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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 31:5 - 31:5
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
5 If I had intercourse with falsehood,
And my foot hastened after deceit:
6 Let Him weigh me in the balances of justice,
And let Eloah know my innocence.
7 If my steps turned aside from the way,
And my heart followed mine eyes,
And any spot hath cleaved to my hands:
8 May I sow and another eat,
And let my shoots be rooted out.
We have translated שָׁוְא (on the form vid., on Job 15:31, and the idea on Job 11:11) falsehood, for it signifies desolateness and hollowness under a concealing mask, therefore the contradiction between what is without and within, lying and deceit, parall. מִרְמָה, deceit, delusion, imposition. The phrase הָלַךְ עִם־שָֽׁוְא is based on the personification of deceit, or on thinking of it in connection with the מתי־שׁוא (Job 11:11). The form וַתַּחַשׁ cannot be derived from חוּשׁ, from which it ought to be וַתָּחַשׁ, like וַיָּסַר Jdg 4:18 and freq., וַיָּשַׂר (serravit) 1Ch 20:3, וַיָּעַט (increpavit) 1Sa 25:14. Many grammarians (Ges. §72, rem. 9; Olsh. 257, g) explain the Pathach instead of Kametz as arising from the virtual doubling of the guttural (Dagesh forte implicitum), for which, however, no ground exists here; Ewald (§232, b) explains it by “the hastening of the tone towards the beginning,” which explains nothing, since the retreat of the tone has not this effect anywhere else. We must content ourselves with the supposition that וַתַּחַשׁ is formed from a חָשָׁה having a similar meaning to חוּשׁ (חִישׁ), as also וַיַּעַט, 1Sa 15:19, comp. 1Sa 14:32, is from a עָטָח of similar signification with עִיט. The hypothetical antecedent, Job 31:5, is followed by the conclusion, Job 31:6 : If he have done this, may God not spare him. He has, however, not done it; and if God puts him to an impartial trial, He will learn his תֻּמָּה, integritas, purity of character. The “balance of justice” is the balance of the final judgment, which the Arabs call Arab. mı̂zân 'l-a‛mâl, “the balance of actions (works).”
(Note: The manual of ethics by Ghazzâli is entitled mı̂zân el-a‛mâl in the original, מאזני צדק in Bar-Chisdai's translation, vid., Gosche on Ghazzâli's life and works, S. 261 of the volume of the Berliner Akademie d. Wissensch. for 1858.)
Job 31:7 also begins hypothetically: if my steps (אַשּׁוּרַי from אַשּׁוּר, which is used alternately with אָשׁוּר without distinction, contrary to Ew. §260, b) swerve (תִּטֶּה, the predicate to the plur. which follows, designating a thing, according to Ges. §146, 3) from the way (i.e., the one right way), and my heart went after my eyes, i.e., if it followed the drawing of the lust of the eye, viz., to obtain by deceit or extortion the property of another, and if a spot (מאוּם, macula, as Dan 1:4, = מוּם, Job 11:15; according to Ew., equivalent to מְחוּם, what is blackened and blackens, then a blemish, and according to Olsh., in מְאוּמָה...לֹא, like the French ne ... point) clave to my hands: I will sow, and let another eat, and let my shoots be rooted out. The poet uses צֶֽאֱצָאִים elsewhere of offspring of the body or posterity, Job 5:25; Job 21:8; Job 27:14; here, however, as in Isaiah, with whom he has this word in common, Job 34:2; Job 42:5, the produce of the ground is meant. Job 31:8 is, according to Joh 4:37, a λόγος, a proverb. In so far as he may have acted thus, Job calls down upon himself the curse of Deut. 38:20f.: what he sows, let strangers reap and eat; and even when that which is sown does not fall into the hands of strangers, let it be uprooted.