Verse 17
17. Cut off The key to this much-vexed passage lies in nitsmath, “cut off,” which should bear its Arabic meaning of brought to silence. Eliphaz (Job 22:11) had taunted Job not only with his fear, but with the darkness and deluge that covered him. He replies, For I grow not dumb because of (or before) the darkness, nor because of (or before) myself, whom thick darkness hath covered. Thus most moderns. Job is still ready to maintain what he believes to be the right; he will “not be reduced to silence,” notwithstanding the black midnight darkness ( אפל ) which had overwhelmed him. This bold and defiant declaration is transitional to the awful arraignment of God’s ways in the following chapter. “From the incomprehensible punishment which, without reason, is passing over him, he now again comes to speak of the incomprehensible connivance of God, which permits the godlessness of the world to go on unpunished.” Delitzsch.
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