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19The Meaning of the Word nlK in Job 5:26 and 30:2:
Textual and Philological Analysis
Dmitry LAVROV, Krasnodar, Russia
© D. Lavrov, 2006
The word nls is used in Tanakh (Torah, Nevi'im, Ktu-vim) only twice. Both occurrences are found in the Book of Job, one of the three books which constitute the body of the Wisdom Literature in the Old Testament. Chapters 5 and 30, where nls is found, belong to the poetic sections of the book. Tur-Sinai in his commentary observes that the Hebrew of Job complicates the process of determining the meaning of its poetical chapters.1 More than that, in many cases the traditional Masoretic vowel pointing, and also the forms Qere and Ketibh, actually hinder the meaning of certain words and even of whole passages.2 Similarly, Ceresko notes that the word nls has baffled scholars for centuries.3
Such difficulties are predictable, given the fact that nls is used only twice in the Hebrew Bible. In spite of these obstacles, the word nls has been widely discussed by scholars and translators from the time of the Septuagint onward. The absence of any supplementary biblical and extra-biblical occurrences of the word forces the interpreter to draw his conclusions based only on the context (e.g. language and structure) of the passage. It seems that the majority of the existing interpretations and suppositions has inadequately utilized this principle of lexicography, and has preferred, instead, to emend, often without sufficient grounds, the Masoretic text.
Dmitry Lavrov - master of Arts, Old Testament professor in Kubun Evangelical Christian Universety (Krasnodar, Russia).
1 N. H. Tur-Sinai (H. Torczyner), The Book of Job, Jerusalem 1957, p. viii. Cf. Marvin H. Pope, Job, AB, 3rd ed: New York 1973, pp. xliii, xlvii-xlviii.
2 See, for instance, Job 13:15 where the Qere and Ketibh problem is found. The Septuagint, Vulgate, Peshitta and Aramaic Targum follow the Qere form.
3 A. R. Ceresko, Job 29-31 in the Light of North West Semitic, Rome 1980,
p. 44.
Job 5:26 inpa V'dG raq-'la nlka aian
"You will come to the grave in ripeness, like sheaves of wheat gathered in season." [author's translation of the Russian Synodal Version; italics added]
In this verse the parallel structure is evident -
in[a V'da nAl[? // raq-'la nlka aian.
The presence of this stylistic device determines the next step in the philological analysis. For each word in the first line of the Hebrew text there must be a semantic parallel or certain syllabic counterpart in the second line. In this case, the independent clause is found in the first line, "You will come to the grave" (raq-'la aibT) and the rest of the verse answers the question how the action in the independent clause will be carried out.
Line A raq-'la aian how? nlkb (9 syllables)
Line B how? in[3 VH3 (8 syllables)4
It appears that the second line simultaneously performs two functions. First, it contains synonyms for each word in the first line. Secondly, the whole line functions as a semantic equivalent of the word nls. This assertion derives from the following
4 The syllable correlation of 9 to 8 between lines A and B is legitimate for poetic Hebrew tradition. In certain cases there may be a difference of two syllables between lines.
word arrangement, where nls is designated in the form of "X":
ni1[? // aian in[B // raq-'la
X // vna
In the context of Job 5:26, namely vv. 24-25, Eliphaz speaks about a blessed man who has peace in his house, and whose offspring are as the grass on the earth. This man "will come to the grave" nlkB and in[3 V'dJ ti1[K. It is obvious, that verse 25 is an introduction to verse 26, and is parallel to it in meaning. These parallel ideas are demonstrated by a metaphorical comparison between a family theme, which presents a description of human life, and an agricultural theme, which describes the work in the field and the reaping of the harvest. The common semantic ground that unites these two apparently exclusive thoughts is the image of abundance and prosperity. With the help of the parallelism, the author suggests that the blessed man has plenty of offspring (D'acac)5 just as there is a bountiful harvest (naiam V'dg) in the field.6 As appears from the above, the man will come to the grave "possessing a bountiful harvest" (V'dgQ), i.e. there will be a multitude of his offspring who will continue on after him. This argument
5 See Isa 42:5 where a similar metaphoric comparison can be found: D[ // h'SCSC pah (the land and its posterity // people). It shows that O'KCKC (posterity, descendants) is used here in the sense of "fruit of the land."
