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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 32:6 - 32:6
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6b I am young in days, and ye are hoary,
Therefore I stood back and was afraid
To show you my knowledge.
7 I thought: Let age speak,
And the multitude of years teach wisdom.
It becomes manifest even here that the Elihu section has in part a peculiar usage of the language. זָחַל in the signification of Arab. zḥl, cogn. with Arab. dḥl, דְּחַל, to frighten back;
(Note: The lexicographers explain the Arab. zḥl by zâla (זול), to stand away from, back, to retreat, or tanahha, to step aside; Piel, Hiph., to push any one aside, place anything back; Hithpa., to keep one's self on one side; adj. זָחֵל, זָחִיל, זָחוּל, etc., standing back. Thus the town of Zahla in the plain of the Lebanon takes its name from the fact that it does not stand out in the plain, but is built close at the foot of the mountain in a corner, and consequently retreats. And zuhale (according to the Kamus) is an animal that creeps backwards into its hole, e.g., the scorpion; and hence, improperly, a man who, as we say with a similar figure, never comes out of his hole, always keeps in his hole, i.e., never leaves his dwelling, as zuhal in general signifies a man who retires or keeps far from active life; in connection with which also the planet Saturn is called Zuhal, the retreating one, on account of its great distance from the rest. Slippery (of ground) is זֻחְלוּל, because it draws the foot backwards (muzhil) by its smoothness, and thus causes the walker to fall. A further formation is זחלק, to be slippery, and to slip in a slippery place; beside which, זלק, a word of similar meaning, is no longer used in Syria. According to this Arabic primary notion of zḥl, it appears זחלי ארץ, Mic 7:17, is intended to describe the serpents not as creeping upon the earth, but as creeping into the earth (comp. the name of the serpent, achbi' at el-ard, those that hide themselves in the earth); but in Talmud. and Aram. זחל used of animals has the general signification to creep, and of water, to glide (flow gently down). The primary notion, to glide (to slip, creep, flow gently, labi), is combined both in the derivatives of the root זח and in those of the root זל with the notion of a departing and retreating motion. - Wetzst. and Fl.)
and דֵּעַ for דַּעַת (here and Job 32:10, Job 32:17; Job 36:3; Job 37:16) occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament; עַל־כֵּן (comp. לָכֵן, Job 42:3) is used only by Elihu within the book of Job. יָמִים, days = fulness of days, is equivalent to advanced age, old age with its rich experience. רֹב with its plural genitive is followed (as כל sa( d usually is) by the predicate in the plur.; it is the attraction already described by מספר, Job 15:10; Job 21:21, Ges. §148, 1.