Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 6:1 - 6:1

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 6:1 - 6:1


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

1 Then began Job, and said:

2 Oh that my vexation were but weighed,

And they would put my suffering in the balance against it!

3 Then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea:

Therefore my words are rash.

4 The arrows of the Almighty are in me,

The burning poison whereof drinketh up my spirit;

The terrors of Eloah set themselves in array against me.

Vexation (כַּעַשׂ) is what Eliphaz has reproached him with (Job 5:2). Job wishes that his vexation were placed in one scale and his הַיָּה (Keri הַוָּה) in the other, and weighed together (יַחַד). The noun הַיָּה (הַוָּה), from הָוָה (הָיָה), flare, hiare, signifies properly hiatus, then vorago, a yawning gulf, χάσμα, then some dreadful calamity (vid., Hupfeld on Psa 5:10). נָשָׂא, like נָטַל, Isa 11:15, to raise the balance, as pendere, to let it hang down; attollant instead of the passive. This is his desire; and if they but understood the matter, it would then be manifest (כִּי־עַתָּה, as Job 3:13, which see), or: indeed then would it be manifest (כִּי certainly in this inferential position has an affirmative signification: vid., Gen 26:22; Gen 29:32, and comp. 1Sa 25:34; 2Sa 2:27) that his suffering is heavier than the unmeasurable weight of the sand of the sea. יִכְבַּד is neuter with reference to וְהַיָּתִי. לָֽעוּ, with the tone on the penult., which is not to be accounted for by the rhythm as in Psa 37:20; Psa 137:7, cannot be derived from לָעָה, but only from לוּעַ, not however in the signification to suck down, but from לוּעַ = לָעָה, Arab. lagiya or also lagâ, temere loqui, inania effutire, - a signification which suits excellently here.

(Note: יָלַע, Pro 20:25, which is doubly accented, and must be pronounced as oxytone, has also this meaning: the snare of a man who has thoughtlessly uttered what is holy (an interjectional clause = such an one has implicated himself), and after (having made) vows will harbour care (i.e., whether he will be able to fulfil them).)

His words are like those of one in delirium. עִמָּדִי is to be explained according to Psa 38:3; חֲמָתָם, according to Psa 7:15. יַעַרְכוּנִי is short for עלי מלחמה יערכי, they make war against me, set themselves in battle array against me. Böttcher, without brachylogy: they cause me to arm myself, put one of necessity on the defensive, which does not suit the subject. The terrors of God strike down all defence. The wrath of God is irresistible. The sting of his suffering, however, is the wrath of God which his spirit drinks as a draught of poison (comp. Job 21:20), and consequently wrings from him, even from his deepest soul, the thought that God is become his enemy: therefore his is an endless suffering, and therefore is it that he speaks so despondingly.