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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 31:29 - 31:29
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29 If I rejoiced over the destruction of him who hated me,
And became excited when evil came upon him -
30 Yet I did not allow my palate to sin
By calling down a curse upon his life.
The aposiopesis is here manifest, for Job 31:29 is evidently equal to a solemn denial, to which Job 31:30 is then attached as a simple negative. He did not rejoice at the destruction (פיד, Arab. fêd,
(Note: Gesenius derives the noun פיד from the verb פיד, but the Arabic, which is the test here, has not only the verb fâda as med. u and as med. i in the signification to die, but also in connection with el̇feid (fêd) the substantival form el-fı̂d (= el-môt), which (= fiwd, comp. p. 26, note) is referable to fâda, med. u. Thus Neshwân, who in his Lexicon (vol. ii. fol. 119) even only knows fâda, med. u, in the signif. to die (comp. infra on Job 39:18, note).)
as Job 12:5; Job 30:24) of his enemy who was full of hatred towards him (מְשַׂנְאִי, elsewhere also שׂנְאִי), and was not excited with delight (הִתְעֹרֵר, to excite one's self, a description of emotion, whether it be pleasure, or as Job 17:8, displeasure, as a not merely passive but moral incident) if calamity came upon him, and he did not allow his palate (חֵךְ as the instrument of speech, like Job 6:30) to sin by asking God that he might die as a curse. Love towards an enemy is enjoined by the Thora, Exo 23:4, but it is more or less with a national limitation, Lev 19:18, because the Thora is the law of a people shut out from the rest of the world, and in a state of war against it (according to which Mat 5:43 is to be understood); the books of the Chokma, however (comp. Pro 24:17; Pro 25:21), remove every limit from the love of enemies, and recognise no difference, but enjoin love towards man as man. With Job 31:30 this strophe closes. Among modern expositors, only Arnh. takes in Job 31:31 as belonging to it: “Would not the people of my tent then have said: Would that we had of his flesh?! we have not had enough of it,” i.e., we would eat him up both skin and hair. Of course it does not mean after the manner of cannibals, but figuratively, as Job 19:22; but in a figurative sense “to eat any one's flesh” in Semitic is equivalent to lacerare, vellicare, obtrectare (vid., on Job 19:22, and comp. also Sur. xlix. 12 of the Koran, and Schultens' Erpenius, pp. 592f.), which is not suitable here, as in general this drawing of Job 31:31 to Job 31:29 is in every respect, and especially that of the syntax, inadmissible. It is the duty of beneficence, which Job acknowledges having practised, in Job 31:31.