Job 5:3

I have seen a fool striking root,

   I saw at once the abode was accursed.

What is the difference between “I” and “I myself”? was my first question. I had no answer so I went with the one. What is the difference between “a fool taking root” and “a fool striking root”? was my second question. My Christian sources all had “taking” and my Jewish sources all had “striking”. I chose the Jewish lead as “taken” had a stealing away aspect, and “striking” had a establishing home aspect that seemed more fitting.

Once again, the Christian sources agreed with “but suddenly”, however there was variability from the others. Options included “impulsively”, “snap”, “all at once” and no time element at all. The odd thing about this second stitch was that most of the sources denoted the speaker as the one doing the cursing. I am thrown by the concept that the speaker would be in a position to curse a fool trying to establish their own home. I initially stepped around this part to see whether “the home” was “their dwelling”, “his house”, “his habitation”, or “his abode”. I went with abode as “home” seems to positive for a fool, “dwelling” and “house” seemed to permanent, and “habitation” seemed too animal like.

My favorite source had “But I declared folly’s dwelling to be cursed.” I did not like the lack of a time element, I did not see a support for the use of “folly’s”, but I found some humor in a vision of someone seeing a fool try to build a house and being able to declare quickly that it was going to be a disaster.

In the end, I found an arrangement that balanced all my misgivings about the various options. This is a little different from my first effort but feels truer to the authors intent. I understand the speaker’s nature to be a little arrogant, but I like the aspect of not flaunting it before the audience. I liken it to the coach at Oklahoma being all whiney about how Baylor called a timeout to kick a field goal to win by ten instead of seven at the end of their game. He looked like a fool, and everyone should have been able to see it. I guess the people at USC did not. Would it be judgmental to think USC was going to get better, but not enough?