Job 12:4

I am ¹  a laughingstock ²  to my friends, ³  I, who called on God and whom he answered ⁴  – a righteous and blameless ⁵  man is a laughingstock!

"I have become a laughing-stock to my friends, though I called upon God and he answered—a mere laughing-stock, though righteous and blameless!

"I am a joke to my friends, The one who called on God and He answered him; The just and blameless man is a joke.

Yet my friends laugh at me. I am a man who calls on God and receives an answer. I am a just and blameless man, yet they laugh at me.

"I'm ridiculed by my friends: 'So that's the man who had conversations with God!' Ridiculed without mercy: 'Look at the man who never did wrong!'

It seems that I am to be as one who is a cause of laughing to his neighbour, one who makes his prayer to God and is answered! the upright man who has done no wrong is to be made sport of!

I am a laughingstock to my friends; I, who called upon God and he answered me, a just and blameless man, I am a laughingstock.

"I am one mocked by his friends, Who called on God, and He answered him, The just and blameless who is ridiculed.

I am ¹  a laughingstock ²  to my friends, ³  I, who called on God and whom he answered ⁴  – a righteous and blameless ⁵  man is a laughingstock!

¹ tn Some are troubled by the disharmony with “I am” and “to his friend.” Even though the difficulty is not insurmountable, some have emended the text. Some simply changed the verb to “he is,” which was not very compelling. C. D. Isbell argued that אֶהְיֶה (’ehyeh, “I am”) is an orthographic variant of יִהְיֶה (yihyeh, “he will”) – “a person who does not know these things would be a laughingstock” (JANESCU 37 [1978]: 227-36). G. R. Driver suggests the meaning of the MT is something like “(One that is) a mockery to his friend I am to be.”

² tn The word simply means “laughter”; but it can also mean the object of laughter (see Jer 20:7). The LXX jumps from one “laughter” to the next, eliminating everything in between, presumably due to haplography.

³ tn Heb “his friend.” A number of English versions (e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT) take this collectively, “to my friends.”

⁴ tn Heb “one calling to God and he answered him.” H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 92) contends that because Job has been saying that God is not answering him, these words must be part of the derisive words of his friends.

⁵ tn The two words, צַדִּיק תָּמִים (tsadiq tamim), could be understood as a hendiadys (= “blamelessly just”) following W. G. E. Watson (Classical Hebrew Poetry, 327).