6 The Hebrew words nKlbn, lib', DHgl just like the Russian word "harvest" (grammatically singular) are used as collective nouns.
confirms Cohen's conclusions that the word nlK was taken from the agricultural sphere and has a meaning close to V'dg (sheaf, ears) or naibn (harvest, fruit).7
Analysis of existing interpretations
In spite of the difficulties connected with this word, a great number of possible variants and interpretations were put forth already from the Middle Ages. There are five major interpretations among scholars.
nlK means "the definite time"
Moses Kimhi suggests that the word nlK means $3nn Itf Itf "the definite time or end, or vice versa" [author's translation].8 Chak-ham agrees with this interpretation and adds 'lam ]QTb "in the proper time" [author's translation].9 In his opinion, the author of the text wanted to say that the death of this man will not be a tragedy, but will, on the contrary, occur at the proper time (nam ]QTb), i.e. it must be looked at as the appropriate ending (QTO) of a
7 Ch. Cohen, unpublished article about nl3.
8 H. Basser, and B. D. Walfish, eds., Moses Kimhi - Commentary on the Book of Job, Atlanta 1992, p. 17.
9 Amos Chacham, SeferIob, (Da at Ham-Miqra:
Yerushalayim 1984), amud m"d. [hebrew] Chacham suggests this interpretation also on the basis of the rabbinical Hebrew (1"Tn) nlq. Accord-
ing to his view the text speaks of a man who dies
at a very old age (hblö nbf). For additional arguments 'Warn jDTh = nlD see F. Horst, Hiob, Biblischer Kommentar XVI/1, Dritt. Auflage: Des Erziehungsvereins Neukirchen-Vluyn 1974,
p. 89.
blessed life.10 It seems that this interpretation ties in well with the overall semantic picture of the passage as described in its context. However, these approaches, correct as far as they go, do not, it appears, sufficiently take into account the conjugated distribution of words in the parallelism. From the structural point of view advocated in the present article, nls (word A) is not a pair with t[ (word B). It is apparent that many interpreters have made such an assumption, based on the occurrence of the preposition b with the word t[ in this verse, i.e. D[3 = nlkb. Although the preposition b is used with both words, it is evident that they are not semantically parallel to each other. The force of this argument can be demonstrated by observing in the same text that rbq-'la (to the grave) is not a synonym of V'dG (sheaf, ears).11
10 Ibid. Cf. Moshe Kimchi's terminology, which was evidently used by Chacham as he interpreted nl3 (Moses Kimhi's - na, #p; Chacham - |DT, DVO).
11 There is a passage in the book of Job where the words "Dp and D'dg are used together. In the nineteenth century Hirzel said that in Job 21:32 O'dg // "bp (L. Hirzel, Hiob, Zw. Auflage: Leipzig 1852, p. 38.). Actually, the first to make this comparison were ancient translators. For instance, we find in the Septuagint siç xa^ouç // srci copra, and in the Vulgate ad sepulchra // et in congerie mortuorum. In spite of these translations, such a parallel is not evident in Job 5:26 because the passage contains additional information which determines the boundaries of the semantic field of the word DHgl: TOb ... m1[3 (as reaped ... in its time). Thus, the passage speaks of the "harvest" theme here (HSIbn, TCp). In the closest context we find the same picture. We may also assume that in Job 21:32 D'dg is used in its basic meaning of "ear, sheaf," and the comparison with "bp is figurative. Due to the strong
nlK means "the end, finish"
Hirzel supposes that nls has to be explained in the following way: his = nlK, which is the same as htp = ntS, therefore it means Vollendung.12 According to Hirzel the text should be translated as, "you will come into the tomb at the end (of your days)." It appears that this opinion is based on the certain visual comparison between nls and his and on the variant reading from the Targum. But it does not correspond precisely to the structure of the parallelism in the context of Job 5:26.
nls means "old age"
Grabbe affirms that nls in the meaning of "old age" is quite appropriate in v. 25.13 In the Middle Ages, Rabbi Saadia Gaon (RaSaG), Rabbi David Kimchi (RaDaQ), Menachem Ben Saruk, and later in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Szold, Budde, Konig, Ben Yehuda, Clines, Gordis, and others have also held this view.14 The Russian translations of
influence of "Dp in line A the Russian Synodal Version translates D'dg as "grave."
12 L. Hirzel, Hiob, p. 37. Cf. Kimhi's interpretation (see footnote 8).
13 L. L. Grabbe, Comparative Philology and the Text of Job, Montana 1977, pp. 43-46. In spite of this he states that nl3 should be understood as
nlp.
