Page:03.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.B.vol.3.LaterProphets.djvu/1381

 which the friends maintained with such rigid pertinacity, and so regardless of the deep wound they were inflicting on Job?

Verses 27-31
Job 21:27-31 27 Behold I know your thoughts And the stratagems, with which ye overpower me! 28 When ye say: Where is the house of the tyrant, And where the pavilions of the wicked - : 29 Have ye not asked those who travel, Their memorable things ye could surely not disown: 30 That the wicked was spared in the day of calamity, In the day of the outburst of wrath they were led away. 31 Who liketh to declare to him his way to his face? And hath he done aught, who will recompense it to him? Their thoughts which he sees through, are their secret thoughts that he is such an evil-doer reaping the reward of his deeds. מזמּות (which occurs both of right measures, good wise designs, Pro 5:2; Pro 8:12, and of artful devices, malicious intrigues, Pro 12:2; Pro 14:17, comp. the definition of בּעל מזמּות, Pro 24:8) is the name he gives to the delicately developed reasoning with which they attack him; חמס (comp. Arab. taḥammasa, to act harshly, violently, and overbearingly) is construed with על in the sense of forcing, apart from the idea of overcoming. In Job 21:28, which is the antecedent to Job 21:29, beginning with כּי האמרוּ (as Job 19:28), he refers to words of the friends like Job 8:22; Job 15:34; Job 18:15, Job 18:21. נדיב is prop. the noble man, whose heart impels (נדב, Arab. nadaba) him to what is good, or who is ready and willing, and does spontaneously that which is good (Arab. naduba), vid., Psychol. S. 165; then, however, since the notion takes the reverse way of generosus, the noble man (princely) by birth and station, with which the secondary notion of pride and