Job 4:12

“Now a word was secretly ¹  brought ²  to me, and my ear caught ³  a whisper ⁴  of it.

"A word was secretly brought to me, my ears caught a whisper of it.

"Now a word was brought to me stealthily, And my ear received a whisper of it.

"This truth was given me in secret, as though whispered in my ear.

"A word came to me in secret--a mere whisper of a word, but I heard it clearly.

A word was given to me secretly, and the low sound of it came to my ears.

"Now a word came stealing to me, my ear received the whisper of it.

"Now a word was secretly brought to me, And my ear received a whisper of it.

“Now a word was secretly ¹  brought ²  to me, and my ear caught ³  a whisper ⁴  of it.

¹ tn The LXX of this verse offers special problems. It reads, “But if there had been any truth in your words, none of these evils would have fallen upon you; shall not my ear receive excellent [information] from him?” The major error involves a dittography from the word for “secret,” yielding “truth.”

² tn The verb גָּנַב (ganav) means “to steal.” The Pual form in this verse is probably to be taken as a preterite since it requires a past tense translation: “it was stolen for me” meaning it was brought to me stealthily (see 2 Sam 19:3).

³ tn Heb “received.”

⁴ tn The word שֵׁמֶץ (shemets, “whisper”) is found only here and in Job 26:14. A cognate form שִׁמְצָה (shimtsah) is found in Exod 32:25 with the sense of “a whisper.” In postbiblical Hebrew the word comes to mean “a little.” The point is that Eliphaz caught just a bit, just a whisper of it, and will recount it to Job.