Discovery BoxJob 22:5-16 
Context22:5 Is not your wickedness great 1
and is there no end to your iniquity?
22:6 “For you took pledges 2 from your brothers
for no reason,
and you stripped the clothing from the naked. 3
22:7 You gave the weary 4 no water to drink
and from the hungry you withheld food.
22:8 Although you were a powerful man, 5 owning land, 6
an honored man 7 living on it, 8
22:9 you sent widows away empty-handed,
and the arms 9 of the orphans you crushed. 10
22:10 That is why snares surround you,
and why sudden fear terrifies you,
22:11 why it is so dark you cannot see, 11
and why a flood 12 of water covers you.
22:12 “Is not God on high in heaven? 13
And see 14 the lofty stars, 15 how high they are!
22:13 But you have said, ‘What does God know?
Does he judge through such deep darkness? 16
22:14 Thick clouds are a veil for him, so he does not see us, 17
as he goes back and forth
in the vault 18 of heaven.’ 19
22:15 Will you keep to the old path 20
that evil men have walked –
22:16 men 21 who were carried off 22 before their time, 23
when the flood 24 was poured out 25
on their foundations? 26
1 tn The adjective רַבָּה (rabbah) normally has the idea of “great” in quantity (“abundant,” ESV) rather than “great” in quality.
2 tn The verb חָבַל (khaval) means “to take pledges.” In this verse Eliphaz says that Job not only took as pledge things the poor need, like clothing, but he did it for no reason.
3 tn The “naked” here refers to people who are poorly clothed. Otherwise, a reading like the NIV would be necessary: “you stripped the clothes…[leaving them] naked.” So either he made them naked by stripping their garments off, or they were already in rags.
4 tn The term עָיֵף (’ayef) can be translated “weary,” “faint,” “exhausted,” or “tired.” Here it may refer to the fainting because of thirst – that would make a good parallel to the second part.
5 tn The idiom is “a man of arm” (= “powerful”; see Ps 10:15). This is in comparison to the next line, “man of face” (= “dignity; high rank”; see Isa 3:5).
6 tn Heb “and a man of arm, to whom [was] land.” The line is in contrast to the preceding one, and so the vav here introduces a concessive clause.
7 tn The expression is unusual: “the one lifted up of face.” This is the “honored one,” the one to whom the dignity will be given.
8 tn Many commentators simply delete the verse or move it elsewhere. Most take it as a general reference to Job, perhaps in apposition to the preceding verse.
9 tn The “arms of the orphans” are their helps or rights on which they depended for support.
10 tn The verb in the text is Pual: יְדֻכָּא (yÿdukka’, “was [were] crushed”). GKC 388 §121.b would explain “arms” as the complement of a passive imperfect. But if that is too difficult, then a change to Piel imperfect, second person, will solve the difficulty. In its favor is the parallelism, the use of the second person all throughout the section, and the reading in all the versions. The versions may have simply assumed the easier reading, however.
11 tn Heb “or dark you cannot see.” Some commentators and the RSV follow the LXX in reading אוֹ (’o, “or”) as אוֹר (’or, “light”) and translate it “The light has become dark” or “Your light has become dark.” A. B. Davidson suggests the reading “Or seest thou not the darkness.” This would mean Job does not understand the true meaning of the darkness and the calamities.
12 tn The word שִׁפְעַת (shif’at) means “multitude of.” It is used of men, camels, horses, and here of waters in the heavens.
13 tn This reading preserves the text as it is. The nouns “high” and “heavens” would then be taken as adverbial accusatives of place (see GKC 373-74 §118.g).
14 tn The parallel passage in Isa 40:26-27, as well as the context here, shows that the imperative is to be retained here. The LXX has “he sees.”
15 tn Heb “head of the stars.”
16 sn Eliphaz is giving to Job the thoughts and words of the pagans, for they say, “How does God know, and is there knowledge in the Most High?” (see Ps 73:11; 94:11).
17 tn Heb “and he does not see.” The implied object is “us.”
18 sn The word is “circle; dome”; here it is the dome that covers the earth, beyond which God sits enthroned. A. B. Davidson (Job, 165) suggests “on the arch of heaven” that covers the earth.
19 sn The idea suggested here is that God is not only far off, but he is unconcerned as he strolls around heaven – this is what Eliphaz says Job means.
20 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.
21 tn The word “men” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied to clarify the relative pronoun “who.”
22 tn The verb קָמַט (qamat) basically means “to seize; to tie together to make a bundle.” So the Pual will mean “to be bundled away; to be carried off.”
23 tn The clause has “and [it was] not the time.” It may be used adverbially here.
24 tn The word is נָהַר (nahar, “river” or “current”); it is taken here in its broadest sense of the waters on the earth that formed the current of the flood (Gen 7:6, 10).
25 tn The verb יָצַק (yatsaq) means “to pour out; to shed; to spill; to flow.” The Pual means “to be poured out” (as in Lev 21:10 and Ps 45:3).
26 tn This word is then to be taken as an adverbial accusative of place. Another way to look at this verse is what A. B. Davidson (Job, 165) proposes “whose foundation was poured away and became a flood.” This would mean that that on which they stood sank away.
