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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 15:11 - 15:11
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
11 Are the consolations of God too small for thee,
And a word thus tenderly spoken with thee?
12 What overpowers thy hearts?
And why do thine eyes wink,
13 That thou turnest thy snorting against God,
And sendest forth such words from thy mouth?
By the consolations of God, Eliphaz means the promises in accordance with the majesty and will of God, by which he and the other friends have sought to cheer him, of course presupposing a humble resignation to the just hand of God. By “a word (spoken) in gentleness to him,” he means the gentle tone which they have maintained, while he has passionately opposed them. לָאַט, elsewhere לְאַט (e.g., Isa 8:6, of the softly murmuring and gently flowing Siloah), from אַט (declined, אִטִּי), with the neutral, adverbial לָ (as לָבֶטַה), signifies: with a soft step, gently, The word has no connection with לוּט, לָאַט, to cover over, and is not third praet. (as it is regarded by Raschi, after Chajug): which he has gently said to you, or that which has gently befallen you; in which, as in Fürst's Handwörterbuch, the notions secrete (Jdg 4:21, Targ. בְּרָז, in secret) and leniter are referred to one root. Are these divine consolations, and these so gentle addresses, too small for thee (מעט ממך, opp. 1Ki 19:7), i.e., beneath thy dignity, and unworthy of they notice? What takes away (לקה, auferre, abripere, as frequently) thy heart (here of wounded pride), and why do thine eyes gleam, that thou turnest (הֵשִׁיב, not revertere, but vertere, as freq.) thy ill-humour towards God, and utterest מִלִּין (so here, not מִלִּים) words, which, because they are without meaning and intelligence, are nothing but words? רָזַם, ἅπ. γεγρ., is transposed from רָמַז, to wink, i.e., to make known by gestures and grimaces, - a word which does not occur in biblical, but is very common in post-biblical, Hebrew (e.g., חרשׁ רומז ונרמז, a deaf and dumb person expresses himself and is answered by a language of signs). Modern expositors arbitrarily understand a rolling of the eyes; it is more natural to think of the vibration of the eye-lashes or eye-brows. רוּחַ, Job 15:13, is as in Jdg 8:3; Isa 25:4, comp. Job 13:11, and freq. used of passionate excitement, which is thus expressed because it manifests itself in πνέειν (Act 9:1), and has its rise in the πνεῦμα (Ecc 7:9). Job ought to control this angry spirit, θυμός (Psychol. S. 198); but he allows it to burst forth, and makes even God the object on which he vents his anger in impetuous language. How much better it would be for him, if he would search within himself (Lam 3:39) for the reason of those sufferings which so deprive him of his self-control!