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render בלא חמה correctly in the sense of בחשׁך, "without the sun having shone on him.” Bereft of all his possessions, and finally also of his children, he wanders about in mourning (הלּך as Job 24:10; Psa 38:7), and even the sun had clothed itself in black to him (which is what קדר השׁמשׁ means, Joe 2:10 and freq.); the celestial light, which otherwise brightened his path, Job 29:3, was become invisible. We must not forget that Job here reviews the whole chain of afflictions which have come upon him, so that by Job 30:28 we have not to think exclusively, and also not prominently, of the leprosy, since הלכתי indeed represents him as still able to move about freely.
In Job 30:28 the accentuation wavers between Dechî, Munach, Silluk, according to which בּקּהל אשׁוּע belong together, which is favoured by the Dagesh in the Beth, and Tarcha, Munach, Silluk, according to which (because Munach, according to Psalter ii. 503, §2, is a transformation of Rebia mugrasch) קמתּי בּקּהל belong together. The latter mode of accentuation, according to which בקהל must be written without the Dag. instead of בּקהל (vid., Norzi), is the only correct one (because Dechî cannot come in the last member of the sentence before Silluk), and is also more pleasing as to matter: I rose (and stood) in the assembly, crying for help, or more generally: wailing. The assembly is not to be thought of as an assembly of the people, or even tribunal (Ew.: ”before the tribunal seeking a judge, with lamentations”), but as the public; for the thought that Job sought help against his unmerited sufferings before a human tribunal is absurd; and, moreover, the thought that he cried for help before an assembly of the people called together to take counsel and pronounce decisions is equally absurd. Welte, however, who interprets: I was as one who, before an assembled tribunal, etc., introduces a quasi of which there is no trace in the text. בּקּהל must therefore, without pressing it further, be taken in the sense of publice, before all the world (Hirz.: comp. בקהל, ἐν φανερῷ, Pro 26:26);