singular, the Nile River. Here it refers to tunnels or channels through the rocks.
6 tn Heb “his eye sees.”
6 tn The word is a hapax legomenon, but the meaning is clear enough. It refers to the walking, the steps, or even the paths where one walks. It is figurative of his course of life.
7 tn The Hebrew word means “to wash; to bathe”; here it is the infinitive construct in a temporal clause, “my steps” being the genitive: “in the washing of my steps in butter.”
8 tn Again, as in Job 21:17, “curds.”
9 tn The MT reads literally, “and the rock was poured out [passive participle] for me as streams of oil.” There are some who delete the word “rock” to shorten the line because it seems out of place. But olive trees thrive in rocky soil, and the oil presses are cut into the rock; it is possible that by metonymy all this is intended here (H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 186).
7 tn The construction uses the participle and then 3rd person suffixes: “O tearer of himself in his anger.” But it is clearly referring to Job, and so the direct second person pronouns should be used to make that clear. The LXX is an approximation or paraphrase here: “Anger has possessed you, for what if you should die – would under heaven be desolate, or shall the mountains be overthrown from their foundations?”
8 tn There is a good deal of study on this word in this passage, and in Job in general. M. Dahood suggested a root עָזַב (’azav) meaning “to arrange; to rearrange” (“The Root ’zb II in Job,” JBL 78 [1959]: 303-9). But this is refuted by H. G. M. Williamson, “A Reconsideration of ’zb II in Biblical Hebrew,” ZAW 97 (1985): 74-85.
9 sn Bildad is asking if Job thinks the whole moral order of the world should be interrupted for his sake, that he may escape the punishment for wickedness.