deviate too much from the mode of writing and pronunciation customary since Luther.[1]
The writer intentionally uses four synonyms together, in order to describe as strongly as possible Job's piety, the reality and purity of which is the fundamental assumption of the history. תּם, with the whole heart disposed towards God and what is good, and also well-disposed toward mankind; ישׁר, in thought and action without deviation conformed to that which is right; אלהים ירא, fearing God, and consequently being actuated by the fear of God, which is the beginning (i.e., principle) of wisdom; מרע סר, keeping aloof from evil, which is opposed to God. The first predicate recalls Gen 25:27, the fourth the proverbial Psalms (Psa 34:15; Psa 37:27) and Pro 14:16. This mingling of expressions from Genesis and Proverbs is characteristic. First now, after the history has been begun in praett., aorr. follow.
Verses 2-3
Job 1:2-3 2, 3 And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters. His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses, and servants in great number; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east.
It is a large, princely household. The numbers are large, but must not on that account be considered an invention. The four animals named include both kinds. With the doubled אלפי corresponds the also constructive מאות, the Tsere of which is never shortened, though in the singular one says מאת, from מאה. The aorists, especially of the verb היה (הוה), which,
- ↑ On the authorizing of the writing Iob, more exactly Îob, also Îjob (not, however, Ijjob, which does not correspond to the real pronunciation, which softens ij into î, and uw into û), vid., Fleischer's Beitrâge zur arab. Sprachkunde (Abh. der sâchs. Gesellschaft d. Wissenschaften, 1863), S. 137f. [The usual English form Job is adopted here, though Dr. Delitzsch writes Iob in the original work. - Tr.]
