translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: JOB

label: NET study note

text: 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 ).


text: 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.


text: Man commits evil with the same ease and facility as he drinks in water – freely and in large quantities.


text: Eliphaz probably thinks that Edom was the proverbial home of wisdom, and so the reference here would be to his own people. If, as many interpret, the biblical writer is using these accounts to put Yahwistic ideas into the discussion, then the reference would be to Canaan at the time of the fathers. At any rate, the tradition of wisdom to Eliphaz has not been polluted by foreigners, but has retained its pure and moral nature from antiquity.


text: In the context of these arguments, “darkness” probably refers to calamity, and so the wicked can expect a calamity that is final.


text: The symbol of the outstretched hand is the picture of attempting to strike someone, or shaking a fist at someone; it is a symbol of a challenge or threat (see Isa 5:25; 9:21; 10:4 ).


text: This verse tells us that he is not in any condition to fight, because he is bloated and fat from luxurious living.


text: K&D 11:266 rightly explains that these are not cities that he, the wicked, has destroyed, but that were destroyed by a judgment on wickedness. Accordingly, Eliphaz is saying that the wicked man is willing to risk such a curse in his confidence in his prosperity (see further H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 113).


text: The point is that like the tree the wicked man shows signs of life but produces nothing valuable. The olive tree will have blossoms in the years that it produces no olives, and so eventually drops the blossoms.


text: This may refer to the fire that struck Job (cf. 1:16 ).