14 Y. D. Kapach, Iob im tergum upherush RASAG, Yerushalayim Tav-Shin-Lamed-Gimel, amud n"d [Hebrew]; H. P. Biesental, and F. Lebrecht, eds., Rabbi Davidis Kimchi Radicum Liber sive Hebraeum Bibliorum Lexicon, Berolini 1847, p. 147; Menahem Ben Saruq: Mahberet, Granada 1986, p. 215; B. Szold, The Book of Job: A New Commentary, Baltimore 1886, p. 54; K. Budde, Das Buch Hiob, Göttinger Handkommentar zum Alten Testament, Zw. Auflage: Göttingen 1913,
Rzhevskiy: "In your old age you will come (to your) grave, as a sheaf that is laid, when its time has come" [italics added] and Desnitskiy (Russian Bible Society): "In the proper age you will reach your grave, as an ear reaped in time" [italics added], also reflect this interpretation.15
It appears that the variants "old age" or "proper age" are as problematical as the previous ones, although they also, correctly, reflect the general semantic picture of the context. Rabbi Saadia Gaon, for example, interprets it in the following way:
mlaia nnpn aiat m[3 V'dJh ta D'aoiav
"you will come (to the grave) in an old age, as they reap harvest in its time" [author's translation].16
p. 25; E. König, Das Buch Hiob, Westfalen 1929, p. 86; A. Ben Yehuda, Millon Hal-Lashon Ha-Ivrit Ha-Yeshana Ve-He-Khadasha, kerech 5, Yerushalayim-Tel-Aviv, amud 2387 [Hebrew]; D. J. A. Clines, Job 1-20, WBC, Dallas 1989, pp. 108, 118-19, in spite of the fact that Clines supports this interpretation he states that the original meaning of the word is not known; J. E. Hart-"ley, The Book of Job, NICOT, Michigan 1988, p. 128; D. J. A. Gordis, The Book of God and Man: A Study of Job, JTS Moreshet Series, New York 1978, p. 60; W. A. Wright, ed., A Commentary on the Book of Job, London 1905, p. 17; The Book of Job: A New Translation according to the Traditional Hebrew Text, Philadelphia 1980, p. 9; in the latter translation it is also mentioned that the meaning of this word is not clear. Cf. Baumgartner et al., The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the OT, vol. II, Leiden 1994-1999, p. 478 [HAL].
15 Vetkhiy Zavet: Perevod s Drevneevreyskogo; Pritchi, Kniga Ekkleziasta i Kniga Iova, RBO 2002 [the translation of the Book of Job is done by A.S. Desnitskiy]; M. I. Rzhevskiy, Kniga Iova: Iz istorii bibleiskogo teksta, Novosibirsk Nauka. Sib. Otdele-nie, 1991, 36 [Russian].
16 Y.D. Kapach, Iob im tergum upherush RASAG,
amud n"d. [Hebrew].
Further, although this interpretation looks quite logical, it seems to be based only on the second part of the passage, namely on the word t[ ("the definite" time), but apparently ignoring its usage in v. 25. We have already shown that nlK is not a synonym of t[, first because of the inner structure of the verse, and second because the context requires the interpreter to build the following scheme between vv. 25-26:
Verse 25 //
(your seed // your posterity)
semantically parallel to
Verse 26 V'Ti // nlkb
(X // ears, harvest)
The meaning "old age" in the expression "die in very old age" can be compared metaphorically with
ml^k (harvest reaped in its time), but not in Job 5:25-26, because it does not conform to the parallel words // $[-)T (seed//posterity)
in v. 25, and is not an agricultural term.
nlK means I'n "power," ¡TO "strength," nl "freshness" or nil ¡TO "strength and freshness"17
The first to suggest seeing in nlK "mk and nl" was Dahood.18 Blommerde quotes Dahood in his own work:
17 We grouped all these opinions together because they all practice a similar approach—the changing of consonants in the Masoretic text, or interpreting nl3 as mk or nl.
"nlK is formed by congeneric assimilation of mk and nl."19 "Sometimes two words with kindred meaning and one or two letters in common grew together to form one new word."20
To prove this interpretation, Blommerde gives an example of words in which, according to his opinion, such an assimilation of consonants has taken place. In Isa 51:9 the word rncnft, according to Blom-merde, actually consists of two roots - #na and bcn.21 HAL, on the basis of such an interpretation translates nlK as "ripe, ripeness."22 Averintsev also suggests such an interpretation: "Ripen to the end, you will come to the tomb. As a sheaf, reaped in its time" [italics added].23 The complex argumentation of Blommerde is unwarranted because there is a simpler grammatical explanation for the meaning of this word. HbCnQ is formed from the root bcn with the initial Q. Moreover, in Isa 51:9-10 another two words with an initial Q can be distinguished - nllmft and rnmft. There is no need to suggest that there was assimilation between
18 M. Dahood, "Northwest Semitic Philology and Job," in The Bible in Current Catholic Thought, ed. By J. L. McKenzie, New York 1962, p. 56.
