Ayub 29:21

Job’s Reputation

29:21 “People ¹  listened to me and waited silently; ² 

they kept silent for my advice.

Ayub 26:3

26:3 How you have advised the one without wisdom,

and abundantly ³  revealed your insight!

Ayub 3:14

3:14 with kings and counselors of the earth

who built for themselves places now desolate, ⁴ 

Ayub 12:17

12:17 He ⁵  leads ⁶  counselors away stripped ⁷ 

and makes judges ⁸  into fools. ⁹ 

Ayub 15:8

15:8 Do you listen in on God’s secret council? ¹⁰ 

Do you limit ¹¹  wisdom to yourself?

Ayub 5:13

5:13 He catches ¹²  the wise in their own craftiness, ¹³ 

and the counsel of the cunning ¹⁴  is brought to a quick end. ¹⁵ 

Ayub 12:13

12:13 “With God ¹⁶  are wisdom and power;

counsel and understanding are his. ¹⁷ 

Ayub 13:12

13:12 Your maxims ¹⁸  are proverbs of ashes; ¹⁹ 

your defenses ²⁰  are defenses of clay. ²¹ 

Ayub 29:22

29:22 After I had spoken, they did not respond;

my words fell on them drop by drop. ²² 

Ayub 5:27

5:27 Look, we have investigated this, so it is true.

Hear it, ²³  and apply it for your own ²⁴  good.” ²⁵ 

Ayub 27:12

27:12 If you yourselves have all seen this,

Why in the world ²⁶  do you continue this meaningless talk? ²⁷ 

[29:21]  ¹ tn “People” is supplied; the verb is plural.

[29:21]  ² tc The last verb of the first half, “wait, hope,” and the first verb in the second colon, “be silent,” are usually reversed by the commentators (see G. R. Driver, “Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 86). But if “wait” has the idea of being silent as they wait for him to speak, then the second line would say they were silent for the reason of his advice. The reading of the MT is not impossible.

[26:3]  ³ tc The phrase לָרֹב (larov) means “to abundance” or “in a large quantity.” It is also used ironically like all these expressions. This makes very good sense, but some wish to see a closer parallel and so offer emendations. Reiske and Kissane thought “to the tender” for the word. But the timid are not the same as the ignorant and unwise. So Graetz supplied “to the boorish” by reading לְבָעַר (lÿba’ar). G. R. Driver did the same with less of a change: לַבּוֹר (labbor; HTR 29 [1936]: 172).

[3:14]  ⁴ tn The difficult term חֳרָבוֹת (khoravot) is translated “desolate [places]”. The LXX confused the word and translated it “who gloried in their swords.” One would expect a word for monuments, or tombs (T. K. Cheyne emended it to “everlasting tombs” [“More Critical Gleanings in Job,” ExpTim 10 (1898/99): 380-83]). But this difficult word is of uncertain etymology and therefore cannot simply be made to mean “royal tombs.” The verb means “be desolate, solitary.” In Isa 48:21 there is the clear sense of a desert. That is the meaning of Assyrian huribtu. It may be that like the pyramids of Egypt these tombs would have been built in the desert regions. Or it may describe how they rebuilt ruins for themselves. He would be saying then that instead of lying here in pain and shame if he had died he would be with the great ones of the earth. Otherwise, the word could be interpreted as a metonymy of effect, indicating that the once glorious tomb now is desolate. But this does not fit the context – the verse is talking about the state of the great ones after their death.

[12:17]  ⁵ tn The personal pronoun normally present as the subject of the participle is frequently omitted (see GKC 381 §119.s).

[12:17]  ⁶ tn GKC 361-62 §116.x notes that almost as a rule a participle beginning a sentence is continued with a finite verb with or without a ו (vav). Here the participle (“leads”) is followed by an imperfect (“makes fools”) after a ו (vav).

[12:17]  ⁷ tn The word שׁוֹלָל (sholal), from the root שָׁלַל (shalal, “to plunder; to strip”), is an adjective expressing the state (and is in the singular, as if to say, “in the state of one naked” [GKC 375 §118.o]). The word is found in military contexts (see Mic 1:8). It refers to the carrying away of people in nakedness and shame by enemies who plunder (see also Isa 8:1-4). They will go away as slaves and captives, deprived of their outer garments. Some (cf. NAB) suggest “barefoot,” based on the LXX of Mic 1:8; but the meaning of that is uncertain. G. R. Driver wanted to derive the word from an Arabic root “to be mad; to be giddy,” forming a better parallel.

