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“Does a wise man answer with blustery knowledge,[a]
or fill his belly[b] with the east wind?[c]
Does he argue[d] with useless[e] talk,
with words that have no value in them?
But you even break off[f] piety,[g]
and hinder[h] meditation[i] before God.

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Footnotes

  1. Job 15:2 tn The Hebrew is דַעַת־רוּחַ (daʿat ruakh). This means knowledge without any content, vain knowledge.
  2. Job 15:2 tn The image is rather graphic. It is saying that he puffs himself up with the wind and then brings out of his mouth blasts of this wind.
  3. Job 15:2 tn The word for “east wind,” קָדִים (qadim), is parallel to “spirit/wind” also in Hos 12:2. The east wind is maleficent, but here in the parallelism it is so much hot air.
  4. Job 15:3 tn The infinitive absolute in this place is functioning either as an explanatory adverb or as a finite verb.sn Eliphaz draws on Job’s claim with this word (cf. Job 13:3), but will declare it hollow.
  5. Job 15:3 tn The verb סָכַן (sakhan) means “to be useful, profitable.” It is found 5 times in the book with this meaning. The Hiphil of יָעַל (yaʿal) has the same connotation. E. Lipiński offers a new meaning on a second root, “incur danger” or “run risks” with words, but this does not fit the parallelism (FO 21 [1980]: 65-82).
  6. Job 15:4 tn The word פָּרַר (parar) in the Hiphil means “to annul; to frustrate; to destroy; to break,” and this fits the line quite well. The NEB reflects G. R. Driver’s suggestion of an Arabic cognate meaning “to expel; to banish” (“Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 77).
  7. Job 15:4 tn Heb “fear, reverence.”
  8. Job 15:4 tn The word גָּרַע (garaʿ) means “to diminish,” regard as insignificant, occasionally with the sense of “pull down” (Deut 4:2; 13:1). It is here that Eliphaz is portraying Job as a menace to the religion of society because he dissuades people from seeking God.
  9. Job 15:4 tn The word שִׂיחָה (sikhah) is “complaint; cry; meditation.” Job would be influencing people to challenge God and not to meditate before or pray to him.

“Would a wise person answer with empty notions
    or fill their belly with the hot east wind?(A)
Would they argue with useless words,
    with speeches that have no value?(B)
But you even undermine piety
    and hinder devotion to God.(C)

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