19 A. C. M. Blommerde, Northwest Semitic Grammar and Job, Rome 1969, p. 112.
20 Ibid., p. 12.
21 Ibid.
22 HAL, vol. II, p. 478. Cf. Russian Synodal Translation.
23 Poesia i Proza Drevnego Vostoka, Biblioteka Vsemirnoi Literatury. Seria Pervaya, Moskva: Khudoghestvennaya literatura, 1973. Kniga Iova (perevod S. Averintsev), p. 571. [Russian]
two roots based on the similar letters and meanings.
Birr in the BHK, comparing the present passage with Dt 34:7, suggests the following reading: $n1b.24 It seems that Birr assumes that this is an instance of metathesis. But metathesis usually occurred in the copying of manuscripts with letters that were close to each other. That is why k could not be moved by the mistake of a copyist over another two consonants to the beginning of the word and form nls. There exist no witnesses from Masorah or from the ancient translators or from any other sources to support Birr's reconstruction.
Merx suggests another argument for forming nl from nls. In his view, in the Masoretic text "b und k vereinend nlkb", which is why it should be read nl.25 Hartley and Pope hold to the same view.26 Thus, these scholars suggest taking away one letter from the text so as to arrive at the desired result.
Another group of scholars, such as Driver, Guillaume, and also BDB prefer the meaning of nik "might,
„27
power."
24 Cf. BHS where Gerlemann does not bring any variant reading. See also Job 30:2 in BHK where a different emendation is proposed - l'n Ik .
25 A. Merx, Das Gedicht von Hiob, Jena 1871, pp. 22-23.
26 J.E. Hartley, The Book of Job, p. 115; Marvin H. Pope, Job, pp. 41, 46-47.
27 S. R. Driver, G. B. Gray, The Book of Job, ICC,
Edinburgh repr. 1921, p. 28; A. Guillaume, Stud-
ies in the Book of Job, Suppl. II to the Annual of
Leeds Univ. Oriental Society, Leiden 1968, p. 83. Guillaume builds his interpretation on the Arabic kula'un, which means ITD (strength); BDB, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the OT, Oxford 1907, p. 407.
The majority of the emendations suggested in this category are usually based on another passage from Ta'anach with similar contexts and/or words with similar consonants (nib). The primary difficulty facing this solution is the absence of textual witnesses supporting the view. The present author suggests that, in the case of nls, the rule Lectio Difficilior Praeferenda is applicable. These interpretations also seem to be problematical because they are not synonyms of the word V'dg in line B, which is needed in the parallelism.
nls means nlq (with q) "ear, harvest"
Tur-Sinai proposes that nls does not mean "old age" (nnpT), but "harvest" (TCp).28 His conclusion is based on the word nlq (with q) which is used in Rabbinical Hebrew (Mishna).29 In rabbinical literature it means @p[ nac, as it is written D'llbf Van ibl dna nac ("one sprout and there are five seeds in it" [author's transla-
, . -t 30
tion].
nls means "ear, harvest" Additional arguments based on the Vulgate and Septuagint
The Vulgate
The Vulgate offers the interpretation of nlkb in abundantia (in abun-
28 N.H. Tur-Sinai (H. Torczyner), The Book of Job, pp. 107-08.
29 The change of consonants from k to q is to be found in Hebrew.
30 Talmud Yerushalmi, PEAH, Pe-Gimel Yod Zayin Ayin-Gimel. [Aramaic, Hebrew]
dance), probably meaning the abundance of the harvest, relating to the second part of the passage (Job 5:26). Even if Jerome did not see the direct parallel between V'dg // nlkb and $'acac // $[-)T in v. 25, i.e. the metaphorical comparison between "seed, ears, harvest" and "posterity", and he saw "abundance" in the sense of "harvest," his translation corresponds nicely to the principles of parallelism.
The Septuagint
Tur-Sinai's explanation is appropriate for our passage not only because of the possible change of q // k, which is ordinarily insufficient for forming an argument, but also from the view of its structure and context. Thus, it appears that both nlk in Biblical Hebrew and nlq (with q) in Mishnaic Hebrew mean "ear," and as a collective noun it can be translated as TCq (harvest). This conclusion seems warranted, first because "ear, harvest" is taken from an agricultural context, and second because it can be used as a synonym for the word V'dg (sheaf, ear). Based on the aforementioned conclusions, Job 5:26 can be translated as follows: "you will come to the grave with harvest (offspring) as an ear reaped in its time."