[12:17]  ⁸ sn The judges, like the counselors, are nobles in the cities. God may reverse their lot, either by captivity or by shame, and they cannot resist his power.

[12:17]  ⁹ tn Some translate this “makes mad” as in Isa 44:25, but this gives the wrong connotation today; more likely God shows them to be fools.

[15:8]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ tn In v. 4 the word meant “limit”; here it has a slightly different sense, namely, “to reserve for oneself.”

[5:13]  ¹² tn The participles continue the description of God. Here he captures or ensnares the wise in their wickedly clever plans. See also Ps 7:16, where the wicked are caught in the pit they have dug – they are only wise in their own eyes.

[5:13]  ¹³ sn This is the only quotation from the Book of Job in the NT (although Rom 11:35 seems to reflect 41:11, and Phil 1:19 is similar to 13:6). Paul cites it in 1 Cor 3:19.

[5:13]  ¹⁴ tn The etymology of נִפְתָּלִים (niftalim) suggests a meaning of “twisted” (see Prov 8:8) in the sense of tortuous. See Gen 30:8; Ps 18:26 [27].

[5:13]  ¹⁵ tn The Niphal of מָהַר (mahar) means “to be hasty; to be irresponsible.” The meaning in the line may be understood in this sense: The counsel of the wily is hastened, that is, precipitated before it is ripe, i.e., frustrated (A. B. Davidson, Job, 39).

[12:13]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “him”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[12:13]  ¹⁷ sn A. B. Davidson (Job, 91) says, “These attributes of God’s [sic] confound and bring to nought everything bearing the same name among men.”

[13:12]  ¹⁸ tn The word is זִכְרֹנֵיכֶם (zikhronekhem, “your remembrances”). The word זִכָּרֹן (zikkaron) not only can mean the act of remembering, but also what is remembered – what provokes memory or is worth being remembered. In the plural it can mean all the memorabilia, and in this verse all the sayings and teachings. H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 99) suggests that in Job’s speech it could mean “all your memorized sayings.”

[13:12]  ¹⁹ tn The parallelism of “dust” and “ashes” is fairly frequent in scripture. But “proverbs of ashes” is difficult. The genitive is certainly describing the proverbs; it could be classified as a genitive of apposition, proverbs that are/have become ashes. Ashes represent something that at one time may have been useful, but now has been reduced to what is worthless.

[13:12]  ²⁰ tn There is a division of opinion on the source of this word. Some take it from “answer”, related to Arabic, Aramaic, and Syriac words for “answer,” and so translate it “responses” (JB). Others take it from a word for “back,” with a derived meaning of the “boss” of the shield, and translate it bulwark or “defenses” (NEB, RSV, NIV). The idea of “answers” may fit the parallelism better, but “defenses” can be taken figuratively to refer to verbal defenses.

[13:12]  ²¹ sn Any defense made with clay would crumble on impact.

[29:22]  ²² tn The verb simply means “dropped,” but this means like the rain. So the picture of his words falling on them like the gentle rain, drop by drop, is what is intended (see Deut 32:2).

[5:27]  ²³ tn To make a better parallelism, some commentators have replaced the imperative with another finite verb, “we have found it.”

[5:27]  ²⁴ tn The preposition with the suffix (referred to as the ethical dative) strengthens the imperative. An emphatic personal pronoun also precedes the imperative. The resulting force would be something like “and you had better apply it for your own good!”

[5:27]  ²⁵ sn With this the speech by Eliphaz comes to a close. His two mistakes with it are: (1) that the tone was too cold and (2) the argument did not fit Job’s case (see further, A. B. Davidson, Job, 42).

[27:12]  ²⁶ tn The interrogative uses the demonstrative pronoun in its emphatic position: “Why in the world…?” (IBHS 312-13 §17.4.3c).

[27:12]  ²⁷ tn The text has the noun “vain thing; breath; vapor,” and then a denominative verb from the same root: “to become vain with a vain thing,” or “to do in vain a vain thing.” This is an example of the internal object, or a cognate accusative (see GKC 367 §117.q). The LXX has “you all know that you are adding vanity to vanity.”