Chapter Twenty-Seven

Job’s speech to all his friends. 1–10. The determination of Job to defend his innocence. 11–23. A description of the destruction of the sinner.

Job 27:1. And Job continued his majestic speech and said: Using the silence of his friends, Job continues his “majestic” speech—a figurative, parable-like address (Heb. “mashal”).

Job 27:2. As God lives, Who has taken away my right, and the Almighty, Who has troubled my soul, He begins it with an oath by God’s name (“as the Lord lives”; cf. 1 Sam 20:3),—with an appeal to God as a witness to the truth of his words. Although God has violated the requirement of justice in relation to him,—deprived him of the opportunity to prove his innocence and thus troubled him, plunged him into despair (Job 23:2 and following), nevertheless He remains the highest authority of justice.

Job 27:3. As long as my breath is in me and the Spirit of God is in my nostrils, Job 27:4. My lips will not speak falsehood, and my tongue will not utter deceit! The content and essence of the oath. God is a witness that Job will not cease to defend his righteousness as long as “the breath and the Spirit of God in my nostrils” (cf. Gen 2:7),—as long as he is a conscious being whose conscience speaks of his innocence.

Job 27:5. Far be it from me to declare you righteous; until I die, I will not give up my integrity. The testimony of conscience will not allow him to agree with the counsel of the friends to acknowledge himself as justly punished. As long as Job is alive, he will insist on the fact of his blamelessness.

Job 27:6. I hold fast to my righteousness and will not let it go; my heart does not reproach me in any of my days. He cannot act otherwise, because to do so would be to go against conscience (“heart,” cf. 1 Sam 24:6; 2 Sam 24:10). It reproaches him in nothing (cf. Job 23:10), and he would confess to sins!

Job 27:7. Let my enemy be as the wicked, and may he who rises against me be as the unrighteous. Depending upon Job’s innocence, all his enemies, persons who consider him a sinner, rise up against the righteous man, and therefore show themselves to be wicked.

Job 27:8. For what is the hope of the godless when God cuts off his life, when He takes away his soul? Job 27:9. Will God hear his cry when trouble comes upon him? Job 27:10. Will he find comfort in the Almighty and call upon God at all times? An oath by God’s name (vv. 3–4) and an appeal to conscience (v. 6)—sufficient proof of Job’s righteousness. But since the friends might have taken this for hypocrisy, Job now points to the impossibility of the latter on his part. If he were a hypocrite, he could not, upon dying (“takes away his soul”—from the body, its dwelling—cf. Job 4:19), harbor any hope for justification (cf. Job 13:16), but he is confident in it (Job 19:25-27). Similarly, the wicked man cannot count, like Job, on being heard by God (cf. Job 13:15; Ps 17:42) and finding his good in God and turning to Him (Job 16:19-20). By his disposition Job is not like the wicked man.

Job 27:11. I will teach you about the hand of God; what is with the Almighty, I will not hide. Job 27:12. Look, you have all seen it yourselves; why then do you speak such empty words? To further prove his righteousness and clarify the difference between himself and the wicked, Job turns to describing the lot that overtakes them. He proposes to the friends the teaching about “the hand of God”—about God’s relations to sinners. As is evident from the words “you have all seen it yourselves” (v. 12), as well as from vv. 13–23, these are the very views repeatedly expressed by the friends. And yet, according to him, the whole time they “spoke empty words” (“tagbalu”—from “gabal”—“to think and act groundlessly”—2 Sam 17:15),—groundlessly identified his fate with that of the wicked, when they are not alike.

Job 27:13. This is the portion of the wicked man with God, and the inheritance that oppressors receive from the Almighty. Reproducing in this case the words of Zophar (Job 20:29), Job, in the further description of the destruction of the wicked, repeats the views of the friends and thus falls into self-contradiction, since earlier he insisted upon the unpunished state of sinners (Job 21:7 and following). But the desire to accept the arguments of the friends, to use their arguments, compelled Job to come on the basis of parallel propositions to opposite conclusions. He turns the weapons of his friends against themselves. “They placed before his eyes, as in a mirror, the lot of the wicked, so that he might see himself in it and fear. He in turn places this mirror before their eyes, so that they might notice how much the character differs not only of his behavior in suffering, but of the sufferings themselves.”

Job 27:14. If his sons multiply, it is for the sword; and his offspring do not satisfy themselves with bread. Job 27:15. The survivors are brought down to death, and their widows do not weep. Sword, hunger, and the plague accompanying it (“mavet,” Synodal “death”)—three calamities (2 Sam 24:13; Jer 14:12) from which the numerous offspring of the wicked perish (cf. Job 5:20-21). A continuous succession of calamities deprives the widows of the ability to perform the burial rite of mourning the dead (Gen 23:2; Ps 77:64).

Job 27:16. If he heaps up silver like dust and prepares clothing like clay, Job 27:17. He may prepare it, but the righteous will put it on, and the innocent will divide the silver. The wealth of the wicked, in the form of a vast quantity of silver (“heaps up silver like dust”; cf. Zech 9:3) and many brilliant, splendid garments (cf. Josh 7:21; 2 Sam 7:8), will pass to the righteous (cf. Job 15:29; Ps 48:11).

Job 27:18. He builds his house like a moth, and like a watchman he makes himself a hut; Likewise, the dwelling of the wicked is as fragile as the work of a moth (cf. Job 4:19), like a temporary shelter made by a watchman (cf. Isa 1:8).

Job 27:19. He lies down a rich man and will not do so again; he opens his eyes and he is no more. The Synodal reading with its thought of the swift disappearance of the wicked man’s wealth can hardly be considered correct: the account of it was already in vv. 16–17. The translation of the LXX: “ πλούσιος κοιμηθήσεται καὶ οὐκ προσθὴσει “, which the Peshitta follows, ancient-Italian text, Delitzsch, Ewald and others, contains an indication of the sudden, swift death of the sinner. The naturalness of such an understanding is proven, among other things, by the fact that the friends, whose view Job repeats, concluded the description of the lot of the lawless man with a depiction of his death (Job 15:32).

Job 27:20. Terrors overtake him like waters; the storm snatches him away in the night. Job 27:21. The east wind lifts him up and he is gone; it sweeps him away from his place. Job 27:22. It rushes upon him without pity; he flees desperately from its power. A figurative expression of the thought of the sinner’s death. He perishes like someone destroyed by all-crushing waters (Job 14:19), by the all-sweeping deluge (Isa 28:2), by the wind (Heb. “kadim”—simoom), not only scorching (“ καύσων “ LXX), burning (Gen 41:23), but also destroying (Heb. “veyelak,” cf. Job 14:20), uprooting (Heb. “zeir,” cf. Ps 57:10). All efforts to escape destruction are vain (v. 22; cf. Job 20:24).

Job 27:23. Clapping their hands at him and whistling at him from his place! People, witnesses of the sinner’s destruction, “clap their hands” at him, marveling (Lam 2:15; Nah 3:19) and whistle in a sign of contempt and mockery (1 Sam 9:8; Jer 49:17; Zeph 2:15).