In addition to these arguments the witness of the Septuagint should be added. In the Septuagint, we find the following interpretation of Job 5:26:
sXsuan Ss sv тафю roansp artoq ropi|ioq ката Kaipov 6spiZo|isvoq n roansp
6i|aravia aXravoq Ka6 rapav CTuyKo^iaBeiCTa31
In the computer program CATSS (ed. E. Tov), in which Greek and Hebrew texts are set out in parallel columns, the word nlk is not translated.32 Instead, according to its authors, the Septuagint contains a double translation of the phrase
ml^k.
MT LXX
aibt sA,suan Se
nlk/b --'la sv
rbq тафю
m1[/k roansp aiToq // roansp 9i|aravia
V'dg rapi|oq // a^ravoq
1П[/3 ката Kaipov //
ка9 юpav
--+ 9spiZo|svoq //
--+ аиукоцлаЭеиа
31 After the first Greek word we find the particle 8s, which usually translates the Hebrew conjunction W (see, for instance, Job 5 where 8s is found in place of w more than fifteen times). In our case the appearance of 8s can point to the Vorlage of Job 5:26 - ...S'Dm. Peshitta does have the conjunction here. From another point of view, it can be explained as a translator's stylistic technique. That may be the case here, because in the same chapter we find passages with 8s which do not have a counterpart in Hebrew.
32 E. Tov, ed., The Parallel Aligned Text of the Greek and Hebrew Bible, electronic text prep. by OakTree Software, Inc., v. 2.1. For principles of text division between Tanakh and the Septuagint see E. Tov, A Computerized Database for Septuagint Studies-The Parallel Aligned Text of the Greek and Hebrew Bible, CATTS vol. 2, JNSL, Suppl. Series 1, Stellenbosch 1986.
33 This sign shows that this word/phrase was
added in the Septuagint, i.e. it has no counterpart in the Hebrew Bible.
The division of the Greek text relative to the Hebrew given in CATSS seems to be unsubstantiated in the case of Job 5:26. The correlation between m1[/k and юстпер aixoq // юстпер 9i|aravia seems to be incorrect. In this version the verb стиукоцгстЭегста is marked as an addition, which has no Hebrew parallel word in the Masoretic text. It is our assumption that the word nlk is translated in the Septuagint in the form юстпер CTixoq rapi|oq ката Kaipov 9spiZo|svoq, "as a ripened ear, reaped in its time" [author's translation].34 There are number of reasons supporting this alternative conclusion.
1. Interchangeability of the prepositions b and k
It has been demonstrated that as a result of parallelism nlkb semanti-cally is a synonym of in[b m1[k. This comparison is possible because of the usage of the prepositions b and k, which on many occasions can be used interchangeably. For instance, in Ge 1:26 we read:
imadk ualcb ana
[bold script - author's addition]. The Septuagint translates both prepositions b and k with ката. The same Greek word is used in Ge 5:3 IQlcD itiadb dim [bold script - author's addition]. One should pay attention to the reverse order of the prepositions' usage in the Masoretic text in
Cf. Peshitta, where nlkb is translated differently - nyh'yt "in peace, in rest." It appears that this interpretation reflects how the translator understands a blessed man's death.
Ge 5:3 in comparison with Ge 1:26, which demonstrates the author's stylistic preferences and thus proves the prepositions' interchangeability.35 The Septuagint translation not only fits the syntactic rules of the Greek language, but also demonstrates that there is not any semantic difference between b and k in our text.
Another example can be found in Ps 78:72:
□m' rsk mmanai waal ~tk □[r'i
In this case both prepositions b and k are translated in the Septua-gint in the form sv. It is obvious that in such a translation the semantic similarity of both prepositions is reflected.36
Based on the textual and linguistic witnesses given above it is evident that, at least in Job 5:26, the twofold usage of raansp actually reflects nlkb and tl1[k. It appears that the combination V'dg // nlk is as correct as tiad // ~1c (Ge 1:26; 5:3) and I'Sk ninian // ibbl (Ps 78:72).
2. The translation method in Job
The analysis of the translation technique of the Book of Job shows that the translation of nlkb in the form of
35 Many manuscripts (mlt mss) from the Middle Ages that belong to the Masoretic tradition have the same order of prepositions in Ge 5:3 as in Ge 1:26. It is possible that in the process of transmission a scribe made a textual mistake which later spread into other copies like Codex Lenin-gradensis.
36 Many manuscripts (mlt mss) from the Middle Ages have preposition a for both words (ninianai, □ nb). For possible reasons of this variant reading, see the previous footnote.
юстпер ctitoç rapi|ioç ката Kaipov 9spiÇo|asvoç is possible.37 If we take, for instance, the immediate context of Job 5:26, we will find the following pattern in the Greek translation of the Book of Job: the translator adds a word or combination of words to a parallelism or even to a simple sentence for the purpose of making the text clearer to the reader. In v. 20 we read:
згп Tq nanlabi nwaa $ds зэтз
According to the structure of parallelism we see that the verb 'dS is used for both lines. The Septuagint suggests the following variant of the translation:
sv Ал|ю ристета1 сте ек 9avarau sv потерю 8s ек %sipoç <ji8npou Xvasi сте [Italics added].
