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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 31:13 - 31:13
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
13 If I despised the cause of my servant and my maid,
When they contended with me:
14 What should I do, if God should rise up,
And if He should make search, what should I answer Him?
15 Hath not He who formed me in the womb formed him also,
And hath not One fashioned us in the belly?
It might happen, as Job 31:13 assumes, that his servant or his maid (אָמָה, Arab. amatun, denotes a maid who is not necessarily a slave, ‛abde, as Job 19:15, whereas שִׁפְחָה does not occur in the book) contended with him, and in fact so that they on their part began the dispute (for, as the Talmud correctly points out, it is not בְּרִיבִי עִמָּם, but בְּרִיבָם עִמָּדִי), but he did not then treat them as a despot; they were not accounted as res but personae by him, he allowed them to maintain their personal right in opposition to him. Christopher Scultetus observes here: Gentiles quidem non concedebant jus servo contra dominum, cui etiam vitae necisque potestas in ipsum erat; sed Iob amore justitiae libere se demisit, ut vel per alios judices aut arbitros litem talem curaret decidi vel sibi ipsi sit moderatus, ut juste pronuntiaret. If he were one who despised (אֶמְאַס not מָאַסְתִּי) his servants' cause: what should he do if God arose and entered into judgment; and if He should appoint an examination (thus Hahn correctly, for the conclusion shows that פקד is here a synon. of בחן Psa 17:3, and חקר Psa 44:22, Arab. fqd, V, VIII, accurate inspicere), what should he answer?
Job 31:15
The same manner of birth, by the same divine creative power and the same human agency, makes both master and servant substantially brethren with equal claims: Has not He who brought me forth in my mother's womb (also) brought forth him (this my servant or my maid), and has not One fashioned us in our mother's belly? אֶחָד, unus, viz., God, is the subj., as Mal 2:10, אֶחָד (אָב) אֵל (for the thought comp. Eph 6:9), as it is also translated by the Targ., Jer., Saad., and Gecat.; whereas the lxx (ἐν τῇ αὐτῇ κοιλίᾳ), Syr., Symm. (as it appears from his translation ἐν ὁμοίῳ τρόπῳ), construe אחד as the adj. to בָּרֶחֶם, which is also the idea of the accentuation (Rebia mugrasch, Mercha, Silluk). On the other hand, it has been observed (also Norzi) that it ought to be הָאֶסחד according to this meaning; but it was not absolutely necessary, vid., Ges. §111, 2, b. אחד also would not be unsuitable in this combination; it would, as e.g., in אחד חלום, not affirm identity of number, but of character. But אחד is far more significant, and as the final word of the strophe more expressive, when referred to God. The form וַיְכוּנֶנּוּ is to be judged of just like וַתִּמוּגֵנוּ, Isa 54:6; either they are forms of an exceptionally transitive (as שׁוּב, Psa 85:5, and in שׁוב שׁבות) use of the Kal of these verbs (vid., e.g., Parchon and Kimchi), or they are syncopated forms of the Pilel for וַיְכֹנְנֶנּוּ, וַתְּמֹגְגֵנוּ, syncopated on account of the same letters coming together, especially in ויכנננו (Ew. §81, a, and most others); but this coincidence is sought elsewhere (e.g., Psa 50:23; Pro 1:28), and not avoided in this manner (e.g., Psa 119:73). Beside this syncope וַיְכוּנֶנּוּ might also be expected, while according to express testimony the first Nun is raphatum: we therefore prefer to derive these forms from Kal, without regarding them, with Olsh., as errors in writing. The suff. is rightly taken by lxx, Targ., Abulwalid, and almost all expositors,
(Note: Also in the Jerusalem Talmud, where R. Johanan, eating nothing which he did not also share with his slave, refers to these words of Job. Comp. also the story from the Midrash in Guiseppe Levi's Parabeln Legenden und Ged. aus Thalmud und Midrasch, S. 141 (Germ. transl. 1863): The wife of R. Jose began a dispute with her maid. Her husband came up and asked the cause, and when he saw that his wife was in the wrong, told her so in the presence of the maid. The wife said in a rage: Thou sayest I am wrong in the presence of my maid? The Rabbi answered: I do as Job did.)
not as singular (ennu = êhu), but as plural (ennu = ênu); The Babylonian school pointed וַיְכוּנֵנוּ, like ממנו where it signifies a nobis, מִמֵּנוּ (Psalter ii. 459, and further information in Pinsker's works, Zur Geschichte des Karaismus, and Ueber das sogen. assyrische Punktationssystem). Therefore: One, i.e., one and the same God, has fashioned us in the womb without our co-operation, in an equally animal way, which smites down all pride, in like absolute conditionedness.