Discovery BoxJob 11:3 
Context11:3 Will your idle talk 1 reduce people to silence, 2
and will no one rebuke 3 you when you mock? 4
Job 18:2
Context18:2 “How long until you 5 make an end of words? 6
You must consider, 7 and then 8 we can talk.
Job 27:12
Context27:12 If you yourselves have all seen this,
Why in the world 9 do you continue this meaningless talk? 10
1 tn The word means “chatter, pratings, boastings” (see Isa 16:6; Jer 48:30).
2 tn The verb חָרַשׁ (kharash) in the Hiphil means “to silence” (41:4); here it functions in a causative sense, “reduce to silence.”
3 tn The form מַכְלִם (makhlim, “humiliating, mocking”) is the Hiphil participle. The verb כָּלַם (kalam) has the meaning “cover with shame, insult” (Job 20:3).
4 tn The construction shows the participle to be in the circumstantial clause: “will you mock – and [with] no one rebuking.”
5 tn The verb is plural, and so most commentators make it singular. But it seems from the context that Bildad is addressing all of them, and not just Job.
6 tn The construction is קִנְצֵי לְמִלִּין (qintse lÿmillin), which is often taken to be “end of words,” as if the word was from קֵץ (qets, “end”). But a plural of “end” is not found in the OT. Some will link the word to Arabic qanasa, “to hunt; to give chase,” to get an interpretation of “snares for words.” But E. Dhorme (Job, 257) objects that this does not fit the speech of Bildad (as well as it might Job’s). He finds a cognate qinsu, “fetters, shackles,” and reads “how long will you put shackles on words.” But G. R. Driver had pointed out that this cognate does not exist (“Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 72-93). So it would be preferable to take the reading “ends” and explain the ן (nun) as from a Aramaizing by-form. This is supported by 11QtgJob that uses סוֹף (sof, “end”). On the construction, GKC 421 §130.a explains this as a use of the construct in rapid narrative to connect the words; in such cases a preposition is on the following noun.
7 tn The imperfect verb, again plural, would be here taken in the nuance of instruction, or a modal nuance of obligation. So Bildad is telling his listeners to be intelligent. This would be rather cutting in the discourse.
8 tn Heb “afterward.”
9 tn The interrogative uses the demonstrative pronoun in its emphatic position: “Why in the world…?” (IBHS 312-13 §17.4.3c).
10 tn The text has the noun “vain thing; breath; vapor,” and then a denominative verb from the same root: “to become vain with a vain thing,” or “to do in vain a vain thing.” This is an example of the internal object, or a cognate accusative (see GKC 367 §117.q). The LXX has “you all know that you are adding vanity to vanity.”
