and show thee the secrets of wisdom,
for wondrous are they in perfection![1]
Canst thou find the depths of God [Eloah]?
canst thou reach to the end of Shaddai?
Heights of heaven! what canst thou do?
deeper than Sheól! what canst thou know? (xi. 5-8.)
If Zophar had worked out this idea impartially, he might have given to the discussion a fresh and more profitable turn. He is so taken up with the traditional orthodoxy, however, that he has no room for a deeper view of the problem. His inference is that, in virtue of His perfect knowledge, God can detect sin where man sees none, though that cruellest touch of all with which the Massoretic text[2] burdens the reputation of Zophar is not supported by the more accurate text of the Septuagint, and we should read xi. 6 thus:
and thou shouldest know that God [Eloah] gives unto thee
thy deserts[3] for thine iniquity.
But indeed a special revelation ought not to be necessary for Job. His trouble, proceeding as it does from one no less wise than irresistible (xi. 10, 11), ought to dispel his dream of innocence; as Zophar generalises, when God's judgments are abroad—
(Even) an empty head wins understanding,
and a wild ass's colt is new-born as a man (xi. 12).
We may pass over the brilliant description of prosperity consequent on a true repentance with which the chapter concludes. It fell quite unheeded on the ears of Job, who was more stung by the irritating speech of Zophar than by those of Eliphaz and Bildad.
The taunt conveyed indirectly by Zophar in xi. 12 is ex-*
- ↑ Comp. Isa. xxviii. 29 (Heb.) By a slight error of the ear the copyist whom
our Hebrew Bibles follow put a Yōd for an Alef. Hence the Massoretic critics
pronounce kiflayim 'twofold,' instead of kif'lāim 'like wonders:' following
this text, Davidson renders, 'that it is double in (true) understanding.' - ↑ Literally '. . . that God brings into forgetfulness for thee some of thy guilt.'
- ↑ Following Sept., with Bickell. Comp. the Hebrew of Job xxxiii. 27.