With the help of the addition A,uctsi сте, (a double translation of the verb ' dS) the translator helps the reader understand the sentence written in the form of parallelism, and also follows the main syntactic rules of the Greek language.
Another example can be found in v. 27:
$1 [d nnaw nn[Qv a'n p тлрп nat nnn
The Septuagint translates it:
i8ou таита omraç s^ixviafjaisv таита scttiv a aK^Koa^sv сти 8s yvra9i стеаитю si т1 snpa^aç.
37 For the Greek translation method in Job see H. Heater, A Septuagint Translation Technique in the Book of Job, CBQMS 11, Washington 1982.
The phrase si xi snpa^aq is added because it apparently has no counterpart in the Hebrew text. In this case the translator adds to the words of Eliphaz something that is important for Job to know - "if you have done something" [author's translation].
These examples show that the translator made additions to the text when it was needed for two purposes: to help the reader understand the text better and/or to make a syntactically correct sentence. For this reason, we suppose that in Job 5:26 nlk was translated into the Greek with the addition of several words to explain its initial meaning.
3. The meaning of the Greek word CTiToq
The meaning of the Greek word aixoq corresponds with Tur-Sinai's explanation that nlk is nlq (with q) (ear, harvest) in Rabbinical Hebrew.
4. The translation of in the Septuagint
The word V'd3 in line B is used four times in the Hebrew Bible and is never translated as aixoq. Moreover, in Ex 22:5 it is translated as a^rav, i.e. the same word that is found after raansp # 2 in the Greek translation of Job 5:26. Thus, this Greek translation raansp 9i|ravia a^ravoq Ka9 rapav CTuyKO|iCT9siCTa fits V'd3 mi[k.
We can conclude that all the words that are found after raansp #1 refer to nlK.
5. An additional argument
We do not observe any other reason or textual problem for which it was necessary to make a double translation of the phrase 1t[b m1[k, which is easy to understand, and to 'ignore' nlK. On the contrary, even later biblical translations offer their interpretation of п1э.
All the abovementioned arguments seem to prove that in the Sep-tuagint of Job 5:26 there is no double translation of 1t[b m1[k. The translator presented a detailed explanation of the meaning of the word nlK, expressed in the form юстпер CTiToq юр1|ю^ ката ^i^ov 9splZoцsvoq. We assume that the same conclusion can be applied here as in the case with the Vulgate. Even if the translator of the Greek text of Job did not have any intention of showing a clear parallel between п1э and Q'acac // [dt in v. 25, i.e. a metaphorical comparison between "seed, ear, harvest" and "posterity," but saw only "ear, reaped in its time," his free translation is correct.
The evidences from Mishnaic Hebrew, the Vulgate, the Septuagint and, of course, the structure of parallelism in Job 5:25-26, help us to conclude that nlK means "ear(s), harvest." On the basis of the metaphorical comparison between "ear(s), harvest" (v. 26) and "posterity" (v. 25), we are to translate v. 26: "You will come into the grave with the harvest (of posterity), as an ear reaped in its time." The fact that this person can see the multitude of his posterity presents an image of the blessed
man's life, i.e. the one who lived for many years. This conclusion can be also found in Job 42:16-17: "and Job lived after this another one hundred and forty years, and saw his sons and grandsons till the fourth generation. And Job died at a very old age" [author's translation]. At the very end of the book the author intentionally shows the multitude of posterity that characterizes the death of a blessed man.
Job 30:2 nls daa Aa'1[ 'L nal □n,T
"Of what use is the strength of their hands to me, in whom old age had perished?" [author's translation; italics added]38
Analysis of existing interpretations
On the whole, scholars and interpreters of Job 30:2 have approached nlk the same way as in Job 5:26. Ceresko observes that the parallelism of the verse is evident, where ¡TO // nlk, and that is why its meaning should resemble "vigor."39 Moreover, he suggests dividing the word into two parts and reading it as nl 'k.40 Habel, Hartley and Pope translate it slightly differently, but in general they all understand nlk in the sense of
38 In this case the Russian Synodal Translation draws an analogy with the word "ripeness" from Job 5:26. Such an interpretation does not correspond to the structure of parallelism in Job 30:2.
