Page:03.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.B.vol.3.LaterProphets.djvu/1162

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While the unfortunate, in spite of his innocence, has thus only to expect contempt, the tents, i.e., dwellings and possessions, of the oppressor and the marauder remain in prosperity; ישׁליוּ for ישׁלוּ, an intensive form used not only in pause (Psa 36:8; comp. Deu 32:37) and with greater distinctives (Num 34:6; Psa 122:6), but also in passages where it receives no such accent (Psa 36:9; Psa 57:2; Psa 73:2). On אהלים, instead of אהלים, vid., Ges. §93, 6, 3. The verbal clause (Job 12:6) is followed by a substantival clause (Job 12:6). בּטּחות is an abstract plural from בּטּוּח, perfectly secure; therefore: the most care-less security is the portion of those who provoke God (lxx περοργίζουσι);[1] and this is continued in an individualizing form: him who causes Eloah to go into his hand. Seb. Schmid explains this passage in the main correctly: qui Deum in manu fert h.e. qui manum aut potentiam suam pro Deo habet et licitum sibi putat quodlibet; comp. Hab 1:11 : “this his strength becomes God to him,” i.e., he deifies his own power, and puts it in the place of God. But הביא signifies, in this connection with לידו (not בידו), neither to carry, nor to lead (Gesenius, who compares Psa 74:5, where, however, it signifies to cause to go into = to strike into); it must be translated: he who causes Eloah to enter into his hand; from which translation it is clear that not the deification of the hand, but of that which is taken into the hand, is meant. This which is taken into the hand is not, however, an idol (Abenezra), but the sword; therefore: him who thinks after the manner of Lamech,[2] as he takes the iron weapon of attack and defence into his hand, that he needs no other God.

  1. Luther takes בטחות as the adverb to מרגיזי: und toben wider Gott thürstiglich (vid., Vilmar, Pastoraltheolog. Blätter, 1861, S. 110-112); according to the Vulg., et audacter provocant Deum.
  2. [Comp Pentateuch, at Gen 4:25, Clark's Foreign Theological Library. - Tr.]