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שׂער (comp. סערה, O storm-chased one) is connected with the accus. of the person pursued, as in Psa 58:10. The subj. of וישׁלך, Job 27:22, is God, and the verb stands without an obj.: to cast at any one (shoot), as Num 35:22 (for the figure, comp. Job 16:13); lxx correctly: ἐπιῤῥίψει (whereas Job 18:7, σφάλαι = ותכשׁילהו). The gerundive with יברח lays stress upon the idea of the exertion of flight: whithersoever he may flee before the hand of God, every attempt is in vain. The suff. êmo, Job 27:22, both according to the syntax and the matter, may be taken as the plural suff.; but the fact that כּפּימו can be equivalent to כּפּיו (comp. Psa 11:7), עלימו to עליו (comp. Job 20:23; Job 22:2), as למו is equivalent to לו ot tn (vid., Isa 44:15; Isa 53:8), is established, and there is no reason why the same may not be the case here. The accumulation of the terminations êmo and ômo gives a tone of thunder and a gloomy impress to this conclusion of the description of judgment, as these terminations frequently occur in the book of Psalms, where moral depravity is mourned and divine judgment threatened (e.g., in Psa 17:1-15; 49; 58:1-59:17; 73). The clapping of hands (שׂפק כּפּים = ספק, Lam 2:15, comp. תּקע, Nah 3:19) is a token of malignant joy, and hissing (שׁרק, Zep 2:15; Jer 49:17) a token of scorn. The expression in Job 27:23 is a pregnant one. Clapping of hands and hissing accompany the evil-doer when merited punishment overtakes him, and chases him forth from the place which he hitherto occupied (comp. Job 8:18).
Earlier expositors have thought it exceedingly remarkable that Job, in Job 27:13-23, should agree with the assertions of the three friends concerning the destiny of the ungodly and his descendants, while he has previously opposed them on this point, Job 12:6, Job 12:21, Job 12:24. Kennicott thinks the confusion is cleared away by regarding Job 26:2-27:12 as Job's answer to the third speech of Bildad, Job 27:13. as the third speech of Zophar, and Job 28:1 (to which the superscription Job 27:1 belongs) as Job's reply thereto; but this reply begins with כּי, and is specially appropriate as a striking repartee to the speech of Zophar. Stuhlmann (1804) makes this third speech of Zophar begin with Job 27:11, and imagines a gap between Job 27:10 and Job 27:11; but who then are the persons whom Zophar addresses by “you”? The three everywhere address themselves to Job, while here Zophar, contrary to custom, would address himself not to him, but, according to Stuhlmann's exposition, to the others with reference to Job. Job 28 Stuhlmann removes and places after Job 25:1-6 as a continuation of Bildad's speech; Zophar's speech therefore remains unanswered, and Zophar may thank this critic not only for allowing him another opportunity of speaking, but also for allowing him the last word. Bernstein (Keil-Tzschirner's Analekten, Bd. i. St. 3) removes the contradiction into which Job seems to fall respecting himself in a more thorough manner, by rejecting the division Job 27:7-28:28, which is certainly indissolubly connected as a whole, as a later interpolation; but there is no difference of language and poetic spirit here betraying an interpolator; and had there been one, even he ought indeed to have proceeded on the assumption that such an insertion should be appropriate to Job's mouth, so that the task of proving its relative fitness, from his standpoint at least, remains. Hosse (1849) goes still further: he puts Job 27:10; Job 31:35-37; Job 38:1, etc., together, and leaves out all that comes between these passages. There is then no transition whatever from the entanglement to the unravelment. Job's final reply, Job 27:1, with the monologue Job 29:1, in which even a feeble perception must recognise one of the most