39 A.R. Ceresko, Job 29-31 in the Light of North West Semitic, p. 44.
40 Ibid.
"strength, vigor."41 So do other Russian translations.42 Rabbi Saadia Gaon (RaSaG), Rabbi Shlomo Itzhaki (RaSHI), Moshe Kimhi and Szold interpret it as nnpT (old age) as in Job 5:26.43 Tur-Sinai suggests looking at nlK as an early form of nlp (with p) (ear, harvest) based on the Rabbinical Hebrew.44
As in Job 5:26, the suggested interpretations nnpT and nik and conjectural emendations nl 'k, nl Ik are not suitable for Job 30:2. nnpT does not suit the context of the passage
41 N.C. Habel, The Book of Job, OTL, Philadelphia 1985, p. 396, 413; Marvin H. Pope, Job, p. 217. It seems that Habel and Pope interpret as nl Ik ("all their vigor"). It is evident that they follow Blommerde's explanation of nlK in Job 5:26.
42 Averintzev translates nlK as "strength," Poesia i Proza Drevnego Vostoka, p. 604; Rzhevskiy— "(strength) of might," Kniga Iova: Iz istorii bi-bleiskogo teksta, p. 65. Cf. Vetkhiy Zavet: Per-evod s Drevneevreyskogo; Pritchi, Kniga Ekklezi-asta i Kniga Iova, RBO 2002. [Russian]
43 Kapach, amud q"n [Hebrew], Rabbi Saadia Gaon explains it in the following way - nnpTh ~n1 ndaa raki, ("and their old age has already perished" [author's translation]); H. Basser, B.D. Walfish (eds.), Moses Kimhi - Commentary on the Book of Job, p. 76, Moses Kimhi writes -
□laai aira nnpzn 'a'l wan alv, ("because they did not reach a great age due to their trouble and labor" [author's translation]); B. Szold, The Book of Job: A New Commentary, p. 54; see also D. J. A. Clines, ed., Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. IV, Sheffield 1998, p. 420. The editors of the dictionary have included two articles for the word nlK. The only difference is that they provide different meanings of the word—"old age" and "strength." Moreover, both articles contain the same information, which seems odd.
44 N.H. Tur-Sinai (H. Torczyner), The Book of Job, p. 420; Amos Chacham, Sefer Iob, amud
rk"h [Hebrew]. He accepts Tur-Sinai's explana-
tion and says that nlp speaks metaphorically of
people who do not have family relations and connection with their forefathers.
because it does not match □n,T nk in the parallelism found in the text. It is evident that the authors of this interpretation wanted to use the same translation in both Job 5:26 and 30:2. An attempt to link 30:2 and 5:26 se-mantically is quite legitimate and also helps to check other interpreta-tions.45 Based on this foundation we affirm that the meaning nik (strength) does not fit in here because of its discrepancy with Job 5:26. Emendations nl 'k and nl Ik have no textual proof.
nls means "ear, harvest": Additional arguments
The structure of the parallelism: X // d' nik in Job 30:2 and other places in Tanakh
In this passage the following parallelism structure can be seen:
46nlK daa Aa'1[ // 'L nal □n'd' nK-~G
Due to this fact we are to look at □n'd' nk as a semantic parallel to the
45 In the case of Job 5:26 and 30:2, these interpretations usually resemble the semantic picture of one passage but do not fit the other. Budde remarks: "Vollreife (526) gibt hier kaum einen Sinn", K. Budde, Das Buch Hiob, p. 178; Cf. Peshitta d'lyhwn 'byd klh 'wsn', and Vulgate et vita ipsa putabantur indigni, that provide here completely different translations than in Job 5:26.
46 In Qumran only the remnants of an Aramaic translation of Job 30:2 have been found— pnpaDbl j'bC yl am a1[(the first and the last letters have been partly preserved). J. P. M. van der Ploeg, and As. van der Woude, As., eds., Le Targum de Job: De La Grotte XI de Qumrân, Leiden 1971, p. 40.
word nlk. We suppose that nlK in this verse has the same meaning as in Job 5:26 "ears, harvest." In order to prove the correctness of this conclusion it is needed to bring examples in which TCp // T mk (the strength of arms // harvest). Here are some examples to prove the legitimacy of such a parallel.
Dt 16:15b reads:
$'n1a n $krb 'k $naw3t ikb $'T nf[Q ikb
In this passage the author compares nawbt (harvest) and D'T nf[Q (the deed of arms).
Lev 26:20 reads:
□knk pnl am nlwb na akcra ]nn alw wns ]t' al pan pw
This verse states that the Lord will punish His people for their sins. The punishment will be revealed in the lack of strength in people, and, as a result, the lack of a harvest in the field and fruit on the trees.
