Discovery BoxLuke 16:14
Context16:14 The Pharisees 1 (who loved money) heard all this and ridiculed 2 him.
Job 12:4
Context12:4 I am 3 a laughingstock 4 to my friends, 5
I, who called on God and whom he answered 6 –
a righteous and blameless 7 man
is a laughingstock!
Job 17:2
Context17:2 Surely mockery 8 is with me; 9
my eyes must dwell on their hostility. 10
Psalms 22:7
Context22:7 All who see me taunt 11 me;
they mock me 12 and shake their heads. 13
Isaiah 53:3
Context53:3 He was despised and rejected by people, 14
one who experienced pain and was acquainted with illness;
people hid their faces from him; 15
he was despised, and we considered him insignificant. 16
[16:14] 1 sn See the note on Pharisees in 5:17.
[16:14] 2 tn A figurative extension of the literal meaning “to turn one’s nose up at someone”; here “ridicule, sneer at, show contempt for” (L&N 33.409).
[12:4] 3 tn Some are troubled by the disharmony with “I am” and “to his friend.” Even though the difficulty is not insurmountable, some have emended the text. Some simply changed the verb to “he is,” which was not very compelling. C. D. Isbell argued that אֶהְיֶה (’ehyeh, “I am”) is an orthographic variant of יִהְיֶה (yihyeh, “he will”) – “a person who does not know these things would be a laughingstock” (JANESCU 37 [1978]: 227-36). G. R. Driver suggests the meaning of the MT is something like “(One that is) a mockery to his friend I am to be.”
[12:4] 4 tn The word simply means “laughter”; but it can also mean the object of laughter (see Jer 20:7). The LXX jumps from one “laughter” to the next, eliminating everything in between, presumably due to haplography.
[12:4] 5 tn Heb “his friend.” A number of English versions (e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT) take this collectively, “to my friends.”
[12:4] 6 tn Heb “one calling to God and he answered him.” H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 92) contends that because Job has been saying that God is not answering him, these words must be part of the derisive words of his friends.
[12:4] 7 tn The two words, צַדִּיק תָּמִים (tsadiq tamim), could be understood as a hendiadys (= “blamelessly just”) following W. G. E. Watson (Classical Hebrew Poetry, 327).
[17:2] 8 tn The noun is the abstract noun, “mockery.” It indicates that he is the object of derision. But many commentators either change the word to “mockers” (Tur-Sinai, NEB), or argue that the form in the text is a form of the participle (Gordis).
[17:2] 9 tn E. Dhorme (Job, 243) interprets the preposition to mean “aimed at me.”
[17:2] 10 tn The meaning of הַמְּרוֹתָם (hammÿrotam) is unclear, and the versions offer no help. If the MT is correct, it would probably be connected to מָרָה (marah, “to be rebellious”) and the derived form something like “hostility; provocation.” But some commentators suggest it should be related to מָרֹרוֹת (marorot, “bitter things”). Others have changed both the noun and the verb to obtain something like “My eye is weary of their contentiousness” (Holscher), or mine eyes are wearied by your stream of peevish complaints” (G. R. Driver, “Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 78). There is no alternative suggestion that is compelling.
[22:7] 11 tn Or “scoff at, deride, mock.”
[22:7] 12 tn Heb “they separate with a lip.” Apparently this refers to their verbal taunting.
[22:7] 13 sn Shake their heads. Apparently this refers to a taunting gesture. See also Job 16:4; Ps 109:25; Lam 2:15.
[53:3] 14 tn Heb “lacking of men.” If the genitive is taken as specifying (“lacking with respect to men”), then the idea is that he lacked company because he was rejected by people. Another option is to take the genitive as indicating genus or larger class (i.e., “one lacking among men”). In this case one could translate, “he was a transient” (cf. the use of חָדֵל [khadel] in Ps 39:5 HT [39:4 ET]).
[53:3] 15 tn Heb “like a hiding of the face from him,” i.e., “like one before whom the face is hidden” (see BDB 712 s.v. מַסְתֵּר).
[53:3] 16 sn The servant is likened to a seriously ill person who is shunned by others because of his horrible disease.
