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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 34:1 - 34:1
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
1 Then began Elihu and said:
2 Hear, ye wise men, my words,
And ye experienced ones, give ear to me!
3 For the ear trieth words,
As the palate tasteth by eating.
4 Let us find out what is right,
Let us explore among ourselves what is good.
After his first speech Elihu has made a brief pause; now since Job is silent, he begins anew. ויען ויאמר, lxx correctly, here as in all other instances where the phrase occurs: ὑπολαβὼν λέγει, taking up the word he said. The wise and the knowing (Arab. ‛ulamâ), whose attention he bespeaks, are not Job and the three (Umbr., Hahn), who are indeed a party, and as such a subject for the arbitrative appearance of Elihu; also not every one capable of forming a judgment (Hirz.); but those in the circle of spectators and listeners which, as is assumed, has assembled round the disputants (Schlottm.). In Job 33:4 Elihu does not expressly mean his own ear, but that of the persons addressed: he establishes his summons to prove what he says by the general thought brought over from Job 12:11, and as there (comp. Job 5:7; Job 11:12), clothed in the form of the emblematic proverb, - that as there is a bodily, so there is also a mental organ of sense which tries its perceptions. לֶֽאֱכֹל is not intended as expressing a purpose (ad vescendum), but as a gerundive (vescendo). The phrase בָּחַר מִשְׁפָּט, occurring only here, signifies neither to institute a search for the purpose of decision (Schult. and others), since בחר does not signify to decide upon anything, nor to investigate a cause (Hahn), which would be נבחנה, but to test and choose what is right, δοκιμάζειν καὶ τὸ καλὸν κατέχειν, 1Th 5:21, after which the parallel runs: cognoscamus inter nos (i.e., in common) quid bonum.