Page:03.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.B.vol.3.LaterProphets.djvu/1364

 strengthening of the “my”: he places his complaint in contrast with another. This emphasizing is not easily understood, if one, with Hupf., explains: nonne hominis est querela mea, so that ה is equivalent to הלא (which here in the double question is doubly doubtful), and ל is the sign of the cause. Schultens and Berg, who translate לאדם more humano, explain similarly, by again bringing their suspicious ל comparativum here to bear upon it. The ל by שׂיחי (if it may not also be compared with Job 12:8) may certainly be expected to denote those to whom the complaint is addressed. We translate: As for me, then, does my complaint concern men? The אנכי which is placed at the beginning of the sentence comes no less under the rule, Ges. §145, 2, than §121, 3. In general, sufferers seek to obtain alleviation of their sufferings by imploring by words and groans the pity of sympathizing men; the complaint, however, which the three hear from him is of a different kind, for he has long since given up the hope of human sympathy, - his complaint concerns not men, but God (comp. Job 16:20). He reminds them of this by asking further: or (ואם, as Job 8:3; Job 34:17; Job 40:9, not: and if it were so, as it is explained by Nolde contrary to the usage of the language) why (interrogative upon interrogative: an quare, as Psa 94:9, אם הלא, an nonne) should not my spirit (disposition of mind, θυμός) be short, i.e., why should I not be short-tempered (comp. Jdg 10:16; Zec 11:8, with Prov. 13:29) = impatient? Dürr, in his commentatio super voce רוּח,  1776, 4, explains the expression habito simul