ref. # 12.0

ref. #12.0


Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament



Job 22
Verses 15-16
While in Psalm 139:24 דרך עולם prospectively signifies a way of eternal duration (comp. Ezekiel 26:20,עם עולם, of the people who sleep the interminably long sleep of the grave), ארח עולם signifies here retrospectively the way of the ancient world, but not, as in Jeremiah 6:16Jeremiah 18:15, the way of thinking and acting of the pious forefathers which put their posterity to shame, but of a godless raceof the ancient world which stands out as a terrible example to posterity. Eliphaz asks if Job will observe, i.e., keep (שׁמר as in Psalm 18:22),this way trodden by people (מתי, comp. אנשׁיJob 34:36) of wickedness. Those worthless ones were withered up, i.e.,forcibly seized and crushed, ולא־עת, when it was not yet time (ולא after the manner of a circumstantial clause: quum nondum, as Psalm 139:16), i.e.,when according to God's creative order their time was not yet come. On קמּטוּ,

(Note: This קמטו, according to the Masora, is the middle word of the book of Job (חצי הספר).)
vid., on Job 16:8; lxx correctly, συνελήφθησαν ἄωροι , nevertheless συλλαμβάνειν is too feeble as a translation of קמט; for as Arab. (qbṣ) signifies to take with the tip of the finer, whereas Arab. (qbḍ) signifies to take with the whole bent hand, so קמט, in conformity to the dull, emphatic final consonant, signifies “to bind firmly together.” In Job 22:16 יוּצק is not perf. Pual for יצּק (Ew. §83, b), for this exchange, contrary to the law of vowels, of the sharp form with the lengthened form is without example; it must at least have been written יוּצּק (comp. Judges 18:29). It is fut. Hoph., which, according to Job 11:15, might be יצּק; here, however, it is with a resolving, not assimilation, of the Jod, as in Leviticus 21:10. The fut. has the signification of the imperfect which it acquires in an historic connection.  [1] It is not to be translated: their place became a stream which has flowed away (Hirz.), for the היה which would be required by such an interpretation could not be omitted; also not: flumen effusum est in fundamentum eorum (Rosenm., Hahn, and others), which would be ליסודם, and would still be very liable to be misunderstood; [2] also not: whose foundation was a poured-out stream (Umbr., Olsh.), for then there would be one attributive clause inserted in the other; [3] but: their solid ground became fluid like a stream (Ew., Hlgst., Schlottm.), so that נהר, after the analogy of the verbs with two accusative, Ges. §139, 2, is a so-called second acc. of the obj. which by the passive becomes a nominative (comp. Job 28:2), [4] although it might also be an apposition of the following subj. placed first: a stream [correction: ocean] (as such, like such a one) their solid ground was brought into a river [correction: ocean]; the ground on which they and their habitations stood was placed under water and floated away: without doubt the flood is intended; reference to this perfectly accords with the patriarchal pre-and extra-Israelitish standpoint of the book of Job; and the generation of the time of the flood (דור המבול) is accounted in the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament as a paragon of godlessness, the contemporaries of Noah are the απειθοῦντες סורריםκατ ̓ ἐξοχήν (comp. 1 Peter 3:20 with Psalm 68:19).


[Notice how the last (the fourth indicated in red) agrees with the King James Translators in their margin]  [emphasis mine, i.e. "Correction"]