4:7 Call to mind now: 1
Who, 2 being innocent, ever perished? 3
And where were upright people 4 ever destroyed? 5
22:5 Is not your wickedness great 6
and is there no end to your iniquity?
1:15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I look the other way; 7
when you offer your many prayers,
I do not listen,
because your hands are covered with blood. 8
1 sn Eliphaz will put his thesis forward first negatively and then positively (vv. 8ff). He will argue that the suffering of the righteous is disciplinary and not for their destruction. He next will argue that it is the wicked who deserve judgment.
2 tn The use of the independent personal pronoun is emphatic, almost as an enclitic to emphasize interrogatives: “who indeed….” (GKC 442 §136.c).
3 tn The perfect verb in this line has the nuance of the past tense to express the unique past – the uniqueness of the action is expressed with “ever” (“who has ever perished”).
4 tn The adjective is used here substantivally. Without the article the word stresses the meaning of “uprightness.” Job will use “innocent” and “upright” together in 17:8.
5 tn The Niphal means “to be hidden” (see the Piel in 6:10; 15:18; and 27:11); the connotation here is “destroyed” or “annihilated.”
6 tn The adjective רַבָּה (rabbah) normally has the idea of “great” in quantity (“abundant,” ESV) rather than “great” in quality.
7 tn Heb “I close my eyes from you.”
8 sn This does not just refer to the blood of sacrificial animals, but also the blood, as it were, of their innocent victims. By depriving the poor and destitute of proper legal recourse and adequate access to the economic system, the oppressors have, for all intents and purposes, “killed” their victims.