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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 20:6 - 20:6
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
6 If his aspiration riseth to the heavens,
And he causeth his head to touch the clouds:
7 Like his dung he perisheth for ever;
Those who see him say: Where is he?
8 As a dream he flieth away, and they cannot find him;
And he is scared away as a vision of the night.
9 The eye hath seen him, and never again,
And his place beholdeth him no more.
10 His children must appease the poor,
And his hands give up his wealth.
11 His bones were full of youthful vigour;
Now it is laid down with him in the dust.
If the exaltation of the evil-doer rises to heaven, and he causes his head to reach to the clouds, i.e., to touch the clouds, he notwithstanding perishes like his own dung. We are here reminded of what Obadiah, Job 20:4, says of Edom, and Isaiah, Isa 14:13-15, says of the king of Babylon. שִׂיא is equivalent to נְשִׂיא, like שֹׂוא, Psa 89:10 = נְשֹׂוא; the first weak radical is cast away, as in כִּילַי = נְכִילַי, fraudulentus, machinator, Isa 32:5, and according to Olsh. in שִׁיבָה = יְשִׁיבָה, 2Sa 19:33. הִגִּיעַ is to be understood as causative (at least this is the most natural) in the same manner as in Isa 25:12, and freq. It is unnecessary, with Ew., Hirz., and Hlgst., after Schultens, to transl. כגללו, Job 20:7, according to the Arab. jlâl (whence the name Gelâl-ed-dîn): secundum majestatem suam, or with Reiske to read בגללו, in magnificentia sua, and it is very hazardous, since the Hebrew גלל has not the meaning of Arab. jll, illustrem esse. Even Schultens, in his Commentary, has retracted the explanation commended in his Animadv., and maintained the correctness of the translation, sicut stercus suum (Jer. sicut sterquilinium), which is also favoured by the similar figurative words in 1Ki 14:10 : as one burneth up (not: brushes away) dung (הַגָּלָל), probably cow-dung as fuel, until it is completely gone. גֶּלְלֹו (or גֶּלֲלֹו with an audible Shevâ) may be derived from גָּלָל, but the analogy of צִלְלֹו favours the primary form גֵּל (Ew. §255, b); on no account is it גֵּלֶל. The word is not low, as Eze 4:12, comp. Zep 1:17, shows, and the figure, though revolting, is still very expressive; and how the fulfilment is to be thought of may be seen from an example from 2Ki 9:37, according to which, “as dung upon the face of the field shall it be, so that they cannot say: this is Jezebel.”
(Note: In Arabic, gille (גִּלָּה) and gelle (גַּלָּה) is the usual and preferred fuel (hence used as synon. of hhattab) formed of the dung of cows, and not indeed yoke-oxen (baqar 'ammâle), because they have more solid fodder, which produces no material for the gelle, but from cattle that pasture in the open fields (baqar bat.tâle), which are almost entirely milking cows. This dung is collected by women and children in the spring from the pastures as perfectly dry cakes, which have the green colour of the grass. Every husbandman knows that this kind of dung - the product of a rapid, one might say merely half, digestion, even when fresh, but especially when dry - is perfectly free from smell. What is collected is brought in baskets to the forming or pressing place (mattba'a, מַטְבָּעָה), where it is crumbled, then with water made into a thick mass, and, having been mixed with chopped straw, is formed by the women with the hand into round cakes, about a span across, and three fingers thick. They resemble the tanners' tan-cakes, only they are not square. Since this compound has the form of a loaf it is called qurss (which also signifies a loaf of bread); and since a definite form is given to it by the hand, it is called ttabu' (טַבּוּעַ), collective ttêbâbi', which צְפוּעֵי (צְפִיעֵי), Eze 4:15, resembles in meaning; for ssaf', צפע (cogn. ssafhh, צפח), signifies to beat anything with the palm of the hand. First spread out, then later on piled up, the gelle lies the whole summer in the mattba'a. The domes (qubeb) are not formed until a month before the rainy season, i.e., a circular structure is built up of the cakes skilfully placed one upon another like bricks; it is made from six to eight yards high, gradually narrowed and finished with a vaulted dome, whence this structure has its name, qubbe (קֻבָּה). Below it measures about eight or ten paces, it is always hollow, and is filled from beneath by means of an opening which serves as a door. The outside of the qubbe is plastered over with a thick solution of dung; and this coating, when once dried in the sun, entirely protects the building, which is both storehouse and store, against the winter rains. When they begin to use the fuel, they take from the inside first by means of the doorway, and afterwards (by which time the heavy rains are over) they use up the building itself, removing the upper part first by means of a ladder. By the summer the qubbe has disappeared. Many large households have three or four of these stores. Where walled-in courts are spacious, as is generally the case, they stand within; where not, outside. The communities bordering on the desert, and exposed to attacks from the Arabs, place them close round their villages, which gives them a peculiar appearance. When attacked, the herds are driven behind these buildings, and the peasants make their appearance between them with their javelins. Seetzen reckons the gelle among the seven characteristics of the district of Haurân (Basan).
