although strictly it is only a confirmation (vid., Job 31:11, Job 31:23) of an implied imprecatory conclusion: therefore it is (would be) also a judicial misdeed, i.e., one to be severely punished, for I should have played the hypocrite to God above (לאל ממּעל, recalling the universal Arabic expression allah ta‛âla, God, the Exalted One) by making gold and silver, the sun and moon my idols. By פּלילי both the sins belonging to the judgment-seat of God, as in ἔνοχος τῷ συνεδρίῳ, Mat 5:22, are not referred to a human tribunal, but only described κατ ̓ ἄνθρωπον as punishable transgressions of the highest grade. כּחשׁ ל signifies to play the hypocrite to any one, whereas to disown any one is expressed by כחשׁ בּ. His worship of God would have been hypocrisy, if he had disowned in secret the God whom he acknowledged openly and outwardly.
Now follow strophes to which the conclusion is wanting. The single imprecatory conclusion which yet follows (Job 31:40), is not so worded that it might avail for all the preceding hypothetical antecedents. There are therefore in these strophes no conclusions that correspond to the other clauses. The inward emotion of the confessor, which constantly increases in fervour the more he feels himself superior to his accusers in the exemplariness of his life hitherto, struggles against this rounding off of the periods. A “yea then - !” is easily supplied in thought to these strophes which per aposiopesin are devoid of conclusions.
Verses 29-30
Job 31:29-30 29 If I rejoiced over the destruction of him who hated me,
And became excited when evil came upon him - 30 Yet I did not allow my palate to sin
By calling down a curse upon his life.
The aposiopesis is here manifest, for Job 31:29 is evidently equal to a solemn denial, to which Job 31:30 is then attached as a simple negative. He did not rejoice at the destruction (פיד, Arab. fêd,[1] as Job 12:5; Job 30:24)
- ↑ Gesenius derives the noun פיד from the verb פיד, but the Arabic, which is the test here, has not only the verb fâda as med. u and as med. i in the signification to die, but also in connection with el̇feid (fêd) the substantival form el-fı̂d (= el-môt), which (= fiwd, comp. p. 26, note) is referable to fâda, med. u. Thus Neshwân, who in his Lexicon (vol. ii. fol. 119) even only knows fâda, med. u, in the signif. to die (comp. infra on Job 39:18, note).
