Earlier posts in this series are available here, here, here and here.

In a previous post I discussed that verse two is a fairly straight forward distitch wisdom saying. Specifically this saying is concerned with the fate of the fool. Verses six and seven are also wisdom sayings. Although verse six could stand alone, verse seven appears to be predicated upon verse six. The two verses together form a quatrain, verse six with a quasi-chiastic structure that is carried on in stitch A of verse seven. It is now time to turn to the interior of this pericope, verses three to five.

This section is the most difficult to identify within the pericope. On the one hand one might take it as an admonition to avoid foolishness, since the fool is consumed. However, there is never an actual admonition to turn from being a fool. The section might also be taken as a paranesis, or in layman’s terms, “an address to an individual (or group) that seeks to persuade with reference to a goal.”¹ However, again there is no goal that is specified in the text.

Murphy classifies this as an “example story.”² Norman Habel takes these verses as an attempt “to substantiate the proverb he quotes[in verse 2] by citing his personal experience of fallen fools.”³ This appears to agree with Murphy’s classification of these verses as an example story, which the latter defines as, “a genre that provides a concrete example as an illustration of a point that an author…is making.”⁴ Interestingly, Habel associates these verses with the wisdom saying in verse two, while Murphy associates them with the wisdom sayings in verses six and seven. ⁵

Of course, the whole point of working to establish the various forms used in a passage is to compare the use of those forms in the present passage to their use in other passages. What light might similar pericopes shed on Job 5.3-5? Proverbs 7.6ff is the quintessential example story within the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible. It is, in every way, more involved than the comparatively laconic example story found in the present pericope. Even so, the stories are introduced similarly with a form of ראה followed by the story proper. Beyond this there are no clear similarities in form between the two passages. The Proverbs passage is longer, and contains embedded speech. It, furthermore, has the feel of a narrative, whereas the passage in Job has the feel of a report.

Using a form of ראה to introduce a topic is also used in Qohelet (cf. Qohelet 3.16; 6.1). There is an important difference between the use here and in Proverbs 7 on the one hand, and the use in Qohelet on the other. In the latter אני ראיתי is used to introduce a general truth that the sage has observed, whereas in Job the same phrase is used to introduce a particular–although possibly(probably) fictionalized–story.

Identifying these verses as an example story form is not so much helpful in finding exact parallels as much as it is helpful in more clearly establishing the purpose and function of the verses. These three verses serve as an example of the fool who is destroyed, not randomly, but because he is a fool. In this way, it serves to illustrate the point which Eliphaz is striving to make in much the same way that a modern member of the clergy might use a story from her own life to illustrate a point.

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