Page:03.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.B.vol.3.LaterProphets.djvu/1619



Verses 13-15
Job 31:13-15 13 If I despised the cause of my servant and my maid, When they contended with me: 14 What should I do, if God should rise up, And if He should make search, what should I answer Him? 15 Hath not He who formed me in the womb formed him also, And hath not One fashioned us in the belly? It might happen, as Job 31:13 assumes, that his servant or his maid (אמה, Arab. amatun, denotes a maid who is not necessarily a slave, ‛abde, as Job 19:15, whereas שׁפחה does not occur in the book) contended with him, and in fact so that they on their part began the dispute (for, as the Talmud correctly points out, it is not בּריבי עמּם, but בּריבם עמּדי), but he did not then treat them as a despot; they were not accounted as res but personae by him, he allowed them to maintain their personal right in opposition to him. Christopher Scultetus observes here: Gentiles quidem non concedebant jus servo contra dominum, cui etiam vitae necisque potestas in ipsum erat; sed Iob amore justitiae libere se demisit, ut vel per alios judices aut arbitros litem talem curaret decidi vel sibi ipsi sit moderatus, ut juste pronuntiaret. If he were one who despised (אמאס not מאסתּי) his servants' cause: what should he do if God arose and entered into judgment; and if He should appoint an examination (thus Hahn correctly, for the conclusion shows that פקד is here a synon. of בחן Psa 17:3, and חקר Psa 44:22, Arab. fqd, V, VIII, accurate inspicere), what should he answer?