1 Kings 12:6-15

12:6 King Rehoboam consulted with the older advisers who had served ¹  his father Solomon when he had been alive. He asked them, ²  “How do you advise me to answer these people?” 12:7 They said to him, “Today if you show a willingness to help these people and grant their request, they will be your servants from this time forward.” ³  12:8 But Rehoboam rejected their advice and consulted the young advisers who served him, with whom he had grown up. ⁴  12:9 He asked them, “How do you advise me ⁵  to respond to these people who said to me, ‘Lessen the demands your father placed on us’?” ⁶  12:10 The young advisers with whom Rehoboam ⁷  had grown up said to him, “Say this to these people who have said to you, ‘Your father made us work hard, but now lighten our burden.’ ⁸  Say this to them: ‘I am a lot harsher than my father! ⁹  12:11 My father imposed heavy demands on you; I will make them even heavier. ¹⁰  My father punished you with ordinary whips; I will punish you with whips that really sting your flesh.’” ¹¹ 

12:12 Jeroboam and all the people reported ¹²  to Rehoboam on the third day, just as the king had ordered when he said, “Return to me on the third day.” 12:13 The king responded to the people harshly. He rejected the advice of the older men 12:14 and followed ¹³  the advice of the younger ones. He said, “My father imposed heavy demands on you; I will make them even heavier. ¹⁴  My father punished you with ordinary whips; I will punish you with whips that really sting your flesh.” ¹⁵  12:15 The king refused to listen to the people, because the Lord was instigating this turn of events ¹⁶  so that he might bring to pass the prophetic announcement he had made ¹⁷  through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

Job 12:12

12:12 Is not wisdom found among the aged? ¹⁸ 

Does not long life bring understanding?

Job 15:9-10

15:9 What do you know that we don’t know?

What do you understand that we don’t understand? ¹⁹ 

15:10 The gray-haired ²⁰  and the aged are on our side, ²¹ 

men far older than your father. ²² 

Job 32:4

32:4 Now Elihu had waited before speaking ²³  to Job, because the others ²⁴  were older than he was.

Job 32:10

32:10 Therefore I say, ‘Listen ²⁵  to me.

I, even I, will explain what I know.’

[12:6]  ¹ tn Heb “stood before.”

[12:6]  ² tn Heb “saying.”

[12:7]  ³ tn Heb “If today you are a servant to these people and you serve them and answer them and speak to them good words, they will be your servants all the days.”

[12:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “He rejected the advice of the elders which they advised and he consulted the young men with whom he had grown up, who stood before him.” The referent (Rehoboam) of the initial pronoun (“he”) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[12:9]  ⁵ tn In the Hebrew text the verb “we will respond” is plural, although it can be understood as an editorial “we.” The ancient versions have the singular here.

[12:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “Lighten the yoke which your father placed on us.”

[12:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Rehoboam) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[12:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “Your father made our yoke heavy, but make it lighter upon us.”

[12:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “My little one is thicker than my father’s hips.” The referent of “my little one” is not clear. The traditional view is that it refers to the little finger. As the following statement makes clear, Rehoboam’s point is that he is more harsh and demanding than his father.

[12:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and now my father placed upon you a heavy yoke, but I will add to your yoke.”

[12:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “My father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with scorpions.” “Scorpions” might allude to some type of torture using poisonous insects, but more likely it refers to a type of whip that inflicts an especially biting, painful wound. Cf. CEV “whips with pieces of sharp metal.”

[12:12]  ¹² tn Heb “came.”

[12:14]  ¹³ tn Heb “and spoke to them according to.”

[12:14]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke.”

[12:14]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “My father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with scorpions.” See the note on the same phrase in v. 11.

[12:15]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “because this turn of events was from the Lord.”

[12:15]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “so that he might bring to pass his word which the Lord spoke.”

[12:12]  ¹⁸ tn The statement in the Hebrew Bible simply has “among the aged – wisdom.” Since this seems to be more the idea of the friends than of Job, scholars have variously tried to rearrange it. Some have proposed that Job is citing his friends: “With the old men, you say, is wisdom” (Budde, Gray, Hitzig). Others have simply made it a question (Weiser). But others take לֹא (lo’) from the previous verse and make it the negative here, to say, “wisdom is not….” But Job will draw on the wisdom of the aged, only with discernment, for ultimately all wisdom is with God.

[15:9]  ¹⁹ tn The last clause simply has “and it is not with us.” It means that one possesses something through knowledge. Note the parallelism of “know” and “with me” in Ps 50:11.

[15:10]  ²⁰ tn The participle שָׂב (sav), from שִׂיב (siv, “to have white hair”; 1 Sam 12:2), only occurs elsewhere in the Bible in the Aramaic sections of Ezra. The word יָשִׁישׁ (yashish, “aged”) occurred in 12:12.

[15:10]  ²¹ tn Heb “with us.”

[15:10]  ²² tn The line reads: “[men] greater than your father [in] days.” The expression “in days” underscores their age – they were older than Job’s father, and therefore wiser.

[32:4]  ²³ tc This reading requires repointing the word בִּדְבָרִים (bidbarim, “with words”) to בְּדָבְּרָם (bÿdabbÿram, “while they spoke [with Job]”). If the MT is retained, it would mean “he waited for Job with words,” which while understandable is awkward.

[32:4]  ²⁴ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the other friends) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[32:10]  ²⁵ tc In most Hebrew mss this imperative is singular, and so addressed to Job. But two Hebrew mss and the versions have the plural. Elihu was probably addressing all of them.