Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 12:4 - 12:4

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 12:4 - 12:4


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

4 I must be a mockery to my own friend,

I who called on Eloah and He heard me;

A mockery - the just, the godly man.

5 Contempt belongs to misfortune, according to the ideas of the prosperous;

It awaits those who are ready to slip.

6 Tents of the destroyer remain in peace,

And those that defy God are prosperous,

Who taketh Eloah into his hand.

The synallage of לְרֵעֵהוּ for לְרֵעִי is not nearly so difficult as many others: a laughing-stock to his own friend; comp. Isa 2:8, they worship the work of their (his) own hands (ידיו). “One who called on Eloah (לֶֽאֱלֹוהַּ, for which לֵאלֹוהַּ is found in lxx at Job 36:2) and He heard him” is in apposition to the subject; likewise תמים צדיק, which is to be explained according to Pro 11:5, צדיק (from צדק, Arab. ṣdq, to be hard, firm, stiff, straight), is one who in his conduct rules himself strictly according to the will of God; תמים, one whose thoughts are in all respects and without disguise what they should be-in one word: pure. Most old translators (Targ., Vulg., Luther) give לַפִּיד the signification, a torch. Thus e.g., Levi v. Gerson explains: “According to the view of the prosperous and carnally secure, he who is ready for falterings of the feet, i.e., likely to fall, is like a lighted torch which burns away and destroys whatever comes in contact with it, and therefore one keeps aloof from him; but it is also more than this: he is an object of contempt in their eyes.” Job might not inappropriately say, that in the eyes of the prosperous he is like a despised, cast-away torch (comp. the similar figure, Isa 14:19, like a branch that is rejected with contempt); and Job 12:5 would be suitably connected with this if לְמֹועֲדִי could be derived from a substantive מֹעַד, vacillatio, but neither the usage of the language nor the scriptio plena (after which Jerome translates tempus statutum, and consequently has in mind the מועדים, times of festal pilgrimages, which are also called רְרָלִים in later times), nor the vowel pointing (instead of which מָֽעֳדֵי would be expected), is favourable to this. רגל מועדי signifies vacillantes pede, those whose prosperity is shaken, and who are in danger of destruction that is near at hand. We therefore, like Abenezra and modern expositors, who are here happily agreed, take לפיד as composed of ל and פִּיד, a word common to the books of Job (Job 30:24; Job 31:29) and Proverbs (ch. Pro 24:22), which is compared by the Jewish lexicographers, according both to form and meaning, to כִּיד (Job 21:20) and אֵיד, and perhaps signifies originally dissolution (comp. פדה), decease (Syr. f'jodo, escape; Arab. faid, dying), fall, then generally calamity, misfortune: contempt (befits) misfortune, according to the thoughts (or thinking), idea of the prosperous. The pointing wavers between לְעַשְׁתֹּות and the more authorized לְעַשְׁתּוּת, with which Parchon compares the nouns עַבְדוּת and מַרְדּוּת; the ת, like ד in the latter word, has Dag. lene, since the punctuation is in this respect not quite consistent, or follows laws at present unknown (comp. Ges. §21, rem. 2). Job 12:5 is now suitably connected: ready (with reference to בוז) for those who stumble, i.e., contempt certainly awaits such, it is ready and waiting for them, נָכֹון, ἕτοιμος, like Exo 34:2.

While the unfortunate, in spite of his innocence, has thus only to expect contempt, the tents, i.e., dwellings and possessions, of the oppressor and the marauder remain in prosperity; יִשְׁלָיוּ for יִשְׁלוּ, an intensive form used not only in pause (Psa 36:8; comp. Deu 32:37) and with greater distinctives (Num 34:6; Psa 122:6), but also in passages where it receives no such accent (Psa 36:9; Psa 57:2; Psa 73:2). On אֹהָלִים, instead of אֳהָלִים, vid., Ges. §93, 6, 3. The verbal clause (Job 12:6) is followed by a substantival clause (Job 12:6). בַּטֻּחֹות is an abstract plural from בַּטּוּחַ, perfectly secure; therefore: the most care-less security is the portion of those who provoke God (lxx περοργίζουσι);

(Note: Luther takes בטחות as the adverb to מרגיזי: und toben wider Gott thürstiglich (vid., Vilmar, Pastoraltheolog. Blätter, 1861, S. 110-112); according to the Vulg., et audacter provocant Deum.)

and this is continued in an individualizing form: him who causes Eloah to go into his hand. Seb. Schmid explains this passage in the main correctly: qui Deum in manu fert h.e. qui manum aut potentiam suam pro Deo habet et licitum sibi putat quodlibet; comp. Hab 1:11 : “this his strength becomes God to him,” i.e., he deifies his own power, and puts it in the place of God. But הֵבִיא signifies, in this connection with לְיָדֹו (not בידו), neither to carry, nor to lead (Gesenius, who compares Psa 74:5, where, however, it signifies to cause to go into = to strike into); it must be translated: he who causes Eloah to enter into his hand; from which translation it is clear that not the deification of the hand, but of that which is taken into the hand, is meant. This which is taken into the hand is not, however, an idol (Abenezra), but the sword; therefore: him who thinks after the manner of Lamech,

(Note: [Comp Pentateuch, at Gen 4:25, Clark's Foreign Theological Library. - Tr.])

as he takes the iron weapon of attack and defence into his hand, that he needs no other God.