Job 15:17-19

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 15:17 tn The demonstrative pronoun is used here as a nominative, to introduce an independent relative clause (see GKC 447 §138.h).
2. Job 15:17 tn Here the vav (ו) apodosis follows with the cohortative (see GKC 458 §143.d).
3. Job 15:18 tn The word “tradition” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation.
4. Job 15:18 tn Heb “their fathers.” Some commentators change one letter and follow the reading of the LXX: “and their fathers have not hidden.” Pope tries to get the same reading by classifying the ם (mem) as an enclitic mem. The MT on first glance would read “and did not hide from their fathers.” Some take the clause “and they did not hide” as adverbial and belonging to the first part of the verse: “what wise men declare, hiding nothing, according to the tradition of their fathers.”
5. Job 15:19 sn Eliphaz probably thinks that Edom was the proverbial home of wisdom, and so the reference here would be to his own people. If, as many interpret, the biblical writer is using these accounts to put Yahwistic ideas into the discussion, then the reference would be to Canaan at the time of the fathers. At any rate, the tradition of wisdom to Eliphaz has not been polluted by foreigners, but has retained its pure and moral nature from antiquity.