5:19 He will deliver you 1 from six calamities;
yes, in seven 2 no evil will touch you.
6:30 Is there any falsehood 3 on my lips?
Can my mouth 4 not discern evil things? 5
11:11 For he 6 knows deceitful 7 men;
when he sees evil, will he not 8 consider it? 9
15:16 how much less man, who is abominable and corrupt, 10
who drinks in evil like water! 11
15:35 They conceive 12 trouble and bring forth evil;
their belly 13 prepares deception.”
16:11 God abandons me to evil 14 men, 15
and throws 16 me into the hands of wicked men.
20:12 “If 17 evil is sweet in his mouth
and he hides it under his tongue, 18
22:15 Will you keep to the old path 19
that evil men have walked –
36:10 And he reveals 20 this 21 for correction,
and says that they must turn 22 from evil.
1 tn The verb is the Hiphil imperfect of נָצַל (natsal, “deliver”). These verbs might have been treated as habitual imperfects if it were not for the use of the numerical images – “six calamities…in seven.” So the nuance is specific future instead.
2 tn The use of a numerical ladder as we have here – “six // seven” is frequent in wisdom literature to show completeness. See Prov 6:16; Amos 1:3, Mic 5:5. A number that seems to be sufficient for the point is increased by one, as if to say there is always one more. By using this Eliphaz simply means “in all troubles” (see H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 56).
3 tn The word עַוְלָה (’avlah) is repeated from the last verse. Here the focus is clearly on wickedness or injustice spoken.
sn These words make a fitting transition to ch. 7, which forms a renewed cry of despair from Job. Job still feels himself innocent, but in the hands of cruel fate which is out to destroy him.
4 tn Heb “my palate.” Here “palate” is used not so much for the organ of speech (by metonymy) as of discernment. In other words, what he says indicates what he thinks.
5 tn The final word, הַוּוֹת (havvot) is usually understood as “calamities.” He would be asking if he could not discern his misfortune. But some argue that the word has to be understood in the parallelism to “wickedness” of words (D. J. A. Clines, Job [WBC], 162). Gordis connects it to Mic 7:3 and Ps 5:10 [9] where the meaning “deceit, falsehood” is found. The LXX has “and does not my throat meditate understanding?”
6 tn The pronoun is emphatic implying that Zophar indicates that God indeed knows Job’s sin even if Job does not.
7 tn The expression is literally “men of emptiness” (see Ps 26:4). These are false men, for שָׁוְא (shavÿ’) can mean “vain, empty, or false, deceitful.”
8 tn E. Dhorme (Job, 162) reads the prepositional phrase “to him” rather than the negative; he translates the line as “he sees iniquity and observes it closely.”
9 tn Some commentators do not take this last clause as a question, but simply as a statement, namely, that when God sees evil he does not need to ponder or consider it – he knows it instantly. In that case it would be a circumstantial clause: “without considering it.” D. J. A. Clines lists quite an array of other interpretations for the line (Job [WBC], 255); for example, “and he is himself unobserved”; taking the word לֹא (lo’) as an emphatic; taking the negative as a noun, “considering them as nothing”; and others that change the verb to “they do not understand it.” But none of these are compelling; they offer no major improvement.
10 tn The two descriptions here used are “abominable,” meaning “disgusting” (a Niphal participle with the value of a Latin participle [see GKC 356-57 §116.e]), and “corrupt” (a Niphal participle which occurs only in Pss 14:3 and 53:4), always in a moral sense. On the significance of the first description, see P. Humbert, “Le substantif toáe„ba„ et le verbe táb dans l’Ancien Testament,” ZAW 72 [1960]: 217ff.). On the second word, G. R. Driver suggests from Arabic, “debauched with luxury, corrupt” (“Some Hebrew Words,” JTS 29 [1927/28]: 390-96).
11 sn Man commits evil with the same ease and facility as he drinks in water – freely and in large quantities.
12 tn Infinitives absolute are used in this verse in the place of finite verbs. They lend a greater vividness to the description, stressing the basic meaning of the words.
13 tn At the start of the speech Eliphaz said Job’s belly was filled with the wind; now it is there that he prepares deception. This inclusio frames the speech.
14 tn The word עֲוִיל (’avil) means “child,” and this cannot be right here. If it is read as עַוָּל (’avval) as in Job 27:7 it would be the unrighteous.
15 sn Job does not refer here to his friends, but more likely to the wicked men who set about to destroy him and his possessions, or to the rabble in ch. 30.
16 tn The word יִרְטֵנִי (yirteni) does not derive from the root רָטָה (ratah) as would fit the pointing in the MT, but from יָרַט (yarat), cognate to Arabic warrata, “to throw; to hurl.” E. Dhorme (Job, 236) thinks that since the normal form would have been יִירְטֵנִי (yirÿteni), it is probable that one of the yods (י) would have affected the word עֲוִיל (’avil) – but that does not make much sense.
17 tn The conjunction אִם (’im) introduces clauses that are conditional or concessive. With the imperfect verb in the protasis it indicates what is possible in the present or future. See GKC 496 §159.q).
18 sn The wicked person holds on to evil as long as he can, savoring the taste or the pleasure of it.
19 tn The “old path” here is the way of defiance to God. The text in these two verses is no doubt making reference to the flood in Genesis, one of the perennial examples of divine judgment.
20 tn The idiom once again is “he uncovers their ear.”
21 tn The revelation is in the preceding verse, and so a pronoun must be added to make the reference clear.
22 tn The verb שׁוּב (shuv, “to turn; to return”) is one of the two major words in the OT for “repent” – to return from evil. Here the imperfect should be obligatory – they must do it.