Ayub 28:1-5

III. Job’s Search for Wisdom (28:1-28)

No Known Road to Wisdom ¹ 

28:1 “Surely ²  there is a mine ³  for silver,

and a place where gold is refined. ⁴ 

28:2 Iron is taken from the ground, ⁵ 

and rock is poured out ⁶  as copper.

28:3 Man puts an end to the darkness; ⁷ 

he searches the farthest recesses

for the ore in the deepest darkness. ⁸ 

28:4 Far from where people live ⁹  he sinks a shaft,

in places travelers have long forgotten, ¹⁰ 

far from other people he dangles and sways. ¹¹ 

28:5 The earth, from which food comes,

is overturned below as though by fire; ¹² 

Ayub 28:15-19

28:15 Fine gold cannot be given in exchange for it,

nor can its price be weighed out in silver.

28:16 It cannot be measured out for purchase ¹³  with the gold of Ophir,

with precious onyx ¹⁴  or sapphires.

28:17 Neither gold nor crystal ¹⁵  can be compared with it,

nor can a vase ¹⁶  of gold match its worth.

28:18 Of coral and jasper no mention will be made;

the price ¹⁷  of wisdom is more than pearls. ¹⁸ 

28:19 The topaz of Cush ¹⁹  cannot be compared with it;

it cannot be purchased with pure gold.

[28:1]  ¹ sn As the book is now arranged, this chapter forms an additional speech by Job, although some argue that it comes from the writer of the book. The mood of the chapter is not despair, but wisdom; it anticipates the divine speeches in the end of the book. This poem, like many psalms in the Bible, has a refrain (vv. 12 and 20). These refrains outline the chapter, giving three sections: there is no known road to wisdom (1-11); no price can buy it (12-19); and only God has it, and only by revelation can man posses it (20-28).

[28:1]  ² tn The poem opens with כִּי (ki). Some commentators think this should have been “for,” and that the poem once stood in another setting. But there are places in the Bible where this word occurs with the sense of “surely” and no other meaning (cf. Gen 18:20).

[28:1]  ³ tn The word מוֹצָא (motsa’, from יָצָא [yatsa’, “go out”]) is the word for “mine,” or more simply, “source.” Mining was not an enormous industry in the land of Canaan or Israel; mined products were imported. Some editors have suggested alternative readings: Dahood found in the word the root for “shine” and translated the MT as “smelter.” But that is going too far. P. Joüon suggested “place of finding,” reading מִמְצָא (mimtsa’) for מוֹצָא (motsa’; see Bib 11 [1930]: 323).

[28:1]  ⁴ tn The verb יָזֹקּוּ (yazoqqu) translated “refined,” comes from זָקַק (zaqaq), a word that basically means “to blow.” From the meaning “to blow; to distend; to inflate” derives the meaning for refining.

[28:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “from dust.”

[28:2]  ⁶ tn The verb יָצוּק (yatsuq) is usually translated as a passive participle “is smelted” (from יָצַק [yatsaq, “to melt”]): “copper is smelted from the ore” (ESV) or “from the stone, copper is poured out” (as an imperfect from צוּק [tsuq]). But the rock becomes the metal in the process. So according to R. Gordis (Job, 304) the translation should be: “the rock is poured out as copper.” E. Dhorme (Job, 400), however, defines the form in the text as “hard,” and simply has it “hard stone becomes copper.”

[28:3]  ⁷ sn The text appears at first to be saying that by opening up a mine shaft, or by taking lights down below, the miner dispels the darkness. But the clause might be more general, meaning that man goes deep into the earth as if it were day.

[28:3]  ⁸ tn The verse ends with “the stone of darkness and deep darkness.” The genitive would be location, describing the place where the stones are found.

[28:4]  ⁹ tc The first part of this verse, “He cuts a shaft far from the place where people live,” has received a lot of attention. The word for “live” is גָּר (gar). Some of the proposals are: “limestone,” on the basis of the LXX; “far from the light,” reading נֵר (ner); “by a foreign people,” taking the word to means “foreign people”; “a foreign people opening shafts”; or taking gar as “crater” based on Arabic. Driver puts this and the next together: “a strange people who have been forgotten cut shafts” (see AJSL 3 [1935]: 162). L. Waterman had “the people of the lamp” (“Note on Job 28:4,” JBL 71 [1952]: 167ff). And there are others. Since there is really no compelling argument in favor of one of these alternative interpretations, the MT should be preserved until shown to be wrong.

[28:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “forgotten by the foot.” This means that there are people walking above on the ground, and the places below, these mines, are not noticed by the pedestrians above.

[28:4]  ¹¹ sn This is a description of the mining procedures. Dangling suspended from a rope would be a necessary part of the job of going up and down the shafts.

[28:5]  ¹² sn The verse has been properly understood, on the whole, as comparing the earth above and all its produce with the upheaval down below.

[28:16]  ¹³ tn The word actually means “weighed,” that is, lifted up on the scale and weighed, in order to purchase.

[28:16]  ¹⁴ tn The exact identification of these stones is uncertain. Many recent English translations, however, have “onyx” and “sapphires.”

[28:17]  ¹⁵ tn The word is from זָכַךְ (zakhakh, “clear”). It describes a transparent substance, and so “glass” is an appropriate translation. In the ancient world it was precious and so expensive.

[28:17]  ¹⁶ tc The MT has “vase”; but the versions have a plural here, suggesting jewels of gold.

[28:18]  ¹⁷ tn The word מֶשֶׁךְ (meshekh) comes from a root meaning “to grasp; to seize; to hold,” and so the derived noun means “grasping; acquiring; taking possession,” and therefore, “price” (see the discussion in R. Gordis, Job, 309). Gray renders it “acquisition” (so A. Cohen, AJSL 40 [1923/24]: 175).

[28:18]  ¹⁸ tn In Lam 4:7 these are described as red, and so have been identified as rubies (so NIV) or corals.

[28:19]  ¹⁹ tn Or “Ethiopia.” In ancient times this referred to the region of the upper Nile, rather than modern Ethiopia (formerly known as Abyssinia).