Doch wo ich nur will, gibt Antwort
Klage meinen Klagen.’
The same sentiment is expressed more than once again; comp. Buddha’s apologue of the mustard seed.
[16]. So Merx and Bickell. Text, ‘my bones.’
[17]. Bildad more than implies that the fate which overtook Job’s children was the punishment of iniquity (viii. 4). Wonderful harshness!
[18]. See viii. 20. Bildad agrees with the statement in the prologue (i. 1).
[19]. Following Sept., with Merx and Bickell.
[20]. Comp. Isa. xxviii. 29 (Heb.) By a slight error of the ear the copyist whom our Hebrew Bibles follow put a Yōd for an Alef. Hence the Massoretic critics pronounce kiflayim ‘twofold,’ instead of kif’lāim ‘like wonders:’ following this text, Davidson renders, ‘that it is double in (true) understanding.’
[21]. Literally ‘... that God brings into forgetfulness for thee some of thy guilt.’
[22]. Following Sept., with Bickell. Comp. the Hebrew of Job xxxiii. 27.