Ayub 16:12

16:12 I was in peace, and he has shattered me. ¹ 

He has seized me by the neck and crushed me. ² 

He has made me his target;

Ayub 16:16-19

16:16 my face is reddened ³  because of weeping, ⁴ 

and on my eyelids there is a deep darkness, ⁵ 

16:17 although ⁶  there is no violence in my hands

and my prayer is pure.

An Appeal to God as Witness

16:18 “O earth, do not cover my blood, ⁷ 

nor let there be a secret ⁸  place for my cry.

16:19 Even now my witness ⁹  is in heaven;

my advocate ¹⁰  is on high.

[16:12]  ¹ tn The verb פָּרַר (parar) means “to shake.” In the Hiphil it means “to break; to shatter” (5:12; 15:4). The Pilpel means “to break in pieces,” and in the Poel in Jer 23:29 “to smash up.” So Job was living at ease, and God shattered his life.

[16:12]  ² tn Here is another Pilpel, now from פָּצַץ (patsats) with a similar meaning to the other verb. It means “to dash into pieces” and even scatter the pieces. The LXX translates this line, “he took me by the hair of the head and plucked it out.”

[16:16]  ³ tn An intensive form, a Qetaltal form of the root חָמַר (khamar, “red”) is used here. This word has as probable derivatives חֹמֶר (khomer, “[red] clay”) and חֲמוֹר (khamor, “[red] ass”) and the like. Because of the weeping, his whole complexion has been reddened (the LXX reads “my belly”).

[16:16]  ⁴ sn A. B. Davidson (Job, 122) notes that spontaneous and repeated weeping is one of the symptoms of elephantiasis.

[16:16]  ⁵ sn See Job 3:5. Just as joy brings light and life to the eyes, sorrow and suffering bring darkness. The “eyelids” here would be synecdoche, reflecting the whole facial expression as sad and sullen.

[16:17]  ⁶ tn For the use of the preposition עַל (’al) to introduce concessive clauses, see GKC 499 §160.c.

[16:18]  ⁷ sn Job knows that he will die, and that his death, signified here by blood on the ground, will cry out for vindication.

[16:18]  ⁸ tn The word is simply “a place,” but in the context it surely means a hidden place, a secret place that would never be discovered (see 18:21).

[16:19]  ⁹ sn The witness in heaven must be God, to whom the cries and prayers come. Job’s dilemma is serious, but common to the human experience: the hostility of God toward him is baffling, but he is conscious of his innocence and can call on God to be his witness.

[16:19]  ¹⁰ tn The parallelism now uses the Aramaic word “my advocate” – the one who testifies on my behalf. The word again appears in Gen 31:47 for Laban’s naming of the “heap of witness” in Aramaic – “Sahadutha.”