Job 12:7

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.

Job 21:31

21:31 No one denounces his conduct to his face;

no one repays him for what ³  he has done. ⁴ 

Job 33:23

33:23 If there is an angel beside him,

one mediator ⁵  out of a thousand,

to tell a person what constitutes his uprightness; ⁶ 

[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).

[21:31]  ³ tn The expression “and he has done” is taken here to mean “what he has done.”

[21:31]  ⁴ tn Heb “Who declares his way to his face? // Who repays him for what he has done?” These rhetorical questions, which expect a negative answer (“No one!”) have been translated as indicative statements to bring out their force clearly.

[33:23]  ⁵ sn The verse is describing the way God can preserve someone from dying by sending a messenger (translated here as “angel”), who could be human or angelic. This messenger will interpret/mediate God’s will. By “one … out of a thousand” Elihu could have meant either that one of the thousands of messengers at God’s disposal might be sent or that the messenger would be unique (see Eccl 7:28; and cp. Job 9:3).

[33:23]  ⁶ tn This is a smoother reading. The MT has “to tell to a man his uprightness,” to reveal what is right for him. The LXX translated this word “duty”; the choice is adopted by some commentaries. However, that is too far from the text, which indicates that the angel/messenger is to call the person to uprightness.