Job 21:12

12 They raise their voice with the playing of timbrel aud harp, And rejoice at the sound of the pipe 13 They enjoy their days in prosperity, And in a moment they go down to Sehol. 14 And yet they said to God: "Depart from us! We desire not the knowledge of Thy ways. 15 What is the Almighty, that we should serve Him? - And what doth it profit us that we should importune Him?" - 16 Lo! they have not their prosperity by their own hand, The thought of the wicked be far from me! קולם is to be supplied to ישׂאוּ in Isa 42:11, and instead of בּתף with בּ of the musical accompaniment (as Psa 4:1, Psa 49:5), it is to be read כּתף after the Masora with Kimchi, Ramban, Ralbag, and Farisol, (Note: The Masora observes לית כותיה (not occuring thus elsewhere), and accordingly this כתף is distinguished in the Masoretic אב מן חד חד נסבין כף ברישׁיה (alphabetic list of words which take at one time the prefix כ and at another the prefix )ב, from בתף, which occurs elsewhere. The Targ. has read בטף; the reading of Raschi and Aben-Ezra is questionable.) but not with Rosenm. to be explained: personaut velut tympano et cythera, but: they raise their voice as the timbrel and harp sound forth simultaneously; כּ, as Isa 18:4 (which is to be transl.: during the clear warmth of the sunshine, during the dew-clouds in the heat of harvest). תּף (Arabic duff, Spanish adufe) is τύμπανον (τύπανον), כּנּור, (Arab. canare) κινύρα or κιθάρα) Dan 3:5), עוּגב or עגב, Job 30:31 (from עגב, flare; vid., on Gen 4:21), the Pan-pipe (Targ. from a similar root אבּוּבא, whence the name of the ambubajae). In Job 21:13 and Keri gives the more usual יכלּוּ (Job 36:11) in place of the Chethib יבלּוּ, though יבלּוּ occurs in Isa 65:22 without this Keri; יכלו signifies consument, and יבלו usu deterent: they use up thei…

This is Job's reply to Zophar's discourse, in which he complains less of his own miseries than he had done in his former discourses (finding that his friends were not moved by his complaints to pity him in the least), and comes closer to the general question that was in dispute between him and them, Whether outward prosperity, and the continuance of it, were a mark of the true church and the true members of it, so that the ruin of a man's prosperity is sufficient to prove him a hypocrite, though no other evidence appear against him: this they asserted, but Job denied. I. His preface here is designed for the moving of their affections, that he might gain their attention (Job 21:1-6). II. His discourse is designed for the convincing of their judgments and the rectifying of their mistakes. He owns that God does sometimes hang up a wicked man as it were in chains, in terrorem - as a terror to others, by some visible remarkable judgment in this life, but denies that he always does so; nay, he maintains that commonly he does otherwise, suffering even the worst of sinners to live all their days in prosperity and to go out of the world without any visible mark of his wrath upon them. 1. He describes the great prosperity of wicked people (Job 21:7-13). 2. He shows their great impiety, in which they are hardened by their prosperity (Job 21:14-16). 3. He foretels their ruin at length, but after a long reprieve (Job 21:17-21). 4. He observes a very great variety in the ways of God's providence towards men, even towards bad men (Job 21:22-26). 5. He overthrows the ground of their severe censures of him, by showing that the destruction of the wicked is reserved for the other world, and that they often escape to the last in this world (Job 21:27, to the end), and in this Job was clear…