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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 12:17 - 12:17
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
17 He leadeth away counsellors stripped of their robes,
And maketh judges fools.
18 The authority of kings He looseth,
And bindeth their loins with bands.
19 He leadeth away priests stripped of their robes,
And overthroweth those who are firmly established.
20 He removeth the speech of the eloquent,
And taketh away the judgment of the aged.
21 He poureth contempt upon princes,
And maketh loose the girdle of the mighty.
In Job 12:17, Job 12:19, שֹׁולָל is added to מֹולִיךְ as a conditional accusative; the old expositors vary in the rendering of this word; at any rate it does not mean: chained (Targ. on Job 12:17), from שׁלל (שׁרר), which is reduplicated in the word שַׁלְשֶׁלֶת, a chain, a word used in later Hebrew than the language of the Old Testament (שַׁרְשֵׁרָה is the Old Testament word); nor is it: taken as booty, made captive (lxx αἰχμαλώτους; Targ. on Job 12:19, בְּבִזְתָא, in the quality of spoil) = מְשֹׁולָל; but it is a neuter adjective closely allied to the idea of the verb, exutus, not however mente (deprived of sense), but vestibus; not merely barefooted (Hirz., Oehler, with lxx, Mic 1:8, ἀνυπόδετος), which is the meaning of יָחֵף, but: stripped of their clothes with violence (vid., Isa 20:4), stripped in particular of the insignia of their power. He leads them half-naked into captivity, and takes away the judges as fools (יְהֹולֵל, vid., Psychol. S. 292), by destroying not only their power, but the prestige of their position also. We find echoes of this utterance respecting God's paradoxical rule in the world in Isa 40:23; Isa 44:25; and Isaiah's oracle on Egypt, Job 19:11-15, furnishes an illustration in the reality.
It is but too natural to translate Job 12:18 : the bands of kings He looses (after Psa 116:16, למוסרי פתחת, Thou hast loosed my bands); but the relation of the two parts of the verse can then not be this: He unchains and chains kings (Hirz., Ew., Heiligst. Schlottm.), for the fut. consec. וַיֶּאְסֹר requires a contrast that is intimately connected with the context, and not of mere outward form: fetters in which kings have bound others (מלכים, gen. subjectivus) He looses, and binds them in fetters (Raschi), - an explanation which much commends itself, if מוּסַר could only be justified as the construct of מוּסָר by the remark that “the o sinks into u” (Ewald, §213, c). מוּסָר does not once occur in the signification vinculum; but only the plur. מֹוסֵרִים and מֹוסֵרֹות, vincula, accord with the usage of the language, so that even the pointing מֹוסַר proposed by Hirzel is a venture. מוּסַר, however, as constr. of מוּסָר, correction, discipline, rule (i.e., as the domination of punishment, from יסר, castigare), is an equally suitable sense, and is probably connected by the poet with פִּתֵּחַ (a word very familiar to him, Job 30:11; Job 39:5; Job 41:6) on account of its relation both in sound and sense to מֹוסֵרִים (comp. Psa 105:22). The English translation is correct: He looseth the authority of kings. The antithesis is certainly lost, but the thoughts here moreover flow on in synonymous parallelism.
Job 12:19
It is unnecessary to understand כהנים, after 2Sa 8:18, of high officers of state, perhaps privy councillors; such priest-princes as Melchizedek of Salem and Jethro of Midian are meant. אֵיטָנִים, which denotes inexhaustible, perennis, when used of waters, is descriptive of nations as invincible in might, Jer 5:15, and of persons as firmly-rooted and stedfast. נֶֽאֱמָנִים, such as are tested, who are able to speak and counsel what is right at the fitting season, consequently the ready in speech and counsel. The derivation, proposed by Kimchi, from נָאַם, in the sense of diserti, would require the pointing נַֽאֲמָנִים. טַעַם is taste, judgment, tact, which knows what is right and appropriate under the different circumstances of life, 1Sa 25:33. יִקַּח is used exactly as in Hos 4:11. Job 12:21 is repeated verbatim, Psa 107:40; the trilogy, Ps 105-107, particularly Ps 107, is full of passages similar to the second part of Isaiah and the book of Job (vid., Psalter, ii. 117). אֲפִיקִים (only here and Job 41:7) are the strong, from אָפַק, to hold together, especially to concentrate strength on anything. מֵזִיחַ (only here, instead of מֵזַח, not from מָזַח, which is an imaginary root, but from זָחַח, according to Fürst equivalent to זָקַק, to lace, bind) is the girdle with which the garments were fastened and girded up for any great exertion, especially for desperate conflict (Isa 5:27). To make him weak or relaxed, is the same as to deprive of the ability of vigorous, powerful action. Every word is here appropriately used. This tottering relaxed condition is the very opposite of the intensity and energy which belongs to “the strong.” All temporal and spiritual power is subject to God: He gives or takes it away according to His supreme will and pleasure.