Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 6:21 - 6:21
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
21 For now ye are become nothing;
You see misfortune, and are affrighted.
22 Have I then said, Give unto me,
And give a present for me from your substance,
23 And deliver me from the enemy's hand,
And redeem me from the hand of the tyrant?
In Job 6:21, the reading wavers between לו and לא, with the Keri לו; but לֹו, which is consequently the lectio recepta, gives no suitable meaning, only in a slight degree appropriate, as this: ye are become it, i.e., such a mountain brook; for הייתם is not to be translated, with Stickel and others, estis, but facti estis. The Targum, however, translates after the Chethib: ye are become as though ye had never been, i.e., nothingness. Now, since לֹא, Aramaic לָה, can (as Dan 4:32 shows) be used as a substantive (a not = a null), and the thought: ye are become nothing, your friendship proves itself equal to null, suits the imagery just used, we decide in favour of the Chethib; then in the figure the בתֹּהוּ עָלָה corresponds most to this, and is also, therefore, not to be explained away. The lxx, Syr., Vulg., translate לי instead of לו: ye are become it (such deceitful brooks) to me. Ewald proposes to read לי הייתם עתה כן (comp. the explanation, Ges. §137, rem. 3), - a conjecture which puts aside all difficulty; but the sentence with לֹא commends itself as being bolder and more expressive. All the rest explains itself. It is remarkable that in Job 6:21 the reading תִּירְוּ is also found, instead of תִּרְאוּ: ye dreaded misfortune, and ye were then affrighted. הָבוּ is here, as an exception, properispomenon, according to Ges. §29, 3. כֹּחַ, as Pro 5:10; Lev 26:20, what one has obtained by putting forth one's strength, syn. חַיִל, outward strength.