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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 18:8 - 18:8
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
8 For he is driven into the net by his own feet,
And he walketh over a snare.
9 The trap holdeth his heel fast,
The noose bindeth him.
10 His snare lieth hidden in the earth,
His nets upon the path;
11 Terrors affright him on every side,
And scare him at every step.
The Pual שֻׁלַּח signifies not merely to be betrayed into, but driven into, like the Piel, Job 30:12, to drive away, and as it is to be translated in the similar passage in the song of Deborah, Jdg 5:15 : “And as Issachar, Barak was driven (i.e., with desire for fighting) behind him down into the valley (the place of meeting under Mount Tabor);” בְּרַגְלָיו, which there signifies, according to Jdg 4:10; Jdg 8:5, ”upon his feet = close behind him,” is here intended of the intermediate cause: by his own feet he is hurried into the net, i.e., against his will, and yet with his own feet he runs into destruction. The same thing is said in Job 18:8; the way on which he complacently wanders up and down (which the Hithp. signifies here) is שְׂבָכָה, lattice-work, here a snare (Arab. schabacah, a net, from שָׂבַךְ, schabaca, to intertwine, weave), and consequently will suddenly break in and bring him to ruin. This fact of delivering himself over to destruction is established in apocopated futt. (Job 18:9) used as praes., and without the voluntative signification in accordance with the poetic licence: a trap catches a heel (poetic brevity for: the trap catches his heel), a noose seizes upon him, עָלָיו (but with the accompanying notion of overpowering him, which the translation “bind” is intended to express). Such is the meaning of צַמִּים here, which is not plur., but sing., from צָמַם (Arab. ḍmm), to tie, and it unites in itself the meanings of snare-layer (Job 5:5) and of snare; the form (as אַבִּיר, אַדִּיר) corresponds more to the former, but does not, however, exclude the latter, as תַּנִּין and לַפִּיד (λαμπάς) show.
The continuation in Job 18:10 of the figure of the fowler affirms that that issue of his life (Job 18:9) has been preparing long beforehand; the prosperity of the evil-doer from the beginning tends towards ruin. Instead of חֶבְלֹו we have the pointing חַבְלֹו, as it would be in Arab. in a similar sense hhabluhu (from hhabl, a cord, a net). The nearer destruction is now to him, the stronger is the hold which his foreboding has over him, since, as Job 18:11 adds, terrible thoughts (בַּלָּהֹות) and terrible apparitions fill him with dismay, and haunt him, following upon his feet. לְרַגְלָיו, close behind him, as Gen 30:30; 1Sa 25:42; Isa 41:2; Hab 3:5. The best authorized pointing of the verb is וֶֽהֱפִיצֻהוּ, with Segol (Ges. §104, 2, c), Chateph-Segol, and Kibbutz. Except in Hab 3:14, where the prophet includes himself with his people, הֵפִיץ, diffundere, dissipare (vid., Job 37:11; Job 40:11), never has a person as its obj. elsewhere. It would also probably not be used, but for the idea that the spectres of terror pursue him at every step, and are now here, now there, and his person is as it were multiplied.