in his Bericht über seine Reise in den beiden Trachonen und um das Hauran-Gebirge, Zeitschr. für allg. Erdkunde, 1859), and about fifteen miles south of Têmâ, a Bûzân suggestive of Elihu's surname (comp. Jer 25:23). שׁוּח we know only from Gen 25 as the son of Abraham and Keturah, who settled in the east country. Accordingly it must be a district of Arabia lying not very far from Idumaea: it might be compared with trans-Hauran Schakka, though the sound, however, of the word makes it scarcely admissible, which is undoubtedly one and the same with Dakkai'a, east from Batanaea, mentioned in Ptolem. v. 15. נעמה is a name frequent in Syria and Palestine: there is a town of the Jewish Shephêla (the low ground by the Mediterranean) of this name, Jos 15:41, which, however, can hardly be intended here. הבּאה is Milel, consequently third pers. with the art. instead of the relative pron. (as, besides here, Gen 18:21; Gen 46:27), vid., Ges. §109 ad init. The Niph. נועד is strongly taken by some expositors as the same meaning with נועץ, to confer with, appoint a meeting: it signifies, to assemble themselves, to meet in an appointed place at an appointed time (Neh 6:2). Reports spread among the mounted tribes of the Arabian desert with the rapidity of telegraphic despatches.
Verse 12
Their Arrival: 12 And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and threw dust upon their heads toward heaven.
They saw a form which seemed to be Job, but in which they were not able to recognise him. Then they weep and rend their outer garments, and catch up dust to throw up towards heaven (1Sa 4:12), that it may fall again upon their heads. The casting up of dust on high is the outwards sign of intense suffering, and, as von Gerlach rightly remarks, of that which causes him to cry to heaven.
