Job 6:30

6:30 Is there any falsehood ¹  on my lips?

Can my mouth ²  not discern evil things? ³ 

Job 12:11

12:11 Does not the ear test words,

as ⁴  the tongue ⁵  tastes food? ⁶ 

Job 12:1

Job’s Reply to Zophar ⁷ 

12:1 Then Job answered:

Colossians 2:15

2:15 Disarming ⁸  the rulers and authorities, he has made a public disgrace of them, triumphing over them by the cross. ⁹ 

Hebrews 5:14

5:14 But solid food is for the mature, whose perceptions are trained by practice to discern both good and evil.

[6:30]  ¹ tn The word עַוְלָה (’avlah) is repeated from the last verse. Here the focus is clearly on wickedness or injustice spoken.

[6:30]  ² tn Heb “my palate.” Here “palate” is used not so much for the organ of speech (by metonymy) as of discernment. In other words, what he says indicates what he thinks.

[6:30]  ³ tn The final word, הַוּוֹת (havvot) is usually understood as “calamities.” He would be asking if he could not discern his misfortune. But some argue that the word has to be understood in the parallelism to “wickedness” of words (D. J. A. Clines, Job [WBC], 162). Gordis connects it to Mic 7:3 and Ps 5:10 [9] where the meaning “deceit, falsehood” is found. The LXX has “and does not my throat meditate understanding?”

[12:11]  ⁴ tn The ו (vav) introduces the comparison here (see 5:7; 11:12); see GKC 499 §161.a.

[12:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “the palate.”

[12:11]  ⁶ tn The final preposition with its suffix is to be understood as a pleonastic dativus ethicus and not translated (see GKC 439 §135.i).

[12:1]  ⁷ sn This long speech of Job falls into three parts: in 12:2-25 Job expresses his resentment at his friends’ attitude of superiority and acknowledges the wisdom of God; then, in 13:1-28 Job expresses his determination to reason with God, expresses his scorn for his friends’ advice, and demands to know what his sins are; and finally, in 14:1-22 Job laments the brevity of life and the finality of death.

[2:15]  ⁸ tn See BDAG 100 s.v. ἀπεκδύομαι 2.

[2:15]  ⁹ tn The antecedent of the Greek pronoun αὐτῷ (autw) could either be “Christ” or the “cross.” There are several reasons for choosing “the cross” as the antecedent for αὐτῷ in verse 15: (1) The nearest antecedent is τῷ σταυρῷ (tw staurw) in v. 14; (2) the idea of ἐδειγμάτισεν ἐν παρρησία (edeigmatisen en parrhsia, “made a public disgrace”) seems to be more in keeping with the idea of the cross; (3) a reference to Christ seems to miss the irony involved in the idea of triumph – the whole point is that where one would expect defeat, there came the victory; (4) if Christ is the subject of the participles in v. 15 then almost certainly the cross is the referent for αὐτῷ. Thus the best solution is to see αὐτῷ as a reference to the cross and the preposition ἐν (en) indicating “means” (i.e., by means of the cross) or possibly (though less likely) location (on the cross).