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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 30:20 - 30:20
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
20 I cry to Thee for help, and Thou answerest not;
I stand there, and Thou lookest fixedly at me.
21 Thou changest Thyself to a cruel being towards me,
With the strength of Thy hand Thou makest war upon me.
22 Thou raisest me upon the stormy wind,
Thou causest me to drive along And vanish in the roaring of the storm.
23 For I know: Thou wilt bring me back to death,
Into the house of assembly for all living.
If he cries for help, his cry remains unanswered; if he stands there looking up reverentially to God (perhaps עמד, with מִשַּׁוֵּעַ to be supplied, has the sense of desisting or restraining, as Gen 29:35; Gen 30:9), the troubling, fixed look of God, who looks fixedly and hostilely upon him, anything but ready to help (comp. Job 7:20; Job 16:9), meets his upturned eye. הִתְבֹּנֵן, to look consideringly upon anything, is elsewhere joined with אֶל, עַל, עַד, or even with the acc; here, where a motionless fixed look is intended, with בְּ (= fi). It is impossible to draw the לא, Job 30:20, over to וַתִּתְבֹּנֶן (Jer., Saad., Umbr., Welte, and others), both on account of the Waw consec. (Ew. §351a), and on account of the separation by the new antecedent עָמַדְתִּי. On the reading of two Codd. ותתכנן (“Thou settest Thyself against me”), which Houbigant and Ew. prefer, Rosenm. has correctly pronounced judgment: est potius pro mendo habenda. Instead of consolingly answering his prayer, and instead of showing Himself willing to help, God, who was formerly so kind towards him, changes towards him, His creature, into a cruel being, saevum (אַכְזָר in the book of Job only here and Job 41:2, where it signifies “foolhardy;” comp. לְאֹויֵב in the dependent passage, Isa 63:10), and makes war upon him (שָׂטַם as Job 16:9) by causing him to feel the strength of His omnipotent hand (עֹצֶם יָד as Deu 8:17, synon. חֹזֶק).
It is not necessary in Job 30:22 to forsake the accentuation, and to translate: Thou raisest me up, Thou causest me go in the wind (Ew., Hirz., and others); the accentuation of רוח is indeed not a disjunctive Dechî, but a conjunctive Tarcha, but preceded by Munach, which, according to the rule, Psalter ii. 500, §5, here, where two conjunctives come together, has a smaller conjunctive value. Therefore: elevas me in ventum, equitare facis me, viz., super ventum (Dachselt), for one does not only say הִרְכִּיב עַל, 1Ch 13:7, or לְ, Psa 66:12, but also אֶל, 2Sa 6:3; and accordingly תִּשָּׂאֵנִי אֶל־רוּחַ is also not to be translated: Thou snatchest me into the wind or storm (Hahn, Schlottm.), but: Thou raisest me up to the wind or storm, as upon an animal for riding (Umbr., Olsh.). According to Oriental tradition, Solomon rode upon the east wind, and in Arabic they say of one who hurried rapidly by, racab al-genâhai er-rih, he rides upon the wings of the wind; in the present passage, the point of comparison is the being absolutely passively hurried forth from the enjoyment of a healthy and happy life to a dizzy height, whence a sudden overthrow threatens him who is unwillingly removed (comp. Psa 102:11, Thou hast lifted me up and hurled me forth).
The lot which threatens him from this painful suspense Job expresses (Job 30:22) in the puzzling words: וּתְמֹגְגֵנִי תֻשִׁיָּה. Thus the Keri, after which lxx transl. (if it has not read מִישׁוּעָה), καὶ ἀπέῤῥηιψάς με ἀπὸ σωτηρίας. The modern expositors who follow the Keri, by taking ותמגגני for ותמגג לי (according to Ges. §121, 4), translate: Thou causest counsel and understanding (Welte), happiness (Blumenf.), and the like, to vanish from me; continuance, existence, duration would be better (vid., Job 6:13, and especially on Job 26:3). The thought it appropriate, but the expression is halting. Jerome, who translates valide, points to the correct thing, and Buxtorf (Lex. col. 2342f.) by interpreting the not less puzzling Targum translation in fundamento = funditus or in essentia = essentialiter, has, without intending it, hit upon the idea of the Hebr. Keri; תֻשִׁיָּה is intended as a closer defining, or adverbial, accusative: Thou causest me to vanish as to existence, ita ut tota essentia pereat h.e. totaliter et omnino. Perhaps this was really the meaning of the poet: most completely, most thoroughly, altogether, like the Arab. ḥaqqan. But it is unfavourable to this Keri, that תושׁיה (from the verb וָשַׁי), as might be expected, is always written plene elsewhere; the correction of the תשׁוה is violent, and moreover this form, correctly read, gives a sense far more consistent with the figure, Job 30:22. Ges., Umbr., and Carey falsely read תְּשַׁוָּה, terres me; this verb is unknown in Hebr., and even in Chaldee is only used in Ithpeal, אִשְׁתְּוֵי (= Hebr. חָרֵד); for a similar reason Böttcher's תִּשְׁוָה (which is intended to mean: in despair) is also not to be used. Even Stuhlmann perceived that תשׁוה is equivalent to תְּשׁוּאָה; it is, with Ew. and Olsh., to be read תְּשֻׁוָּה (not with Pareau and Hirz. תְּשֻׁוָה without the Dag.), and this form signifies, as תשׁואה, Job 36:29, from שֹׁוא = שָׁאָה, from which it is derived by change of consonants, the crash of thunder, or even the rumbling or roar as of a storm or a falling in (procellae sive ruinae). The meaning is hardly, that he who rides away upon the stormy wind melts and trickles down like drops of rain among the pealing of the thunder, when the thunder-storm, whose harbinger is the stormy wind, gathers; but that in the storm itself, which increases in fury to the howling of a tempest, he dissolves away. תְּשֻׁוָּה for בִּתְּשֻׁוָּה, comp. Psa 107:26 : their soul melted away (dissolved) בְּרָעָה. The compulsory journey in the air, therefore, passes into nothing or nearly nothing, as Job is well aware, Job 30:23 : “for I know: (without כִּי, as Job 19:25; Ps. 9:21) Thou wilt bring me back to death” (acc. of the goal, or locative without any sign). If תְּשִׁיבֵנִי is taken in its most natural signification reduces, death is represented as essentially one with the dust of death (comp. Job 1:21 with Gen 3:19), or even with non-existence, out of which man is come into being; nevertheless השׁיב can also, by obliterating the notion of return, like redigere, have only the signification of the turn of destiny and change of condition that is effected. The assertion that שׁוּב always includes an “again,” and retains it inexorably (vid., Köhler on Zec 13:7, S. 239), is untenable. In post-biblical Hebrew, at least, it is certain that שׁוּב signifies not only ”to become again,” but also “to become,” as Arab. ‛âd is used as synon. of jâ'in, devenir.
(Note: Vid., my Anekdota der mittelalterlichen Scholastik unter Juden und Moslemen, S. 347.)
With מָוֶת, the designation of the condition, is coupled the designation of the place: Hades (under the notion of which that of the grave is included) is the great involuntary rendezvous of all who live in this world.