Job 17
Job 17 is the seventeenth chapter of the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is anonymous; most scholars believe it was written around 6th century BCE. This chapter records the speech of Job, which belongs to the Dialogue section of the book, comprising Job 3:1–31:40.
Text
The original text is written in Hebrew language. This chapter is divided into 16 verses.Textual witnesses
Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text, which includes the Aleppo Codex, and Codex Leningradensis.There is also a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint, made in the last few centuries BC; some extant ancient manuscripts of this version include Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Alexandrinus.
Analysis
The structure of the book is as follows:- The Prologue
- The Dialogue
- The Verdicts
- The Epilogue
- Job's Self-Curse and Self-Lament
- Round One
- Round Two
- *Eliphaz
- *Job
- **You Are Miserable Comforters
- **Lamenting His Lot
- **The Possibility of a Heavenly Witness
- **A Lack of Hope
- **Speaking to God
- **Complaining to the Friends
- **Job's Present Despair
- *Bildad
- *Job
- *Zophar
- *Job
- Round Three
- Interlude – A Poem on Wisdom
- Job's Summing Up
Chapter 17 lacks a clear structure with some verses a continuation from the previous chapter and the complaints addressed alternately to God and Job's friends:
- Job's anguish, continuing from Job 16:18–22.
- Job complains to God
- Job complains to his friends
- Job sinks back to his present despair.
Job complains for the lack of hope (17:1–10)
The section opens with the anguish of the previous chapter, both in Job's expectation of death and by the useless, mocking words of his friends. Thereafter, Job addresses God directly, asking why God has closed the minds of his friends to understanding Job's plight. Then, Job turns to his friends and conveying his dismay that God, who runs the world, belittles him in the presence of others, before closing with charging his friends for lacking wisdom in their responses.Verse 6
- “Byword”: is related to the Hebrew word translated as "proverb”.
- "Spit": from the Hebrew word תֹפֶת, tofet, which is only found here in the Hebrew Bible. The whole expression in the second line can be rendered as "and a spitting in/to the face I have become" or "I have become one in whose face people spit".
Job expresses his despair (17:11–16)
In this section Job sinks back to his current despair, as if his life were over and there is no future for his "plans" or "desires". Job imagines that he would go "over to the dark side" to make his "house", where he seems to belong. Job diligently searches for a way forward in the present darkness, but concedes that this does not seem to be feasible.Verse 16
- "Will they": the phrase is assumed from the plural form of the verb, which probably refers to the two words in the preceding verse: "hope" and "what hope produces", which may perish with Job.
- "Gates": from the Hebrew word בַּדִּים, baddim, literally "bars" or "bolts", to describe the "gates of Sheol".
- "Sheol": or "the abode of the dead".
- "Shall ": from the Hebrew conjunction אִם, ʾim, which confirms the interrogative interpretation.
- "Rest" follows the Greek Septuagint and the Syriac versions with the change of vocalization in the Masoretic Text as the Hebrew noun “rest,” can be rendered to, "will our rest be together in the dust?" The verb נָחַת, nakhat, in Aramaic means “to go down; to descend,” so if this is the preferred reading, it would be spelled נֵחַת, nekhat, in Hebrew; in either case the verse clearly describes "death" and the process of "going to the grave".