that of the syntax, inadmissible. It is the duty of beneficence, which Job acknowledges having practised, in Job 31:31.
Verses 31-32
Job 31:31-32 31 If the people of my tent were not obliged to say:
Where would there be one who has not been satisfied with his flesh?! - 32 The stranger did not lodge out of doors,
I opened my door towards the street.
Instead of אמרוּ, it might also be יאמרוּ (dicebant); the perf., however, better denotes not merely what happens in a general way, but what must come to pass. The “people of the tent” are all who belong to it, like the Arab. ahl (tent, metonym. dwellers in the tent), here pre-eminently the servants, but without the expression in itself excluding wife, children, and relations. The optative מי־יתּן, so often spoken of already, is here, as in Job 31:35; Job 14:4; Job 29:2, followed by the acc. objecti, for נשׂבּע is part. with the long accented a (quis exhibebit or exhibeat non saturatum), and מבּשׂרו is not meant of the flesh of the person (as even the lxx in bad taste renders: that his maids would have willingly eaten him, their kind master, up from love to him), but of the flesh of the cattle of the host. Our translation follows the accentuation, which, however, perhaps proceeds from an interpretation like that of Arnheim given above. His constant and ready hospitality is connected with the mention of his abundant care and provision for his own household. It is unnecessary to take ארח, with the ancient versions, for ארח, or so to read it; לארח signifies towards the street, where travellers are to be expected, comp. Pirke aboth i. 5: ”May thy house be open into the broad place (לרוחה), and may the poor be thy guests.” The Arabs pride themselves on the exercise of hospitality. “To open a guest-chamber” is the same as to establish one's own household in Arabic. Stories of judgments by which the
