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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 32:15 - 32:15
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
15 They are amazed, they answer no more,
Words have fled from them.
16 And I waited, for they spake not,
For they stand still, they answer no more.
17 Therefore I also will answer for my part,
I will declare my knowledge, even I.
In order to give a more rapid movement and an emotional force to the speech, the figure asyndeton is introduced in Job 32:15, as perhaps in Jer 15:7, Ew. §349, a. Most expositors render הֶעְתִּיקוּ passively, according to the sense: they have removed from them, i.e., are removed from them; but why may העתיק not signify, like Gen 12:8; Gen 26:22, to move away, viz., the tent = to wander on (Schlottm.)? The figure: words are moved away (as it were according to an encampment broken up) from them, i.e., as we say: they have left them, is quite in accordance with the figurative style of this section. It is unnecessary to take וְהֹוחַלְתִּי, Job 32:16, with Ew. (§342, c) 2 and Hirz. as perf. consec. and interrogative: and should I wait, because they speak no more? Certainly the interrog. part. sometimes disappears after the Waw of consequence, e.g., Eze 18:13, Eze 18:24 (and will he live?); but by what would והוחלתי be distinguished as perf. consec. here? Hahn's interpretation: I have waited, until they do not speak, for they stand ... , also does not commend itself; the poet would have expressed this by עד לא ידברו, while the two כי, especially with the poet's predilection for repetition, appear to be co-ordinate. Elihu means to say that he has waited a long time, surprised that the three did not speak further, and that they stand still without speaking again. Therefore he thinks the time is come for him also to answer Job. אַֽעֲנֶה cannot be fut. Kal, since where the 1 fut. Kal and Hiph. cannot be distinguished by the vowel within the word (as in the Ayin Awa and double Ayin verbs), the former has an inalienable Segol; it is therefore 1 fut. Hiph., but not as in Ecc 5:19 in the signification to employ labour upon anything (lxx περισπᾶν), but in an intensive Kal signification (as הִזְעִיק for זָעַק, Job 35:9, comp. on Job 31:18): to answer, to give any one an answer when called upon. Ewald's supposedly proverbial: I also plough my field! (§192, c, Anm. 2) does unnecessary violence to the usage of the language, which is unacquainted with this הֶֽעֱנָה, to plough. It is perfectly consistent with Elihu's diction, that חֶלְקִי beside אֲנִי as permutative signifies, “I, my part,” although it might also be an acc. of closer definition (as pro parte mea, for my part), or even - which is, however, less probable - acc. of the obj. (my part). Elihu speaks more in the scholastic tone of controversy than the three.