Job 36:18

18. Because there is wrath… his stroke This passage has given much trouble to critics, of whose readings some are unspeakably absurd. The real difficulty lies in the word stroke, ( שׂפק , sephek,) which is translated by some, “abundance;” thus, (Furst,) “He may not seduce thee with abundance.” making God indirectly an agent of evil. On the other hand, Gesenius renders it “punishment;” while Furst gives the first meaning of its root, as in Job 34:26, “to strike.” Rosenmuller, A. Clarke, and Noyes, virtually adopt the reading of the text. Carey thinks that the expression “ take away” is intended to correspond with the same word, “remove,” in Job 36:16, with the meaning, God has not, as yet, by his mercy urged you out ( הסיתךְ ) of your distress, (Job 36:16;) take care that in his provoked wrath he does not altogether urge you away ( יסיתךְ ) with a stroke. The preposition ב , with, (a stroke,) may be rendered against; which leads some ( Conant) to ascribe the anger to Job, and to read the clause. “For beware lest anger stir thee up against chastisement.” But the use of the same word ( חמה , “wrath”) in Job 19:29, where it is spoken of God, would rather point to a rebuke on the part of Elihu. The very wrath Job threatened against “the friends” is that which he himself has reason to apprehend unless he, too, exercise proper caution. The muttering of the approaching storm may have given special point to the exhortation, and Elihu may have been emboldened to greater severity of address than would otherwise have seemed justifiable. “See,” he seems to say, “the lightnings, God’s messengers, already endorse the message of God’s servant.”

Ransom Kopher; same word as in Job 33:24, but used here in a modified sense. No consideration either of wealth, honour, wisdom, or piety, (Ezekiel 33:12-13,) no price that man can bring will avail to deliver man when once under the retributive hand of God. Comp. Job 30:24.

Cannot deliver thee The meaning of נשׂה in the niphil form is unquestionably, as in the margin, “to turn aside.” Gesenius renders the phrase, (Thes. 877,) “ A great ransom cannot turn thee aside from the divine punishment; a form of speech,” he says, “used of those who turn aside from the way to avoid peril.”