translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: JOB

label: NET study note

text: The interrogative is used to express what is an impossibility.


text: The point of Job’s rhetorical question is that man cannot be justified as against God, because God is too powerful and too clever – he controls the universe. He is discussing now the question that Eliphaz raised in 4:17 . Peake observes that Job is raising the question of whether something is right because God says it is right, or that God declares it right because it is right.


text: The words אַמִּיץ (’ ammits ) and כֹּחַ ( koakh ) are synonyms, the first meaning “sturdy; mighty; robust,” and the second “strength.” It too can be interpreted as a genitive of specification – God is mighty with respect to his power. But that comes close to expressing a superlative idea (like “song of songs” or “anger of his wrath”).


text: This line beginning with the relative pronoun can either be read as a parallel description of God, or it can be subordinated by the relative pronoun to the first (“they do not know who overturned them”).


text: Shakes the earth out of its place probably refers to earthquakes, although some commentators protest against this in view of the idea of the pillars. In the ancient world the poetical view of the earth is that it was a structure on pillars, with water around it and under it. In an earthquake the pillars were shaken, and the earth moved.


text: The Hebrew has עָשׁ (’ ash ), although in 38:32 it is עַיִשׁ (’ ayish ). This has been suggested to be Aldebaran, a star in the constellation Taurus, but there have been many other suggestions put forward by the commentaries.


text: There is more certainty for the understanding of this word as Orion , even though there is some overlap of the usage of the words in the Bible. In classical literature we have the same stereotypical reference to these three (see E. Dhorme, Job , 131).


text: The identification of this as the Pleiades is accepted by most (the Vulgate has “Hyades”). In classical Greek mythology, the seven Pleiades were seven sisters of the Hyades who were pursued by Orion until they were changed into stars by Zeus. The Greek myth is probably derived from an older Semitic myth.


text: Like the mountains, Job knows that God has passed by and caused him to shake and tremble, but he cannot understand or perceive the reasons.


text: The meaning of the line is that God’s anger will continue until it has accomplished its purpose ( 23:13-14 ).


text: “Rahab” is not to be confused with the harlot of the same name from Jericho. “Rahab” is identified with Tiamat of the Babylonian creation epic, or Leviathan of the Canaanite myths. It is also used in parallelism to the sea ( 26:12 ), or the Red Sea ( Ps 74:13 ), and so comes to symbolize Egypt ( Isa 30:7 ). In the Babylonian Creation Epic there is reference to the helpers of Tiamat. In the Bible the reference is only to the raging sea, which the Lord controlled at creation.


text: In a legal controversy with God it would be essential to choose the correct words very carefully (humanly speaking); but the calmness and presence of mind to do that would be shattered by the overwhelming terror of God’s presence.


text: The idea of “answer” in this line is that of responding to the summons, i.e., appearing in court. This preterite and the perfect before it have the nuance of hypothetical perfects since they are in conditional clauses (GKC 330 §111. x ). D. J. A. Clines ( Job [WBC], 219) translates literally, “If I should call and he should answer.”


text: The meaning of the word is “to satiate; to fill,” as in “drink to the full, be satisfied.” Job is satiated – in the negative sense – with bitterness. There is no room for more.


text: This bold anthropomorphism means that by his treatment of the despair of the innocent, God is in essence mocking them.


text: Job uses this word to refute Eliphaz; cf. 4:7 .


text: The details of the verse are not easy to explain, but the meaning of the whole verse seems to be about the miscarriage of justice in the courts and the failure of God to do anything about it.


text: That these words are strong, if not wild, is undeniable. But Job is only taking the implications of his friends’ speeches to their logical conclusion – if God dispenses justice in the world, and there is no justice, then God is behind it all. The LXX omitted these words, perhaps out of reverence for God.


text: Job returns to the thought of the brevity of his life ( 7:6 ). But now the figure is the swift runner instead of the weaver’s shuttle.


text: See Job 7:15 ; see also the translation by G. Perles, “I tremble in every nerve” (“The Fourteenth Edition of Gesenius-Buhl’s Dictionary,” JQR 18 [1905/06]: 383-90).


text: A. B. Davidson ( Job , 73) appropriately notes that Job’s afflictions were the proof of his guilt in the estimation of God. If God held him innocent, he would remove the afflictions.


text: The idiom of “lay his hand on the two of us” may come from a custom of a judge putting his hands on the two in order to show that he is taking them both under his jurisdiction. The expression can also be used for protection (see Ps 139:5 ). Job, however, has a problem in that the other party is God, who himself will be arbiter in judgment.


text: The “rod” is a symbol of the power of God to decree whatever judgments and afflictions fall upon people.