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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 26:1 - 26:1
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
1 Then Job began, and said:
2 How has thou helped him that is without power,
Raised the arm that hath no strength!
3 How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom,
And fully declared the essence of the matter!
4 To whom hast thou uttered words,
And whose breath proceeded from thee?
Bildad is the person addressed, and the exclamations in Job 26:2, Job 26:3 are ironical: how thy speech contains nothing whatever that might help me, the supposedly feeble one, in conquering my affliction and my temptation; me, the supposedly ignorant one, in comprehending man's mysterious lot, and mine! לְלֹא־כֹחַ, according to the idea, is only equivalent to כח לו (אין) לאשׁר לא, and זְרֹועַ לֹא־עֹז equivalent to זרוע בלא־עז (לא עז לו); the former is the abstr. pro concreto, the latter the genitival connection - the arm of the no-power, i.e., powerless (Ges. §152, 1). The powerless one is Job himself, not God (Merc., Schlottm.), as even the choice of the verbs, Job 26:2, Job 26:3, shows. Respecting תּוּשִׁיָּה, which we have translated essentiality, duration, completion, we said, on Job 5:12, that it is formed from יֵשׁ (vid., Pro 8:21), not directly indeed, but by means of a verb וָשַׁי brev a fo (וָשָׁה), in the signification subsistere (comp. Arab. kân, and Syriac קום);
(Note: Comp. also Spiegel, Grammatik der Huzväresch-Sprache, S. 103.)
it is a Hophal-formation (like תּוּגָה), and signifies, so to speak, durability, subsistentia, substantia, ὑπόστασις, so that the comparison of ושׁי with אשׁשׁ, Arab. 'ss (whence אָשִׁישׁ, Arab. ası̂s, asâs, etc., fundamentum) is forced upon one, and the relationship to the Sanskrit as (asmi = εἰμὶ) can remain undecided. The observation of J. D. Michaelis
(Note: Against the comparison of the Arab. wâsâ, solari, by Michaelis, Ges., and others (who assume the primary significations solatium, auxilium), Lagarde (Anmerkungen zur griech. Uebersetzung der Proverbien, 1863, S. 57f.) correctly remarks that Arab. wâsâ, is only a change of letters of the common language for Arab. âsâ; but Arab. wâšâ, to finish painting (whence Arab. twšyt, decoration), or ושׁה as a transposition from שׁוה, to be level, simple (Hitzig on Pro 3:21), leads to no suitable sense.)
to the contrary, Supplem. p. 1167: non placent in linguis ejusmodi etyma metaphysica nimis a vulgari sensu remota; philosophi in scholis ejusmodi vocabula condunt, non plebs, is removed by the consideration that תושׁיה, which out of Prov. and Job occurs only in Isa 28:29, Mich. Job 6:9, is a Chokma-word: it signifies here, as frequently, vera et realis sapientia (J. H. Michaelis). The speech of Bildad is a proof of poverty of thought, of which he himself gives the evidence. His words - such is the thought of Job 26:4 - are altogether inappropriate, inasmuch as they have no reference whatever to the chief point of Job's speech; and they are, moreover, not his own, but the suggestion of another, and that not God, but Eliphaz, from whom Bildad has borrowed the substance of his brief declamation. Since this is the meaning of Job 26:4, it might seem as though אֶת־מִי were intended to signify by whose assistance (Arnh., Hahn); but as the poet also, in Job 31:37, comp. Eze 43:10, uses הִגִּיד seq. acc., in the sense of explaining anything to any one, to instruct him concerning anything, it is to be interpreted: to whom hast thou divulged the words (lxx, τίνι ἀνήγγειλας ῥήματα), i.e., thinking and designing thereby to affect him?
In what follows, Job now continues the description of God's exalted rule, which Bildad had attempted, by tracing it through every department of creation; and thus proves by fact, that he is wanting neither in a recognition nor reverence of God the almighty Ruler.