4:7 Call to mind now: 1
Who, 2 being innocent, ever perished? 3
And where were upright people 4 ever destroyed? 5
9:23 If a scourge brings sudden death, 6
he mocks 7 at the despair 8 of the innocent. 9
17:8 Upright men are appalled 10 at this;
the innocent man is troubled 11 with the godless.
22:19 The righteous see their destruction 12 and rejoice;
the innocent mock them scornfully, 13 saying,
34:5 For Job says, ‘I am innocent, 14
but God turns away my right.
1 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.
2 tn The use of the independent personal pronoun is emphatic, almost as an enclitic to emphasize interrogatives: “who indeed….” (GKC 442 §136.c).
3 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”).
4 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.
5 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.”
6 tc The LXX contains a paraphrase: “for the worthless die, but the righteous are laughed to scorn.”
sn The point of these verses is to show – rather boldly – that God does not distinguish between the innocent and the guilty.
7 sn This bold anthropomorphism means that by his treatment of the despair of the innocent, God is in essence mocking them.
8 tn The term מַסַּת (massat), a hapax legomenon, was translated “trial” in the older versions; but it is not from נָסָה (nasah, “to tempt; to test; to try”), but from מָסַס (masas, “to flow”). It is used in the Niphal to speak of the heart “melting” in suffering. So the idea behind this image is that of despair. This is the view that most interpreters adopt; it requires no change of the text whatsoever.
9 sn Job uses this word to refute Eliphaz; cf. 4:7.
10 tn This verb שָׁמַם (shamam, “appalled”) is the one found in Isa 52:14, translated there “astonished.”
11 tn The verb means “to rouse oneself to excitement.” It naturally means “to be agitated; to be stirred up.”
12 tn The line is talking about the rejoicing of the righteous when judgment falls on the wicked. An object (“destruction”) has to be supplied here to clarify this (see Pss 52:6 [8]; 69:32 [33]; 107:42).
13 sn In Ps 2:4 it was God who mocked the wicked by judging them.
14 tn Heb “righteous,” but in this context it means to be innocent or in the right.