Job 12:7-8

Knowledge of God’s Wisdom ¹ 

12:7 “But now, ask the animals and they ²  will teach you,

or the birds of the sky and they will tell you.

12:8 Or speak ³  to the earth ⁴  and it will teach you,

or let the fish of the sea declare to you.

Job 17:4

17:4 Because ⁵  you have closed their ⁶  minds to understanding,

therefore you will not exalt them. ⁷ 

Job 17:10

Anticipation of Death

17:10 “But turn, all of you, ⁸  and come ⁹  now! ¹⁰ 

I will not find a wise man among you.

Psalms 73:22

73:22 I was ignorant ¹¹  and lacked insight; ¹² 

I was as senseless as an animal before you. ¹³ 

Ecclesiastes 3:18

3:18 I also thought to myself, “It is ¹⁴  for the sake of people, ¹⁵ 

so God can clearly ¹⁶  show ¹⁷  them that they are like animals.

Romans 12:10

12:10 Be devoted to one another with mutual love, showing eagerness in honoring one another.

[12:7]  ¹ sn As J. E. Hartley (Job [NICOT], 216) observes, in this section Job argues that respected tradition “must not be accepted uncritically.”

[12:7]  ² tn The singular verb is used here with the plural collective subject (see GKC 464 §145.k).

[12:8]  ³ tn The word in the MT means “to complain,” not simply “to speak,” and one would expect animals as the object here in parallel to the last verse. So several commentators have replaced the word with words for animals or reptiles – totally different words (cf. NAB, “reptiles”). The RSV and NRSV have here the word “plants” (see 30:4, 7; and Gen 21:15).

[12:8]  ⁴ tn A. B. Davidson (Job, 90) offers a solution by taking “earth” to mean all the lower forms of life that teem in the earth (a metonymy of subject).

[17:4]  ⁵ tn This half-verse gives the reason for the next half-verse.

[17:4]  ⁶ sn The pronoun their refers to Job’s friends. They have not pledged security for him because God has hidden or sealed off their understanding.

[17:4]  ⁷ tn The object “them” is supplied. This is the simplest reading of the line, taking the verb is an active Polel. Some suggest that the subject is “their hand” and the verb is to be translated “is not raised.” This would carry through the thought of the last verse, but it is not necessary to the point.

[17:10]  ⁸ tn The form says “all of them.” Several editors would change it to “all of you,” but the lack of concord is not surprising; the vocative elsewhere uses the third person (see Mic 1:2; see also GKC 441 §135.r).

[17:10]  ⁹ tn The first verb, the jussive, means “to return”; the second verb, the imperative, means “to come.” The two could be taken as a hendiadys, the first verb becoming adverbial: “to come again.”

[17:10]  ¹⁰ tn Instead of the exact correspondence between coordinate verbs, other combinations occur – here we have a jussive and an imperative (see GKC 386 §120.e).

[73:22]  ¹¹ tn Or “brutish, stupid.”

[73:22]  ¹² tn Heb “and I was not knowing.”

[73:22]  ¹³ tn Heb “an animal I was with you.”

[3:18]  ¹⁴ tn The phrase “it is” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[3:18]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the sons of man.” The phrase עַל־דִּבְרַת בְּנֵי הָאָדָם (’al-divrat bÿne ha’adam) is handled variously: (1) introduction to the direct discourse: “I said to myself concerning the sons of men” (NASB), (2) direct discourse: “I thought, ‘As for men, God tests them’” (NIV), (3) indirect discourse: “I said in my heart concerning the estate of the sons of men” (KJV), and (4) causal conjunction: “I said, ‘[It is] for the sake of the sons of men.” Since the phrase “sons of men” is contrasted with “animals” the translation “humans” has been adopted.

[3:18]  ¹⁶ tn The meaning of לְבָרָם (lÿvaram, preposition + Qal infinitive construct from בָּרַר, barar, + 3rd person masculine plural suffix) is debated because the root has a broad range of meanings: (1) “to test; to prove; to sift; to sort out” (e.g., Dan 11:35; 12:10); (2) “to choose; to select” (e.g., 1 Chr 7:40; 9:22; 16:41; Neh 5:18); (3) “to purge out; to purify” (e.g., Ezek 20:38; Zeph 3:9; Job 33:3); and (4) “to cleanse; to polish” (Isa 49:2; 52:11); see HALOT 163 s.v. בָּרַר; BDB 141 s.v. בָּרַר. The meanings “to prove” (Qal), as well as “to cleanse; to polish” (Qal), “to keep clean” (Niphal), and “to cleanse” (Hiphil) might suggest the meaning “to make clear” (M. A. Eaton, Ecclesiastes [TOTC], 85-86). The meaning “to make clear; to prove” is well attested in postbiblical Mishnaic Hebrew (Jastrow 197-98 s.v. בָּרַר). For example, “they make the fact as clear (bright) as a new garment” (b. Ketubbot 46a) and “the claimant must offer clear evidence” (b. Sanhedrin 23b). The point would be that God allows human injustice to exist in the world in order to make it clear to mankind that they are essentially no better than the beasts. On the other hand, the LXX adopts the nuance “to judge,” while Targum and Vulgate take the nuance “to purge; to purify.” BDB 141 s.v. בָּרַר 4 suggests “to test, prove,” while HALOT 163 s.v. בָּרַר 2 prefers “to select, choose.”

[3:18]  ¹⁷ tn The two infinitives לְבָרָם (lÿvaram, “to make it clear to them”) and וְלִרְאוֹת (vÿlir’ot, “and to show”) function as a verbal hendiadys (the two verbs are associated with one another to communicate a single idea). The first verb functions adverbially and the second retains its full verbal force: “to clearly show them.”