Ayub 2:9

2:9 Then ¹  his wife said to him, “Are you still holding firmly to your integrity? ²  Curse ³  God, and die!” ⁴ 

Ayub 17:9

17:9 But the righteous man holds to his way,

and the one with clean hands grows stronger. ⁵ 

Ayub 22:3

22:3 Is it of any special benefit ⁶  to the Almighty

that you should be righteous,

or is it any gain to him

that you make your ways blameless? ⁷ 

Ayub 22:19

22:19 The righteous see their destruction ⁸  and rejoice;

the innocent mock them scornfully, ⁹  saying,

Ayub 25:4

25:4 How then can a human being be righteous before God?

How can one born of a woman be pure? ¹⁰ 

Ayub 27:6

27:6 I will maintain my righteousness

and never let it go;

my conscience ¹¹  will not reproach me

for as long as I live. ¹² 

Ayub 32:1

V. The Speeches of Elihu (32:1-37:24)

Elihu’s First Speech ¹³ 

32:1 So these three men refused to answer ¹⁴  Job further, because he was righteous in his ¹⁵  own eyes.

Ayub 34:5

34:5 For Job says, ‘I am innocent, ¹⁶ 

but God turns away my right.

Ayub 35:8

35:8 Your wickedness affects only ¹⁷  a person like yourself,

and your righteousness only other people. ¹⁸ 

[2:9]  ¹ tn The versions have some information here that is interesting, albeit fanciful. The Targum calls her “Dinah.” The LXX has “when a long time had passed.” But the whole rendering of the LXX is paraphrastic: “How long will you hold out, saying, ‘Behold, I wait yet a little while, expecting the hope of my deliverance?’ for behold, your memorial is abolished from the earth, even your sons and daughters, the pangs and pains of my womb which I bore in vain with sorrows, and you yourself sit down to spend the night in the open air among the corruption of worms, and I am a wanderer and a servant from place to place and house to house, waiting for the setting sun, that I may rest from my labors and pains that now beset me, but say some word against the Lord and die.”

[2:9]  ² sn See R. D. Moore, “The Integrity of Job,” CBQ 45 (1983): 17-31. The reference of Job’s wife to his “integrity” could be a precursor of the conclusion reached by Elihu in 32:2 where he charged Job with justifying himself rather than God.

[2:9]  ³ tn The verb is literally בָּרַךְ, (barakh, “bless”). As in the earlier uses, the meaning probably has more to do with renouncing God than of speaking a curse. The actual word may be taken as a theological euphemism for the verb קִלֵּל (qillel, “curse”). If Job’s wife had meant that he was trying to justify himself rather than God, “bless God” might be translated “speak well of God,” the resolution accepted by God in 42:7-8 following Job’s double confession of having spoken wrongly of God (40:3-5; 42:1-6).

[2:9]  sn The church fathers were quick to see here again the role of the wife in the temptation – she acts as the intermediary between Satan and Job, pressing the cause for him. However, Job’s wife has been demonized falsely. Job did not say that she was a foolish woman, only that she was speaking like one of them (2:10). Also, Job did not exclude her from sharing in his suffering (“should we receive”). He evidently recognized that her words were the result of her personal loss and pain as well as the desire to see her husband’s suffering ended. When God gave instructions for the restoration of Job’s friends because of their foolish words (42:7-9), no mention is made of any need for Job’s wife to be restored.

[2:9]  ⁴ tn The imperative with the conjunction in this expression serves to express the certainty that will follow as the result or consequence of the previous imperative (GKC 324-25 §110.f).

[17:9]  ⁵ tn The last two words are the imperfect verb יֹסִיף (yosif) which means “he adds,” and the abstract noun “energy, strength.” This noun is not found elsewhere; its Piel verb occurs in Job 4:4 and 16:5. “he increases strength.”

[22:3]  ⁶ tn The word חֵפֶץ (khefets) in this passage has the nuance of “special benefit; favor.” It does not just express the desire for something or the interest in it, but the profit one derives from it.

[22:3]  ⁷ tn The verb תַתֵּם (tattem) is the Hiphil imperfect of תָּמַם (tamam, “be complete, finished”), following the Aramaic form of the geminate verb with a doubling of the first letter.

[22:19]  ⁸ tn The line is talking about the rejoicing of the righteous when judgment falls on the wicked. An object (“destruction”) has to be supplied here to clarify this (see Pss 52:6 [8]; 69:32 [33]; 107:42).

[22:19]  ⁹ sn In Ps 2:4 it was God who mocked the wicked by judging them.

[25:4]  ¹⁰ sn Bildad here does not come up with new expressions; rather, he simply uses what Eliphaz had said (see Job 4:17-19 and 15:14-16).

[27:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “my heart.”

[27:6]  ¹² tn The prepositional phrase “from my days” probably means “from the days of my birth,” or “all my life.”

[32:1]  ¹³ sn There are now four speeches from another friend of Job, Elihu. But Job does not reply to any of these, nor does the Lord. The speeches show a knowledge of the debate that has gone on, but they take a different approach entirely. Elihu’s approach is that suffering is a discipline from God, to teach his people. In other words, Job was suffering to vindicate God’s confidence in him. His speeches are an interesting part of the book, but they too are irrelevant to Job’s actual case. In the first speech, there is a short introduction (32:1-5), and then the speech proper with these sections: Elihu will speak because his youth is wiser (32:6-14), and his friends arguments failed (32:15-22); he calls for Job’s attention (33:1-7), claims Job’s case is wrong (33:8-13), and Job’s argument that God does not answer is false (33:14-28), and then makes an appeal to Job (33:29-33). It becomes evident that Elihu correctly identified Job’s determination to maintain his integrity at God’s expense as the primary problem in at least the latter stages of the dialogues (32:1-3; 34:37; 35:16; cf. 38:2; 40:8; 42:3). Elihu was respectful of his elders (32:4), but remained uninfected by their error (32:14). He sought to maintain impartiality (32:21-22) and to offer true wisdom (33:33), believed like Job that a mediator existed (33:23-24), and desired Job’s vindication (33:32). In addition, Elihu focused on vindicating God’s actions (34:12; 35:10-11; 36:2-3, 22-26) and announced the coming theophany (37:1-5, 22). It appears that he was not included in the divine condemnation of Job’s friends (42:7-9) and was excluded from Job’s prayer of intercession (42:8-10) – both perhaps implying divine approval of his behavior and words.

[32:1]  ¹⁴ tn The form is the infinitive construct (“answer”) functioning as the object of the preposition; the phrase forms the complement of the verb “they ceased to answer” (= “they refused to answer further”).

[32:1]  ¹⁵ tc The LXX, Syriac, and Symmachus have “in their eyes.” This is adopted by some commentators, but it does not fit the argument.

[34:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “righteous,” but in this context it means to be innocent or in the right.

[35:8]  ¹⁷ tn The phrase “affects only” is supplied in the translation of this nominal sentence.

[35:8]  sn According to Strahan, “Elihu exalts God’s greatness at the cost of His grace, His transcendence at the expense of His immanence. He sets up a material instead of a spiritual stand of profit and loss. He does not realize that God does gain what He desires most by the goodness of men, and loses what He most loves by their evil.”

[35:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and to [or for] a son of man, your righteousness.”