7 If my steps turned aside from the way,
And my heart followed mine eyes,
And any spot hath cleaved to my hands: 8 May I sow and another eat,
And let my shoots be rooted out.
We have translated שׁוא (on the form vid., on Job 15:31, and the idea on Job 11:11) falsehood, for it signifies desolateness and hollowness under a concealing mask, therefore the contradiction between what is without and within, lying and deceit, parall. מרמה, deceit, delusion, imposition. The phrase הלך עם־שׁוא is based on the personification of deceit, or on thinking of it in connection with the מתי־שׁוא (Job 11:11). The form ותּחשׁ cannot be derived from חוּשׁ, from which it ought to be ותּחשׁ, like ויּסר Jdg 4:18 and freq., ויּשׂר (serravit) 1Ch 20:3, ויּעט (increpavit) 1Sa 25:14. Many grammarians (Ges. §72, rem. 9; Olsh. 257, g) explain the Pathach instead of Kametz as arising from the virtual doubling of the guttural (Dagesh forte implicitum), for which, however, no ground exists here; Ewald (§232, b) explains it by “the hastening of the tone towards the beginning,” which explains nothing, since the retreat of the tone has not this effect anywhere else. We must content ourselves with the supposition that ותּחשׁ is formed from a חשׁה having a similar meaning to חוּשׁ (חישׁ), as also ויּעט, 1Sa 15:19, comp. 1Sa 14:32, is from a עטח of similar signification with עיט. The hypothetical antecedent, Job 31:5, is followed by the conclusion, Job 31:6 : If he have done this, may God not spare him. He has, however, not done it; and if God puts him to an impartial trial, He will learn his תּמּה, integritas, purity of character. The “balance of justice” is the balance of the final judgment, which the Arabs call Arab. mı̂zân 'l-a‛mâl, “the balance of actions (works).”[1]
Job 31:7
- ↑ The manual of ethics by Ghazzâli is entitled mı̂zân el-a‛mâl in the original, מאזני צדק in Bar-Chisdai's translation, vid., Gosche on Ghazzâli's life and works, S. 261 of the volume of the Berliner Akademie d. Wissensch. for 1858.
