Ayub 4:6

4:6 Is not your piety ¹  your confidence, ² 

and your blameless ways your hope? ³ 

Ayub 41:5

41:5 Can you play ⁴  with it, like a bird,

or tie it on a leash ⁵  for your girls?

[4:6]  ¹ tn The word יִרְאָה (yir’ah, “fear”) in this passage refers to Job’s fear of the Lord, his reverential devotion to God. H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 46) says that on the lips of Eliphaz the word almost means “your religion.” He refers to Moffatt’s translation, “Let your religion reassure you.”

[4:6]  ² tn The word כִּסְלָתֶךָ (kislatekha, “your confidence”) is rendered in the LXX by “founded in folly.” The word כֶּסֶל (kesel) is “confidence” (see 8:14) and elsewhere “folly.” Since it is parallel to “your hope” it must mean confidence here.

[4:6]  ³ tn This second half of the verse simply has “your hope and the integrity of your ways.” The expression “the perfection of your ways” is parallel to “your fear,” and “your hope” is parallel to “your confidence.” This sentence is an example of casus pendens or extraposition: “as for your hope, it is the integrity of your ways” (see GKC 458 §143.d).

[4:6]  sn Eliphaz is not being sarcastic to Job. He knows that Job is a God-fearing man who lives out his faith in life. But he also knows that Job should apply to himself the same things he tells others.

[41:5]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew verb is שָׂחַק (sakhaq, “to sport; to trifle; to play,” Ps 104:26).

[41:5]  ⁵ tn The idea may include putting Leviathan on a leash. D. W. Thomas suggested on the basis of an Arabic cognate that it could be rendered “tie him with a string like a young sparrow” (VT 14 [1964]: 114ff.).