Job 32:6-10

Elihu Claims Wisdom

32:6 So Elihu son of Barakel the Buzite spoke up: ¹ 

“I am young, ²  but you are elderly;

that is why I was fearful, ³ 

and afraid to explain ⁴  to you what I know.

32:7 I said to myself, ‘Age ⁵  should speak, ⁶ 

and length of years ⁷  should make wisdom known.’

32:8 But it is a spirit in people,

the breath ⁸  of the Almighty,

that makes them understand.

32:9 It is not the aged ⁹  who are wise,

nor old men who understand what is right.

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

I, even I, will explain what I know.’

[32:6]  ¹ tn Heb “answered and said.”

[32:6]  ² tn The text has “small in days.”

[32:6]  ³ tn The verb זָחַלְתִּי (zakhalti) is found only here in the OT, but it is found in a ninth century Aramaic inscription as well as in Biblical Aramaic. It has the meaning “to be timid” (see H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 208).

[32:6]  ⁴ tn The Piel infinitive with the preposition (מֵחַוֹּת, mekhavvot) means “from explaining.” The phrase is the complement: “explain” what Elihu feared.

[32:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “days.”

[32:7]  ⁶ tn The imperfect here is to be classified as an obligatory imperfect.

[32:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “abundance of years.”

[32:8]  ⁸ tn This is the word נְשָׁמָה (nÿshamah, “breath”); according to Gen 2:7 it was breathed into Adam to make him a living person (“soul”). With that divine impartation came this spiritual understanding. Some commentators identify the רוּחַ (ruakh) in the first line as the Spirit of God; this “breath” would then be the human spirit. Whether Elihu knew that much, however, is hard to prove.

[32:9]  ⁹ tn The MT has “the great” or “the many,” meaning great in years according to the parallelism.

[32:10]  ¹⁰ 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.