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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 6:8 - 6:8
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
8 Would that my request were fulfilled,
And that Eloah would grant my expectation,
9 That Eloah were willing and would crush me,
Let loose His hand and cut me off:
10 Then I should still have comfort -
(I should exult in unsparing pain) -
That I have not disowned the words of the Holy One.
His wish refers to the ending of his suffering by death. Hupfeld prefers to read וְתַֽאֲוָתִי instead of וְתִקְוָתִי (Job 6:8); but death, which he desires, he even indeed expects. This is just the paradox, that not life, but death, is his expectation. “Cut me off,” i.e., my soul or my life, my thread of life (Job 27:8; Isa 38:12). The optative יִתֵּן מִי (Ges. §§136, 1) is followed by optative futt., partly of the so-called jussive form, as יֹאֵל, velit (Hiph. from וָאַל, velle), and יַתֵּר, solvat (Hiph. from נָתַר). In the phrase יָד הִתִּיר, the stretching out of the hand is regarded as the loosening of what was hitherto bound. The conclusion begins with וּתְהִי, just like Job 13:5. But it is to be asked whether by consolation speedy death is to be understood, and the clause with כִּי gives the ground of his claim for the granting of the wish, - or whether he means that just this: not having disowned the words of the Holy One (comp. Job 23:11., and אִמְרֵי־אֵל in the mouth of Balaam, the non-Israelitish prophet, Num 24:4, Num 24:16), would be his consolation in the midst of death. With Hupfeld we decide in favour of the latter, with Psa 119:50 in view: this consciousness of innocence is indeed throughout the whole book Job's shield and defence. If, however, נֶחָמָתִי (with Kametz impurum) points towards כּי, quod, etc., the clause וַֽאֲסַלְּדָה is parenthetical. The cohortative is found thus parenthetical with a conjunctive sense also elsewhere (Psa 40:6; Psa 51:18). Accordingly: my comfort - I would exult, etc. - would be that I, etc. The meaning of סָלַד, tripudiare, is confirmed by the lxx ἡλλόμην, in connection with the Arabic ṣalada (of a galloping horse which stamps hard with its fore-feet), according to which the Targ. also translates וֶֽאֱבוּעַ (I will rejoice).
(Note: The primary meaning of סלד, according to the Arabic, is to be hard, then, to tread hard, firm, as in pulsanda tellus; whereas the poetry of the synagogue (Pijut) uses סִלֵּד in the signification to supplicate, and סֶלֶד, litany (not: hymn, as Zunz gives it); and the Mishna-talmudic סָלַד signifies to singe, burn one's self, and to draw back affrighted.)
For יַחְמֹל לֹא, comp. Isa 30:14. (break in pieces unsparingly). יחמל לא certainly appears as though it must be referred to God (Ew., Hahn, Schlottm., and others), since חילה sounds feminine; but one can either pronounce חִילָה = חיל as Milel (Hitz.), or take יחמל לא adverbially, and not as an elliptical dependent clause (as Ges. §147, rem. 1), but as virtually an adjective: in pain unsparing.