Ayub 23:10

23:10 But he knows the pathway that I take; ¹ 

if he tested me, I would come forth like gold. ² 

Ayub 28:1

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

No Known Road to Wisdom ³ 

28:1 “Surely ⁴  there is a mine ⁵  for silver,

and a place where gold is refined. ⁶ 

Yesaya 48:10

48:10 Look, I have refined you, but not as silver;

I have purified you ⁷  in the furnace of misery.

Zakharia 13:9

13:9 Then I will bring the remaining third into the fire;

I will refine them like silver is refined

and will test them like gold is tested.

They will call on my name and I will answer;

I will say, ‘These are my people,’

and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’” ⁸ 

[23:10]  ¹ tn The expression דֶּרֶךְ עִמָּדִי (derekh ’immadi) means “the way with me,” i.e., “the way that I take.” The Syriac has “my way and my standing.” Several commentators prefer “the way of my standing,” meaning where to look for me. J. Reider offers “the way of my life” (“Some notes to the text of the scriptures,” HUCA 3 [1926]: 115). Whatever the precise wording, Job knows that God can always find him.

[23:10]  ² tn There is a perfect verb followed by an imperfect in this clause with the protasis and apodosis relationship (see GKC 493 §159.b).

[28:1]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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.

[48:10]  ⁷ tc The Hebrew text has בְּחַרְתִּיךָ (bÿkhartikha, “I have chosen you”), but the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a reads correctly בחנתיכה (“I have tested you”). The metallurgical background of the imagery suggests that purification through testing is the idea.

[13:9]  ⁸ sn The expression I will say ‘It is my people,’ and they will say ‘the Lord is my God’ is reminiscent of the restoration of Israel predicted by Hosea, who said that those who had been rejected as God’s people would be reclaimed and once more become his sons and daughters (Hos 2:23).