24 "If I have made gold my hope, and have said to the fine gold, 'You are my confidence;'
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
If I have made gold my hope - That is, if I have put my trust in gold rather than in God; if I have fixed my affections with idolatrous attachment on riches rather than on my Maker. Job here introduces another class of sins, and says that his conscience did not charge him with guilt in respect to them. He had before spoken mainly of social duties, and of his manner of life toward the poor, the needy, the widow, and the orphan. He here turns to the duty which he owed to God, and says that his conscience did not charge him with idolatry in any form. He had indeed been rich, but he had not fixed his affections with idolatrous attachment on his wealth.
Or have said to fine gold - The word used here (כתם kethem) is the same which is employed in Job 28:16, to denote the gold of Ophir. It is used to express that which was most pure - from the verb כתם kâtham - to hide, to hoard, and then denoting that which was hidden, hoarded, precious. The meaning is, that he had not put his trust in that which was most sought after, and which was deemed of the highest value by people.
Gold my hope - For the meaning of זהב zahab, polished gold, and כתם kethem, stamped gold, see on Job 28:15-17 (note).
If I have made gold my hope,.... Job here purges himself from idolatry in a figurative sense, as he afterwards does from it, taken in a literal sense; for covetousness is idolatry, and a covetous man is an idolater; he worships his gold and silver, placing his affections on them, and putting his trust and confidence in them, Ephesians 5:5; for to make gold the object or ground of hope is to place it in the room of God, who is the Hope of Israel, and in whom every good man should trust, and whom he should make his hope, Jeremiah 14:8; not gold on earth, but glory in heaven, is what the good man is hoping for; and not riches, but Christ and his righteousness, are the foundation of such an hope; to make gold our hope, is to have hope in this life, and to make a thing present the object of it; whereas true hope is of things not seen and future, and if only in this life good men have hope, they are of all most miserable; but they have in heavens better and a more enduring substance, and a better ground for hope of that substance, than worldly wealth and riches can give:
or have said to the fine gold, thou art my confidence; as bad men do, and good men are prone unto, and therefore to be cautioned against it, Psalm 49:6; for this is not only to trust in uncertain riches, and in unsatisfying ones, but to put them in the stead of God, who is or ought to be the confidence of the ends of the earth: not gold, but the living God, who gives all things richly to enjoy, is to be trusted in; when men covet riches, and trust in them as their security from evil, and that they may live independent of the providence of God, it is virtually to deny it, and carries in it secret atheism; as well as such a confidence is destruction of the worship of God, and such a temper makes a man an unprofitable hearer, plunges him into errors and hurtful lusts, and endangers his everlasting happiness, Habakkuk 2:9; in later times the Romans worshipped the goddess "Pecunia", or money, as Austin (z) relates.
(z) De Civitate Dei, l. 4. c. 21.
Job protests, 1. That he never set his heart upon the wealth of this world. How few prosperous professors can appeal to the Lord, that they have not rejoiced because their gains were great! Through the determination to be rich, numbers ruin their souls, or pierce themselves with many sorrows. 2. He never was guilty of idolatry. The source of idolatry is in the heart, and it corrupts men, and provokes God to send judgments upon a nation. 3. He neither desired nor delighted in the hurt of the worst enemy he had. If others bear malice to us, that will not justify us in bearing malice to them. 4. He had never been unkind to strangers. Hospitality is a Christian duty, 1-Peter 4:9.
Job asserts his freedom from trust in money (1-Timothy 6:17). Here he turns to his duty towards God, as before he had spoken of his duty towards himself and his neighbor. Covetousness is covert idolatry, as it transfers the heart from the Creator to the creature (Colossians 3:5). In Job 31:26-27 he passes to overt idolatry.
24 If I made gold my confidence,
And said to the fine gold: O my trust;
25 If I rejoiced that my wealth was great,
And that my hand had gained much; -
26 If I saw the sunlight when it shone,
And the moon walking in splendour,
27 And my heart was secretly enticed,
And I threw them a kiss by my hand:
28 This also would be a punishable crime,
For I should have played the hypocrite to God above.
Not only from covetous extortion of another's goods was he conscious of being clear, but also from an excessive delight in earthly possessions. He has not made gold his כּסל, confidence (vid., on כּסלתך, Job 4:6); he has not said to כּתם, fine gold (pure, Job 28:19, of Ophir, Job 28:16), מבטחי (with Dag. forte implicitum as Job 8:14; Job 18:14): object (ground) of my trust! He has not rejoiced that his wealth is great (רב, adj.), and that his hand has attained כּבּיר, something great (neutral masc. Ew. 172, b). His joy was the fear of God, which ennobles man, not earthly things, which are not worthy to be accounted as man's highest good. He indeed avoided πλεονεξία as εἰλωλολατρεία (Colossians 3:5), how much more the heathenish deification of the stars! אור is here, as Job 37:21 and φάος in Homer, the sun as the great light of the earth. ירח is the moon as a wanderer (from רח = ארח), i.e., night-wanderer (noctivaga), as the Arab. târik in a like sense is the name of the morning-star. The two words יקר הלד describe with exceeding beauty the solemn majestic wandering of the moon; יקר is acc. of closer definition, like תמים, Psalm 15:2, and this "brilliantly rolling on" is the acc. of the predicate to אראה, corresponding to the כּי יחל, "that (or how) it shoots forth rays" (Hiph. of הלל, distinct from יחל Isaiah 13:20), or even: that it shot forth rays (fut. in signif. of an imperf. as Genesis 48:17).
