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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 37:17 - 37:17
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
17 Thou whose garments became hot,
When the land is sultry from the south:
18 Dost thou with Him spread out the sky,
The strong, as it were molten, mirror?
19 Let us know what we shall say to Him! -
We can arrange nothing by reason of darkness.
20 Shall it be told Him that I speak,
Or shall one wish to be destroyed?
Most expositors connect Job 37:17 with Job 37:16 : (Dost thou know) how it comes to pass that ... ; but אֲשֶׁר after ידע signifies quod, Exo 11:7, not quomodo, as it sometimes occurs in a comparing antecedent clause, instead of כאשׁר, Exo 14:13; Jer 33:22. We therefore translate: thou whose ... , - connecting this, however, not with Job 37:16 (vid., e.g., Carey), but as Bolduc. and Ew., with Job 37:18 (where הֲ before תַרְקִיעַ is then the less missed): thou who, when the land (the part of the earth where thou art) keeps rest, i.e., in sultriness, when oppressive heat comes (on this Hiph. vid., Ges. §53, 2) from the south (i.e., by means of the currents of air which come thence, without דָּרֹום signifying directly the south wind), - thou who, when this happens, canst endure so little, that on the contrary the heat from without becomes perceptible to thee through thy clothes: dost thou now and then with Him keep the sky spread out, which for firmness is like a molten mirror? Elsewhere the hemispheric firmament, which spans the earth with its sub-celestial waters, is likened to a clear sapphire Exo 24:10, a covering Psa 104:2, a gauze Isa 40:22; the comparison with a metallic mirror (מוּצָק here not from צוּק, Job 37:10; Job 36:16, but from יָצַק) is therefore to be understood according to Petavius: Coelum aëreum στερέωμα dicitur non a naturae propria conditione, sed ab effectu, quod perinde aquas separet, ac si murus esset solidissimus. Also in תרקיע lies the notion both of firmness and thinness; the primary notion (root רק) is to beat, make thick, stipare (Arab. rq‛, to stop up in the sense of resarcire, e.g., to mend stockings), to make thick by pressure. The ל joined with תרקיע is nota acc.; we must not comp. Job 8:8; Job 21:22, as well as Job 5:2; Job 19:3.
Therefore: As God is the only Creator (Job 9:8), so He is the all-provident Preserver of the world - make us know (הֹודִיעֵנוּ, according to the text of the Babylonians, Keri of הֹודִיעֵנִי) what we shall say to Him, viz., in order to show that we can cope with Him! We cannot arrange, viz., anything whatever (to be explained according to עָרַךְ מִלִּין, Job 32:14, comp. “to place,” Job 36:19), by reason of darkness, viz., the darkness of our understanding, σκότος τῆς διανοίας; מִפְּנֵי is much the same as Job 23:17, but different from Job 17:12, and חֹשֶׁךְ different from both passages, viz., as it is often used in the New Testament, of intellectual darkness (comp. Ecc 2:14; Isa 60:2). The meaning of Job 37:20 cannot now be mistaken, if, with Hirz., Hahn, and Schlottm., we call to mind Job 36:10 in connection with אָמַר כִּי: can I, a short-sighted man, enshrouded in darkness, wish that what I have arrogantly said concerning and against Him may be told to God, or should one earnestly desire (אָמַר, a modal perf., as Job 35:15) that (an jusserit s. dixerit quis ut) he may be swallowed up, i.e., destroyed (comp. לבלעו, Job 2:3)? He would, by challenging a recognition of his unbecoming arguing about God, desire a tribunal that would be destructive to himself.