Job 15:7-16

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? ¹ 

Do you limit ²  wisdom to yourself?

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

What do you understand that we don’t understand? ³ 

15:10 The gray-haired ⁴  and the aged are on our side, ⁵ 

men far older than your father. ⁶ 

15:11 Are God’s consolations ⁷  too trivial for you; ⁸ 

or a word spoken ⁹  in gentleness to you?

15:12 Why ¹⁰  has your heart carried you away, ¹¹ 

and why do your eyes flash, ¹² 

15:13 when you turn your rage ¹³  against God

and allow such words to escape ¹⁴  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, ¹⁵ 

if even the heavens ¹⁶  are not pure in his eyes,

15:16 how much less man, who is abominable and corrupt, ¹⁷ 

who drinks in evil like water! ¹⁸ 

[15:8]  ¹ tn The meaning of סוֹד (sod) is “confidence.” In the context the implication is “secret counsel” of the Lord God (see Jer 23:18). It is a question of confidence on the part of God, that only wisdom can know (see Prov 8:30,31). Job seemed to them to claim to have access to the mind of God.

[15:8]  ² tn In v. 4 the word meant “limit”; here it has a slightly different sense, namely, “to reserve for oneself.”

[15:9]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn Heb “with us.”

[15:10]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn The word “spoken” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation.

[15:12]  ¹⁰ tn The interrogative מָה (mah) here has the sense of “why?” (see Job 7:21).

[15:12]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ tn The verb is a Hiphil perfect of yasa’, “to go out, proceed, issue forth.”

[15:15]  ¹⁵ tn Eliphaz here reiterates the point made in Job 4:18.

[15:15]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ sn Man commits evil with the same ease and facility as he drinks in water – freely and in large quantities.