Job 31:27 proceeds with futt. consec. in order to express the effect which this imposing spectacle of the luminaries of the day and of the night might have produced on him, but has not. The Kal ויּפתּ is to be understood as in Deuteronomy 11:16 (comp. ib. iv. 19, נדּח): it was enticed, gave way to the seducing influence. Kissing is called נשׁק as being a joining of lip to lip. Accordingly the kiss by hand can be described by נשׁקה יד לפה; the kiss which the mouth gives the hand is to a certain extent also a kiss which the hand gives the mouth, since the hand joins itself to the mouth. Thus to kiss the hand in the direction of the object of veneration, or also to turn to it the kissed hand and at the same time the kiss which fastens on it (as compensation for the direct kiss, 1-Kings 19:18; Hosea 13:2), is the proper gesture of the προσκύνησις and adoratio mentioned; comp. Pliny, h. n. xxviii. 2, 5; Inter adorandum dexteram ad osculum referimus et totum corpus circumagimus. Tacitus, Hist. iii. 24, says that in Syria they value the rising sun; and that this was done by kissing the hand (τῆν χεῖρα κύσαντες) in Western Asia as in Greece, is to be inferred from Lucians Περὶ ὀρχήσεως, c. xvii.
(Note: Vid., Freund's Lat. Wrterbuch s. v. adorare, and K. Fr. Hermann's Gottesdienstliche Alterth. der Griechen, c. xxi. 16, but especially Excursus 123 in Dougtaeus' Analecta.)
In the passage before us Ew. finds an indication of the spread of the Zoroaster doctrine in the beginning of the seventh century b.c., at which period he is of opinion the book of Job was composed, but without any ground. The ancient Persian worship has no knowledge of the act of adoration by throwing a kiss; and the Avesta recognises in the sun and moon exalted genii, but created by Ahuramazda, and consequently not such as are to be worshipped as gods. On the other hand, star-worship is everywhere the oldest and also comparatively the purest form of heathenism. That the ancient Arabs, especially the Himjarites, adored the sun, שׁמשׁ, and the moon, שׂין (סין, whence סיני, the mountain dedicated to the moon), as divine, we know from the ancient testimonies,
(Note: Vid., the collection in Lud. Krehl's Religion der vorislamischen Araber, 1863.)
and many inscriptions
(Note: Vid., Osiander in the Deutsche Morgenl. Zeitschr. xvii. (1863) 795.)
which confirm and supplement them; and the general result of Chwolsohn's
(Note: In his great work, Ueber die Ssabier und den Ssabismus, 2 Bdd. Petersburg, 1856.)
researches is unimpeachable, that the so-called Sabians (Arab. ṣâbı̂wn with or without Hamza of the Jê), of whom a section bore the name of worshippers of the sun, shemsı̂je, were the remnant of the ancient heathenism of Western Asia, which lasted into the middle ages. This heathenism, which consisted, according to its basis, in the worship of the stars, was also spread over Syria, and its name, usually combined with צבא השּׁמים (Deuteronomy 4:19), perhaps is not wholly devoid of connection with the name of a district of Syria, ארם צובה; certainly our poet found it already there, where he heard the tradition about Job, and in his hero presents to us a true adherent of the patriarchal religion, who had kept himself free from the influence of the worship of the stars, which was even in his time forcing its way among the tribes.
It is questionable whether Job 31:28 is to be regarded as a conclusion, with Umbr. and others, or as a parenthesis, with Ew., Hahn, Schlottm., and others. We take it as a conclusion, against which there is no objection according to the syntax, although strictly it is only a confirmation (vid., Job 31:11, Job 31:23) of an implied imprecatory conclusion: therefore it is (would be) also a judicial misdeed, i.e., one to be severely punished, for I should have played the hypocrite to God above (לאל ממּעל, recalling the universal Arabic expression allah ta‛âla, God, the Exalted One) by making gold and silver, the sun and moon my idols. By פּלילי both the sins belonging to the judgment-seat of God, as in ἔνοχος τῷ συνεδρίῳ, Matthew 5:22, are not referred to a human tribunal, but only described κατ ̓ ἄνθρωπον as punishable transgressions of the highest grade. כּחשׁ ל signifies to play the hypocrite to any one, whereas to disown any one is expressed by כחשׁ בּ. His worship of God would have been hypocrisy, if he had disowned in secret the God whom he acknowledged openly and outwardly.
Now follow strophes to which the conclusion is wanting. The single imprecatory conclusion which yet follows (Job 31:40), is not so worded that it might avail for all the preceding hypothetical antecedents. There are therefore in these strophes no conclusions that correspond to the other clauses. The inward emotion of the confessor, which constantly increases in fervour the more he feels himself superior to his accusers in the exemplariness of his life hitherto, struggles against this rounding off of the periods. A "yea then - !" is easily supplied in thought to these strophes which per aposiopesin are devoid of conclusions.
*More commentary available at chapter level.