Devotional Short Note on Job 13

Koot van Wyk 

Devotional Short Note on Job 13: What is to follow is to introduce our readers to the best critical study on Job. Then follows advise by scholars to look for other options than Arabic. The mentioning of the problems that the best critical study had with Job to the point of a no-show. Lastly there are three examples of solving some translation problems in Job 13. This is no attempt to be a gladiator on a semitic stage. It is appropriate to make sure the methodology of doing translation of Job is correct and that the tools we are using are also correct and the translations that were made from these tools are correct otherwise our understanding will not be correct. The way we think affects the way we live and the way we live affects the way we think. So an outside source like the Word of God is imperative, not just Bildad/Bacon/Hobbes Empiricism.

It has been said by many scholars that E. Dhorme’s study of the Book of Job (1926) is the best critical study in modern history. At first the book has all the qualities of impression. Dhorme utilized many ancient versions to attempt to translate Job properly. He also consulted the Middle-age Rabbis and their translations. He utilized Akkadian and Arabic extensively to come to grips with the many hapax legoumena in the book. Now the shocking part: Despite all the attempts to understand Job properly, there are 40 cases in his translation where he only gave [       ] indicating that “the meaning is an enigma.” The good news is, utilizing Middle Egyptian for those problematic cases in Dhorme provides better results. Why? Because it is the language Moses learned between the age of 12 and 40, between 1518 until 1490 BCE. Moses did not know Arabic. Hebrew professors at our universities may look at the wise counsel of F. Delitzsch when he commented about the insufficiency of Arabic for Hebrew lexicography: “When I commenced the study of Assyrian, Assyriology was in a state of slavish dependency on Arabic lexicography” (Delitzsch 1883: VI). “I soon became convinced that Arabic was less important to the study of Assyrian than the North Semitic languages, the Hebrew and the Aramaic dialects, a conviction which I regard as the fundamental principle of Assyrian research” (ibid). Delitzsch found that Arabic cannot be a prototype for Hebrew: “Arabic cannot be the prototype of the other Semitic languages, least of all of Hebrew. This opinion receives the fullest confirmation from Assyrian research” (Delitzsch 1883: VIII). He then asked that Arabic should not be forced on Hebrew meanings: “It is, therefore, time to abandon the ordinary practice of forcing the peculiar, often late, meanings of the Arabic words upon the much older Hebrew sister” (ibid). The need for revision of Hebrew lexicography was stated in this way: “Hebrew-lexicography in its present state has to supply desiderata of a far more solid and important character. A sharper understanding of the Hebrew stems themselves as to their sounds and accurate meaning or shades of meaning is especially required” (Delitzsch 1883: XI). He said that vague meanings to Hebrew words could be deleted: “I think, all these speculations upon the roots and their vague meanings could be omitted without any harm to the Hebrew dictionary and the enormous space saved by this omission could be turned to a better and more useful account” (Delitzsch 1883: XII). The value of Arabic for Hebrew semantics was exaggerated: “The value of Arabic for Hebrew lexicography has been greatly exaggerated” (Delitzsch 1883: 5). There is a false presupposition of a preserved unchanged originality in Arabic: “The well-known fact that the Arabic language has preserved in numerous instances original forms of the Semitic idiom which are lost in the kindred dialects, combined with the enormous copiousness of its vocabulary, has led to the erroneous supposition that the same degree of unchanged originality is to be assumed for the meanings of the Arabic words” (Delitzsch 1883: 5). The error is to force Arabic meanings onto Hebrew ones: “The common practice of arbitrarily forcing Arabic meanings upon Hebrew words constitutes a fundamental error of modern Hebrew lexicography” (ibid). A similar lament can also be found with the Hebrew Grammarian, Gesenius in blog on Lexicography. That is why we suggest Egyptian for the Book of Job. Another feature of critical scholars like Dhorme, who did not pay attention to the words of Delitzsch in this regard, is that they emend the text at free will. They add letters, omit others, omit words and even phrases. Any Adventist scholar who supports emendation of the Hebrew consonantal text of the Masoretic Tradition is actually playing with fire. A red card should be taken out immediately. Sensibility is not a rule, it is a luxury and that is not good enough a rule. Sometimes we do not know and have to wait for further understanding but we cannot use scissors and glue on the Word of God. The verses in Job 13 that Dhorme could not understand properly and just left with a [    ] is Job 13:14 (beginning); and the twelfth case where he argues that a verse from Job 12:27 should be brought to the end of chapter 13! Wait a minute. Red cards are out by anyone who is faithful. No scissors please. It is the Word of God not a child’s scrapbook.

Job 13:14 “Upon what shall I lift up my flesh? In teeth? And my soul I place? In my handpalms?” He wants distance from his friends as Paul said in the New Testament, they bite each other.

Job 13:15 “If He will kill me not, [Masoretes in a flat spin about this word and changed it with vowels to be positive and not negative לא. Judaism has substituted the aleph with a waw in their translation! A red card] I will hope, provided I will *fail* [Egyptian wh(ì) meaning “to fail” for the Hebrew word אוכיח] my way unto His face.” The Syriac left the word out of their verse. It also appears at Job 5:17 reading in our suggestion: “Blessed is the man whom God *fails*. . .” Eliphaz almost entertained the same philosophy of Augustine: let me sin more so that I can receive more grace!  

Job 13:16 “Also He is to me unto salvation for not can come a profane [person] before His face”. *Hanef* [חנף] is a favorite word by Moses in Job and used also in Job 8:13; 13:16; 15:34; 17:8; 20:5; 27:8; 34:30; 36:13. It is also used in other literature later in Psalm 106:38 (410 years later); Isaiah 24:3 (720 years later); Jeremiah 3:1 (870 years later). Moses also used it in his book Numbers 35:33 and it means “profane”. The word is also in Daniel 11:32 which is the papacy [see SDABC 874] and “with flattery he [papacy between 538-1798] *will corrupt* those who violated the covenant….” The Spanish translation of Cassiodoro de Reina in 1569 correctly read *seducirá* and the Portuguese of João Ferreira de Almeida of 1719 read *ele perverterá* Luther translated it in his German translation of 1540 as *Gottlosen* which is the *ungodly*. In the Middle English translation of John Wycliffe in 1384 he read: *wicked men*. The earlier Syriac [post 10^th century copies] version deduced from the word *profane* another cognate, that of *pagan* and *heathen*. Some modern scholars think it is *an impious man* and *renegade*.