It appears that Eze 4:12. - where the prophet is allowed the usual cow-dung, the flame of which has no smell whatever, and its ashes, which smoulder for a long time, are as clean as wood ashes, instead of the cakes (גֶּלְלֵי) of human dung - is to be explained according to this custom. My fellow-travellers have frequently roasted mushrooms (futtr) and truffles (faq', פֶּקַע) in the early spring in the glowing ashes of the gelle. On the other hand, it would be an error to infer from this passage that the Semites made use of human dung for fuel; the Semites (including the Nomads) are the most scrupulously particular people respecting cleanliness. According to the above, Zep 1:17 may be explained: “their flesh shall become like dung,” i.e., be burned or destroyed like dung. And also we understand the above passage in the book of Job, “as his heap of dung-cakes shall he be consumed away,” exactly like 1Ki 14:10 : “I will burn (take away) the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man burneth the dung-cakes until they are consumed,” The suff. in כְּגֶלְלֹו refers to the habitation of the evil-doer, above whose grovelling joy the high dome of the dung-cakes rises, which, before one becomes aware of it, has disappeared; and throughout the description of the sudden destruction of the evil-doer, 1Ki 14:8, 1Ki 14:9, the reader must keep the figure of this dome and its disappearing before his mind. If it be objected that by such a rendering כִּגְלָלָיו would be expected, 1Ki 14:10 shows that גָּלָל (גֵּל) was also used as a collective, and the Arabic gelle is never used in any other way, which is the more remarkable, as one from the first regards its termination as the “Arab. t of unity.” My attendants on my journey from Damascus (where there is no gelle, and consequently the word is not used) always took it so, and formed the plural gellât and the collective gilel, and were always laughed at and corrected: say Arab. aqrâts jllt or tbâbî' jllt! - Wetzst.)
The continuation here, Job 20:7, is just the same: they who saw him (partic. of what is past, Ges. §134, 1) say: where is he? As a dream he flieth away, so that he is not found, and is scared away (יֻדַּד Hoph., not יִדַּד Kal) as a vision of the night (חִזָּיֹון everywhere in the book of Job instead of חָזֹון, from which it perhaps differs, as visum from visio), which one banishes on waking as a trick of his fancy (comp. Psa 73:20; Isa 29:7.). Eyes looked upon him (שָׁזַף only in the book of Job in this signification of a fixed scorching look, cogn. שָׁדַף, adurere, as is manifest from Son 1:6), and do it no more; and his place (מְקֹומֹו construed as fem., as Gen 18:24; 2Sa 17:12, Cheth.) shall not henceforth regard him (שׁוּר, especially frequent in the book of Job, prop. to go about, cogn. תור, then to look about one). The futt. here everywhere describe what shall meet the evil-doer. Therefore Ewald's transl., “his fists smote down the weak,” cannot be received. Moreover, חָפְנָיו, which must then be read instead of בָּנָין, does not occur elsewhere in this athletic signification; and it is quite unnecessary to derive יְרַצּוּ from a רִצָּה = רִצַּץ (to crush, to hurl to the ground), or to change it to יָרֹצּוּ (Schnurrer) or יְרַצְּצוּ (Olsh.); for although the thought, filios ejus vexabunt egeni (lxx according to the reading θλάσειαν, and Targ. according to the reading יְרַֽעֲעוּן), is not unsuitable for Job 20:10, a sense more natural in connection with the position of bnyw, and still more pleasing, is gained if רִצָּה is taken in the usual signification: to conciliate, appease, as the Targ. according to the reading יְרַעוּן (Peschito-word for ἀποκαταλλάσσειν), and Ges., Vaih., Schlottm., and others, after Aben-Ezra, Ralbag, Merc.: filii ejus placabunt tenues, quos scilicet eorum pater diripuerat, vel eo inopiae adigentur, ut pauperibus sese adjungere et ab illis inire gratiam cognantur. Its retributive relation to Job 20:19 is also retained by this rendering. The children of the unfeeling oppressor of the poor will be obliged, when the tyrant is dead, to conciliate the destitute; and his hands, by means of his children, will be obliged to give back his property, i.e., to those whom his covetousness had brought to beggary (אֹון, exertion, strength, Job 18:7, then as hown, and synon. חַיִל, wealth, prob. from the radical meaning to breathe, which is differently applied in the Arabic aun, rest, and haun, lightness). Carey thinks that the description is retrospective: even he himself, in his lifetime, which, however, does not commend itself, since here it is throughout the deceased who is spoken of. As in Job 20:9, so now in Job 20:11 also, perf. and fut. interchange, the former of the past, the latter of the future. Jerome, by an amalgamation of two distinct radical significations, translates: ossa ejus implebuntur (it should be impleta erant) vitiis adolescentiae ejus, which is to be rejected, because עָלוּם, Psa 90:8, is indeed intended of secret sin, but signifies generally that which is secret (veiled). On the contrary, עֲלוּמִים, Job 33:25, certainly signifies adolescentia (Arab. gulûmat), and is accordingly, after lxx, Targ., and Syr., to be translated: his bones were full of youthful vigour. In Job 20:11, תִּשְׁכָּב, as Job 14:19, can refer to the purely plural עַצְמֹותָיו, but the predicate belonging to it would then be plur. in Job 20:11, and sing. in Job 20:11; on which account the reference to עֲלוּמָו, which is in itself far more suitable, is to be preferred (Hirz., Schlottm.): his youthful vigour, on which he relied, lies with him in the dust (of the grave).