Job 6:26

Do you regard your empty words as proof?

  But as mere wind, a despairing man’s speeches?

(Written 3/11, Posted  4/1 )

The phrase “You are just making ‘blank’ up as you go along” comes to mind. There is an aspect of talent in this. In comedy, it is called Improvisation with a positive feel. When a kid does it, it is called “Lying like a rug.” A bard or a storyteller does it all the time. Or so it seems. The difference is whether the story is made up on the fly or is something crafted.

This verse seems typical of what I run up against: Eight different versions of supposedly the same thing that have a whole range of differences both slight and complete.

Stitch A 

• Do you think you can reprove words,
• Do you mean to correct what I say,
• Do you intend to rebuke my words,
• Do you imagine to reprove words,
• Do you devise words of reproof,
• Do you think you can teach me with words,
• Do you mean to rebuke with words,
• Do you regard empty words as reproof,

One implies they are trying to respond negatively to Job, one implies they are trying to teach Job, one implies they are trying to correct Job, One implies they are trying to prove what words mean, and only one really says what I think was the intent: That they know they are full of ‘blank’, yet except Job to fall for what they are making up. I again skip “‘reproof” for “proof” as I do not need the difference. “Correct”, “teach”, and even “rebuke” are aspects of the words proving something and not necessary. “Regard” had a simplicity that seem more applicable than “think”, “mean”, “intend”, “imagine”, or “devise”. I added the “your” to “empty words” to make it more of a personal attack on what they were saying. Maybe not necessary, but seemingly more full of the context.

Two sources had “words” in the second stitch as well, but “speech” felt better. “Desperate” and  “hopeless” were alternatives for “despairing”, but in a manner I felt the intent of the words had more emotional impact.

I know that when I have completed this study, I will have put forth no more than an opinion that I had based on what God showed me at a point (or points) in time. I see where the constraints of knowing the meter and other poetic tools within the Hebrew can bring severe limitations to how one would “translate” the words to a “current” form of English. Luckily, I am bound only by my duty to God to render what I feel is the best arrangement of the words I know to show the intent I feel. Again, I am no better than any other, but simply following a call. This passage leaves me thinking both sides felt they were right and would not listen to the other no matter what. Thankfully God tells us what is right.