That the כּי, Job 21:30, as in Job 21:28, introduces the view of the friends, and is the antecedent clause to Job 21:31 : quod (si) vos dicitis, in tempora cladis per iram divinam immissae servari et nescium futuri velut pecudem eo deduci improbum (Böttcher, de fin. §76), has in the double ל an apparent support, which is not to be denied, especially in regard to Job 38:23; it is, however, on account of the omission of the indispensable תאמרו in this instance, an explanation which does violence to the words. The כּי, on the contrary, introduces that which the accounts of the travellers affirm. Further, the ל in ליום indicates here not the terminus ad quem, but as in לערב, in the evening, the terminus quo. And the verb חשׂך, cohibere, signifies here to hold back from danger, as Job 33:18, therefore to preserve uninjured. Ew. translates Job 21:30 erroneously: “in the day when the floods of wrath come on.” How tame would this הוּבל, “to be led near,” be! This Hoph. signifies elsewhere to be brought and conducted, and occurs in Job 21:32, as in Isa 55:12 and elsewhere, of an honourable escort; here, in accordance with the connection: to be led away out of the danger (somewhat as Lot and his family by the escort of angels). At the time, when streams of wrath (עברה, the overflowing of vexation = outburst of wrath, like the Arab. ‛abrt, the overflowing of the eye = tears) go forth, they remain untouched: they escape them, as being under a special, higher protection.[1]
Job 21:31 is commonly taken as a
- ↑ This interpretation, however, is unsatisfactory, because it does not do justice to the twofold ל, which seems, according to Job 38:23, to be intended to indicate the terminus ad quem; perhaps Job 21:29 and Job 21:30 are to be transposed. If Job 21:30 followed Job 21:28, it would retain its natural sense as belonging to the view of the friends: “For the wicked is reserved for the day of calamity, and to a day of wrath they are led” (יובלו as Isa 53:7; Jer 11:19). Then והוא לקברות יובל also adds a suitable echo of the contradiction in Job's mouth. Böttch. rightly calls attention to the consonance of יובל with יובלו, and of עברות with קברות.
