4:6 Is not your piety 1 your confidence, 2
and your blameless ways your hope? 3
4:7 Call to mind now: 4
Who, 5 being innocent, ever perished? 6
And where were upright people 7 ever destroyed? 8
1 tn The word יִרְאָה (yir’ah, “fear”) in this passage refers to Job’s fear of the
2 tn The word כִּסְלָתֶךָ (kislatekha, “your confidence”) is rendered in the LXX by “founded in folly.” The word כֶּסֶל (kesel) is “confidence” (see 8:14) and elsewhere “folly.” Since it is parallel to “your hope” it must mean confidence here.
3 tn This second half of the verse simply has “your hope and the integrity of your ways.” The expression “the perfection of your ways” is parallel to “your fear,” and “your hope” is parallel to “your confidence.” This sentence is an example of casus pendens or extraposition: “as for your hope, it is the integrity of your ways” (see GKC 458 §143.d).
sn Eliphaz is not being sarcastic to Job. He knows that Job is a God-fearing man who lives out his faith in life. But he also knows that Job should apply to himself the same things he tells others.
4 sn Eliphaz will put his thesis forward first negatively and then positively (vv. 8ff). He will argue that the suffering of the righteous is disciplinary and not for their destruction. He next will argue that it is the wicked who deserve judgment.
5 tn The use of the independent personal pronoun is emphatic, almost as an enclitic to emphasize interrogatives: “who indeed….” (GKC 442 §136.c).
6 tn The perfect verb in this line has the nuance of the past tense to express the unique past – the uniqueness of the action is expressed with “ever” (“who has ever perished”).
7 tn The adjective is used here substantivally. Without the article the word stresses the meaning of “uprightness.” Job will use “innocent” and “upright” together in 17:8.
8 tn The Niphal means “to be hidden” (see the Piel in 6:10; 15:18; and 27:11); the connotation here is “destroyed” or “annihilated.”