In addition, we find in the Book of Job the following parallel phrase— destroyed fruit (harvest) // destroyed seed (posterity). The presence of such a variant proves that nlK means "ear, harvest," first in the agricultural sphere (literal meaning), and second in the family sphere (in a figurative sense meaning "posterity"). In Job 18:16-17, 19 we read:
ITCp im wVb w'VrV tntQ #wn '33 wl av alw pa '3Q dba wrkz 47wnw:m the !'aw wq[3 dk3 alw wl p al
47 Cf. Job 24:24.
In this passage it is said about an impious man. According to the text structure the following comparative scheme can be built:
// wr'cq im ,wv3' w'Vrv 48Trf !'a, dkn al, p al, av a1,d3a
wrkz
The author of the text says that an impious man has no future on the earth because his harvest was destroyed and he has no posterity. This metaphoric comparison between TCp and wQ[b dk3 al, THE p allows us to conclude that nlK in Job 30:2 means "ear, harvest."
The context of Job 30:2
In the context of the explored passage, we find an allusion to offspring as in Job 5:26. In Job 30:2 the text speaks of people who used to serve Job and his sons and who laughed at them. That happened because Job did not allow their fathers "to stay with the dogs of his flock," he also has no need of the "strength of their arms" because their harvest has been lost. Thus, a'33 // twba and TCp // ]ac can
be compared.49
The Septuagint: Evidence against the conjectured emendations
48 Cf. Ps 21:11 ana '330 aartw dban pan wans; Joel 1:11 nnf TCp dba 'k nrf 1[w nan a'Qrk wl'l'n a'rka wV'bn; Is. 26:14 wol "IkT ik
dbanw.
49 Parallel "PCp // jac is possible because both words have a common semantic ground— housekeeping (domestic animals, harvest from a field).
Although the Greek translation of Job 30:2 does not help to define the meaning of niK, it is a useful source in this case, because it testifies against the conjectured emendations. In this passage we have no translation of Old Greek (OG). Instead, in the standard edition of the Septua-gint we find a text that corresponds to the kaige-Theodotion revision:50
Kai ys %stprav auxrav iva xt
|aoi sn auxouq anra^sxo auvxs^sia
niK is translated here with the word CTuvxs^sia. In Greek this word means "the end, finish." Usually in Tanakh it was used to translate hLk (Am 8:8; 9:5) and nLK (Hab 1:9). Probably the mistake was made in the translation process or had already been there in the translator's Vorlage. It is possible that the translator saw the following text:
nlk dba wq'1[ 'l noi an'T nk ag
"Of what use is the strength of their hands to me, they have completely lost it" [author's translation]; (nik instead of Masoretic nik).51
Semantically, this reading looks acceptable, first because nik // T nk, evidently due to parallel structure, and second, because it corresponds with the scheme X // nlk, which can
50 A. Rahlfs, Septuaginta, Stuttgart 1935/1979, p. LXI; See also D. Barthélémy, Les devanciers d'Aquila, VTSupp. 10, Leiden 1963.
51 Scribal errors writing h instead of n occur in
Tanakh. See, for instance, Pr 1:21, where nVDh should be read as mon or nVDn, because it is parallel to DnaV 'nna. The Septuagint translates it as Tsixsrav, which is equivalent to mon.
be found in Tanakh.52 In spite of this, such a variant can not be used as textual evidence, because it is not the Old Greek translation, but a later kaige revision. The existence of this reading is important because it can testify to the textual tradition of reading in Job 30:2 the following consonants nlk. This statement underlines the fact that the conjectured emendations such as nl 'k, nl ik do not have any textual approval.
We suppose that niK in Job 30:2 means "ears, harvest." This conclusion is based on the word nip from the Mishnaic Hebrew and also other texts containing the same semantic idea and structure of parallelism in the text. That is why we suggest the following translation:
"Of what use is the strength of their hands to me, their harvest has been lost."
niK means "ear, harvest" according to the context and structure of parallelism. It is a synonym of T nwk.
In both cases, Job 5:26 and 30:2, the author shows diverse ways the word niK is used. In Job 5:26 it is used metaphorically, pointing to the offspring of a blessed man, characterizing his death. According to the author of these texts a blessed man dies seeing the "harvest" of posterity.
In 30:2 we see that niK is used literally. Job does not need the work of people who have lost his harvest.
52 Cf. Jer 48:38; Eze 35:15; Hos 12:2; Am 8:8, 9:5; Ps 139:4; Job 38:18; Pr 30:27. On the translation of nLK in the Septuagint see F. H. Polak, "The Interpretation of Kulloh / Kalah in the LXX: Ambiguity and Intuitive Comprehension," Textus 17 (1994), pp. 57-77.
