Earlier posts in this series may be found here, here and here. Of particular interest is this post, since it contains the Hebrew text (see here for an English translation) of Job 5.2-7 with which I am working. In this post, I intend to survey the literary forms which are used in Job 5.2-7. The particular forms have some bearing on the structure of the passage, which will be discussed in a future post.

Establishing the precise forms which occur in Job 5.2-7 is not an easy task.¹ Clearly verse two is a wisdom saying. Verses six and seven also appear to be a wisdom saying, though whether a single saying or two juxtaposed sayings is a more complex question to answer. The interior of the section is more difficult to categorize. It has certain affinities with several forms, which will be discussed below.

The pericope with which this paper is concerned (Job 5.2-7) is found in the first cycle of speeches, in Eliphaz’ first speech. Most scholars would outline the Book of Job thusly:²
I. Prologue (Chapters 1-2)
II. Dialog (Chapters 3-27)
    A. First Cycle (Chapters 3-14)
    B. Second Cycle (Chapters 15-21)
    C. Third Cycle (22-27)
III. Monologue (Chapters 28-42)
    A. Job (Chapters 28-31)
    B. Elihu (Chapters 32-37)
    C. God (Chapters 38-41)
IV. Epilogue (Chapter 42)
Murphy labels Eliphaz’ first speech as a disputation speech.³ Regarding Job 5.2-7 he says only that “wisdom forms prevail.”⁴

Verse two is a simple, bicolon wisdom saying. Murphy defines a wisdom saying as “a didactic saying, based on experience and/or tradition that inculcates some value or lesson.”⁵ In this case, it would appear that the saying is based on both tradition and experience, as the discussion of verses three to five (in the next post in this series) will make clear. The bicolon or distitch proverb is among the most common in the Book of Proverbs.⁶ The Book of Job, although it favors longer speeches, still makes use of this basic(?) proverbial form. This is also a very common pattern in Egyptian literature. In this light, Job 5.2 falls well within a common proverbial form attested in both the Bible and ancient near east.

Specifically, Job 5.2 is a wisdom saying that deals with the fate of the fool. Such sayings are very common in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 17.20 is an example:
      He who has a crooked heart finds no good.
      He who is perverted in his language falls into evil.
There are also wisdom saying which deal with the fate of the wise. In form these sayings are identical to the wisdom sayings which deals with the fate of the fool. In content, however, they are quite different. Proverbs 11.25 is an example:
      The generous man will be made fat
      he who waters will himself be watered
As can be seen from these two examples, as well as Job 5.2, this type of wisdom saying follows the form: A-B-C-A’-B’-C’, where A’, B’ and C’ are synonymous with A, B and C. This can be easily illustrated with Job 5.2:
      For anger (A) slays (B) the fool (C)
      and envy (A’) kills (B’) the simple (C’)
Interestingly, none of the verses cited are chiastic.⁷

Job 5.6-7 likewise comprise a wisdom saying, or possibly two such sayings that have been juxtaposed to further drive home the point which Eliphaz is seeking to make; namely that human beings bring about their own downfall because of sin. Morris Jastrow agrees with the idea of both verses six and seven being proverbial sayings. However, he incorrectly removes them from the text as the later additions of “a pious commentator.”⁸ Murphy appears to take them as separate when he calls verses six and seven “wisdom sayings,” but he does not discuss this at any length. ⁹ Verse six is a wisdom saying which is similar to verse two above, though not dealing with the fate of any particular group. Rather it is a simple statement that trouble does not come from nowhere. It is possible that it could stand alone and be entirely understandable. Verse seven, on the other hand, appears to require some explanation beyond itself. This may be evidence that the author of Job knew the saying reproduced in verse six, and so created verse seven. However, the exact process that lead to the creation of the extant text is impossible to determine for certain–and even if it were not so, the exact development is not necessary to ascertain.

Verses six and seven, when taken together, as they are obviously meant to be in the present passage, form a quatrain. Verse six is quasi-chiastic, with an A-B-C-B’-A’-C’ structure:

כי לא יצא מעפר און
ומאדמה לא יצמח עמל

Verse seven picks up from verse six, using some of the same vocabulary (עמל), and then furthers the first stitch in the second. Stitches A and B of verse seven do not represent a synonymous parallelism, but rather a so-called synthetic parallelism.¹⁰

The form of the internal portion of Job 5.2-7 will be dealt with in my next post on the topic.