5:27 Look, we have investigated this, so it is true.
Hear it, 1 and apply it for your own 2 good.” 3
29:16 I was a father 4 to the needy,
and I investigated the case of the person I did not know;
1 tn To make a better parallelism, some commentators have replaced the imperative with another finite verb, “we have found it.”
2 tn The preposition with the suffix (referred to as the ethical dative) strengthens the imperative. An emphatic personal pronoun also precedes the imperative. The resulting force would be something like “and you had better apply it for your own good!”
3 sn With this the speech by Eliphaz comes to a close. His two mistakes with it are: (1) that the tone was too cold and (2) the argument did not fit Job’s case (see further, A. B. Davidson, Job, 42).
4 sn The word “father” does not have a wide range of meanings in the OT. But there are places that it is metaphorical, especially in a legal setting like this where the poor need aid.