Discovery BoxJob 15:1-16
Context15:1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:
15:2 “Does a wise man answer with blustery knowledge, 2
or fill his belly 3 with the east wind? 4
15:3 Does he argue 5 with useless 6 talk,
with words that have no value in them?
15:4 But you even break off 7 piety, 8
and hinder 9 meditation 10 before God.
15:5 Your sin inspires 11 your mouth;
you choose the language 12 of the crafty. 13
15:6 Your own mouth condemns 14 you, not I;
your own lips testify against 15 you.
15:7 “Were you the first man ever born?
Were you brought forth before the hills?
15:8 Do you listen in on God’s secret council? 16
Do you limit 17 wisdom to yourself?
15:9 What do you know that we don’t know?
What do you understand that we don’t understand? 18
15:10 The gray-haired 19 and the aged are on our side, 20
men far older than your father. 21
15:11 Are God’s consolations 22 too trivial for you; 23
or a word spoken 24 in gentleness to you?
15:12 Why 25 has your heart carried you away, 26
and why do your eyes flash, 27
15:13 when you turn your rage 28 against God
and allow such words to escape 29 from your mouth?
15:14 What is man that he should be pure,
or one born of woman, that he should be righteous?
15:15 If God places no trust in his holy ones, 30
if even the heavens 31 are not pure in his eyes,
15:16 how much less man, who is abominable and corrupt, 32
who drinks in evil like water! 33
[15:1] 1 sn In the first round of speeches, Eliphaz had emphasized the moral perfection of God, Bildad his unwavering justice, and Zophar his omniscience. Since this did not bring the expected response from Job, the friends see him as a menace to true religion, and so they intensify their approach. Eliphaz, as dignified as ever, rebukes Job for his arrogance and warns about the judgment the wicked bring on themselves. The speech of Eliphaz falls into three parts: the rebuke of Job for his irreverence (2-6); the analysis of Job’s presumption about wisdom (7-16), and his warning about the fate of the wicked (17-35).
[15:2] 2 tn The Hebrew is דַעַת־רוּחַ (da’at-ruakh). This means knowledge without any content, vain knowledge.
[15:2] 3 tn The image is rather graphic. It is saying that he puffs himself up with the wind and then brings out of his mouth blasts of this wind.
[15:2] 4 tn The word for “east wind,” קָדִים (qadim), is parallel to “spirit/wind” also in Hos 12:2. The east wind is maleficent, but here in the parallelism it is so much hot air.
[15:3] 3 tn The infinitive absolute in this place is functioning either as an explanatory adverb or as a finite verb.
[15:3] 4 tn The verb סָכַן (sakhan) means “to be useful, profitable.” It is found 5 times in the book with this meaning. The Hiphil of יָעַל (ya’al) has the same connotation. E. LipinÃski offers a new meaning on a second root, “incur danger” or “run risks” with words, but this does not fit the parallelism (FO 21 [1980]: 65-82).
[15:4] 4 tn The word פָּרַר (parar) in the Hiphil means “to annul; to frustrate; to destroy; to break,” and this fits the line quite well. The NEB reflects G. R. Driver’s suggestion of an Arabic cognate meaning “to expel; to banish” (“Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 77).
[15:4] 5 tn Heb “fear,” “reverence.”
[15:4] 6 tn The word גָּרַע (gara’) means “to diminish,” regard as insignificant, occasionally with the sense of “pull down” (Deut 4:2; 13:1). It is here that Eliphaz is portraying Job as a menace to the religion of society because they dissuade people from seeking God.
[15:4] 7 tn The word שִׂיחָה (sikhah) is “complaint; cry; meditation.” Job would be influencing people to challenge God and not to meditate before or pray to him.
[15:5] 5 tn The verb אַלֵּף (’allef) has the meaning of “to teach; to instruct,” but it is unlikely that the idea of revealing is intended. If the verb is understood metonymically, then “to inspire; to prompt” will be sufficient. Dahood and others find another root, and render the verb “to increase,” reversing subject and object: “your mouth increases your iniquity.”
[15:5] 7 tn The word means “shrewd; crafty; cunning” (see Gen 3:1). Job uses clever speech that is misleading and destructive.
[15:6] 6 tn The Hiphil of this root means “declare wicked, guilty” (a declarative Hiphil), and so “condemns.”
[15:6] 7 tn The verb עָנָה (’anah) with the ל (lamed) preposition following it means “to testify against.” For Eliphaz, it is enough to listen to Job to condemn him.
[15:8] 7 tn The meaning of סוֹד (sod) is “confidence.” In the context the implication is “secret counsel” of the
[15:8] 8 tn In v. 4 the word meant “limit”; here it has a slightly different sense, namely, “to reserve for oneself.”
[15:9] 8 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] 9 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] 11 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.
[15:11] 10 sn The word תַּנְחֻמוֹת (tankhumot) occurs here and only in Job 21:34. The words of comfort and consolation that they have been offering to Job are here said to be “of God.” But Job will call them miserable comforters (16:2).
[15:11] 11 tn The formula “is it too little for you” or “is it too slight a matter for you” is also found in Isa 7:13 (see GKC 430 §133.c).
[15:11] 12 tn The word “spoken” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation.
[15:12] 11 tn The interrogative מָה (mah) here has the sense of “why?” (see Job 7:21).
[15:12] 12 tn The verb simply means “to take.” The RSV has “carry you away.” E. Dhorme (Job, 212-13) goes further, saying that it implies being unhinged by passion, to be carried away by the passions beyond good sense (pp. 212-13). Pope and Tur-Sinai suggest that the suffix on the verb is datival, and translate it, “What has taken from you your mind?” But the parallelism shows that “your heart” and “your eyes” are subjects.
[15:12] 13 tn Here is another word that occurs only here, and in the absence of a completely convincing suggestion, probably should be left as it is. The verb is רָזַם (razam, “wink, flash”). Targum Job and the Syriac equate it with a verb found in Aramaic and postbiblical Hebrew with the same letters but metathesized – רָמַז (ramaz). It would mean “to make a sign” or “to wink.” Budde, following the LXX probably, has “Why are your eyes lofty?” Others follow an Arabic root meaning “become weak.”
[15:13] 12 tn The Hebrew is רוּחֶךָ (rukhekha, “your spirit” or “your breath”). But the fact that this is turned “against God,” means that it must be given a derived meaning, or a meaning that is metonymical. It is used in the Bible in the sense of anger – what the spirit vents (see Judg 8:3; Prov 16:32; and Job 4:9 with “blast”).
[15:13] 13 tn The verb is a Hiphil perfect of yasa’, “to go out, proceed, issue forth.”
[15:15] 13 tn Eliphaz here reiterates the point made in Job 4:18.
[15:15] 14 sn The question here is whether the reference is to material “heavens” (as in Exod 24:10 and Job 25:5), or to heavenly beings. The latter seems preferable in this context.
[15:16] 14 tn The two descriptions here used are “abominable,” meaning “disgusting” (a Niphal participle with the value of a Latin participle [see GKC 356-57 §116.e]), and “corrupt” (a Niphal participle which occurs only in Pss 14:3 and 53:4), always in a moral sense. On the significance of the first description, see P. Humbert, “Le substantif toáe„ba„ et le verbe táb dans l’Ancien Testament,” ZAW 72 [1960]: 217ff.). On the second word, G. R. Driver suggests from Arabic, “debauched with luxury, corrupt” (“Some Hebrew Words,” JTS 29 [1927/28]: 390-96).
[15:16] 15 sn Man commits evil with the same ease and facility as he drinks in water – freely and in large quantities.
