JOB XIX. 26.
(Vol. ix., p. 303.)
Perhaps the best mode in which I can comply with Mr. C. Mansfield Ingleby's request, is to send for insertion in the "N. & Q." my MS. note on the text in question:
ואחר עורי נקפו זאת
ומבשרי אחזה אלוה׃
The difficulties which the reader experiences, on reading the authorised version of this passage, are by no means trifling. Every one knows that the words printed in Italics are not to be found in the original; the strictly literal rendering, according to the construction put upon the verse by our translators, would therefore run thus:
"And after my skin, destroy this,
Yet in my flesh shall I see God."
To say the least of it, "it is hard to be understood." The three words in Italics, arbitrarily introduced, make the passage by no means more intelligible.
The erudite author of the marginal readings (see "N. & Q.," Vol. ix., p. 108.) felt the difficulty, and therefore proposed another translation, which is,—
"After I shall awake, though this body be destroyed,
Yet out of my flesh shall I see God."
By an effort of violent criticism,
עורי
might be translated my awaking; but it will require an extraordinary critical mind to turn
נקפו זאת
into though this body be destroyed.
The difficulties seem to have originated with the misapprehension of the proper meaning of the verb
נקף
here. Instead of translating it according to its primitive signification, viz. to surround
a foreign sense has been palmed upon it, viz. to destroy. Job, no doubt, meant to say thus:
"And after my skin has returned, this shall be;
And out of my flesh shall I see God."
Thus the literal meaning demonstrates a connecting link between verses 25 and 26. The authorised version and the marginal reading seem to lack that link:
"And I know that my Redeemer liveth,
And He shall at length abide upon the earth."
But would you know when this at length is to take place? It will come to pass when a shaking of the dry bones shall take place, when bone to bone shall be joined, when sinews and flesh shall come upon them, and skin cover them above; that is, when the skeleton of my mutilated body shall be raised a glorified body. In other words,—
"And after my skin returned, this shall be;
And out of my flesh shall I see God."
The most ancient translators have evidently put this construction upon the verse under consideration. The Chaldee paraphrase runs thus:
ומן בתר דאתפח משכי תהא דא
ומבסרי אחמי תוב אלהא׃׃
"And after my skin is healed, this shall be;
And out of my flesh shall I see the return of God."
אתפח
does not mean here inflated, as some suppose. The Syriac version translates the word
נקפו
by the word
אתכרך
, which means surround, wind round. The Vulgate has the following version of the patriarch's prophetic exclamation:
"Et rursum circumdabor pelle mea,
Et in carne mea videbo Deum meum."
Jerome evidently knew not what to do with the word
זאת
, and therefore omitted it. He might have turned it to good account by translating it erit hoc.
The above note has been penned upwards of five years ago, and I transcribe it now, without a single alteration, for the benefit of Mr. C. Mansfield Ingleby and his friends.
Moses Margoliouth.
Wybunbury, Nantwich.