Textual Criticism of Job 14:4

For the last number of years I have chosen to read through the Bible using different versions. This year I have chosen to read the Revised English Bible. In my reading today from Job 14 I noticed that it didn't include verse 4. I took time to look at a number of resources as to the textual criticism reasons why this verse was not included but I didn't find any satisfying answer. Any resources that I did find just said in passing that some have decided to not include this verse but I could not find any resource offered satisfying reasons why this verse should not be included. Does anyone know of a Logos resource that addresses this in some depth?

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Jack Caviness

From the UBS Handbook

[quote]

Some scholars believe that verse 4 does not fit the context, because it is not clear whether verse 4 refers back to the uncleanness implied in verse 1. It is omitted in one Hebrew manuscript. Some translators delete it, and neb places it in a footnote. Most modern translations keep it, and users of this Handbook should do likewise.

neb New English Bible

William David Reyburn, A Handbook on the Book of Job, UBS Handbook Series (New York: United Bible Societies, 1992), 268.

So it seems that some omit it—not on textual ground, but—on purely theological grounds.

Don Awalt

I thought WBC had a pretty comprehensive explanation of both sides:

The connection of this verse to the context is hard to discern, but there is no good reason to delete it (as Bickell, Budde, Driver-Gray, Pope, NEB, Horst); it can hardly be “the sigh of a pious reader, written on the margin, and mistakenly introduced into the text” (Peake). The problems are: (1) that it is the brevity of human life, not its “uncleanness,” that is in the rest of vv 1–6 the reason for begging God to turn his gaze from humankind; (2) that these sound more like the friends’ words (cf. 4:17) than Job’s; (3) that the second colon is abnormally short, which may suggest textual corruption.

These problems are soluble, however. The mention of human uncleanness is not itself the reason for asking for God to “look away”; the point is that since humans are short-lived, God could reasonably ignore the sins of humankind, since the sins of such creatures can hardly be on a scale to threaten cosmic order or divine honor. The line of thought is exactly parallel to 7:19–21, though there Job spoke exclusively of himself, and here of humankind generally. There he asked, “How long before you look away (שׁעה, as here) from me? If I sin, how does that harm you? Why do you not just overlook any sin I am supposed to have committed, because very soon I shall be dead and nothing will matter any more.” Here he says, “We both know that human beings commit sins. But why spy on them and persecute them for the sake of their wrongdoing? Soon they will all be dead, so why make such a fuss about it?”

There is a little logical difficulty in this argument, of course. If humans generally are “unclean,” is not Job himself also “unclean”? Surely he does not admit that? Yes, in principle he has always admitted that he is capable of sin (“if I sin,” 7:20); it is only that as a matter of fact he does not allow that he is guilty of any sin for which his present suffering can be a punishment. And his point about humankind does not depend upon all human beings being always sinners; it has to do with the potential sinfulness of humankind, whose moral fallibility is a kind of correlate of their physical frailty and impermanence. In some respects Job would not dissent from Eliphaz’s words, “Can a man be pure in the sight of his Maker?” (4:17); he agrees that humankind is, as a whole, unrighteous compared with God, but he denies that it therefore follows that he, Job, is a sinner.

Job has no concept of“original” or inherited sin (against W. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament [Tr. J. A. Baker; London: SCM, 1967] 2:410, and the church fathers generally, who cited this verse—more frequently than any other in Job—in support of the Christian dogma; see further,J. Ziegler, Iob 14,4–5a als wichtigster Schriftbeweis für die These “Neminem sine sorde et sine peccato esse” [Cyprian, test 3, 54] bei den lateinischen christlichen Schriftstellern [Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Klasse, Sitzungberichte, Jahrgang 1985.3; Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften und C. H. Beck, 1985]). Job speaks only pragmatically, of what actually turns out to be the case. Some have thought the phrase “a clean from an unclean” points to the impossibility of “cleanness” in the offspring of a contaminated parent. But there is no allusion to any uncleanness attaching to conception, childbirth or women (against Dhorme, Rowley). For the expression is not “Who will bring a clean out of an unclean?” but “Who will give …?,” the phrase expressing a hopeless wish (GKC, § 151b) that human nature could be otherwise, and that one example of a “pure being” (generally speaking) could be distinguished from the mass of the “impure” (cf. NAB “Can a man be found who is clean of defilement?”); Horst cites by way of analogy Deut 15:7, “a poor man, from one of your brothers” (אביון מאחד אחיך), i.e., a poor man from among the category of your brothers.

The use of terminology that is, strictly speaking, cultic (“clean” and “unclean,” טהור and טמא) in the dialogues of Job and in Job’s mouth especially is remarkable, since the cult is rarely alluded to in the book. There can hardly be said to be a concern about cultic impurity here, as is argued by J. K. Zink, “Uncleanness and Sin: A Study of Job xiv 4 and Psalm li 7,” VT 17 (1967) 354–61. The context makes clear, however, that the terms are being used metaphorically of moral “cleanness,” i.e., righteousness, and not ritual cleanness at all (טהר elsewhere in Job of gold [28:19], of the wind clearing the sky of clouds [37:21] and of ethical “cleanness” [4:17; 17:9]; טמא “unclean” is not used elsewhere in Job).

Nothing definite can be said of the reason for the shortness of the second colon; the effect is certainly an impressive statement of the absence of any fulfilling of the wish.

DMB

This is one big reason I enjoy the Tanakh... 'hebrew uncertain' (the note for the whole verse). Plus the Dead Sea Scrolls library from ???? carefully kept the initial phrase and then removed the rest (though some scholars suggest the removal may be due it being a fragment). The targum team saw no problem (always confidently stepping into a vacume), nor the talmud rabbis.

(‾◡◝)

So it seems that some omit it—not on textual ground, but—on purely theological grounds.

The Bible is so much easier to interpret and understand if one is able to control its content ... sort of like working jigsaw puzzles.

5672.Thats Better.wmv

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MJ. Smith

on purely theological grounds.

Interesting - I would not have called that theological but rather literary/compositional grounds

Job 14:4 is a notorious problem:37 commentators discuss the shortness of the second part of this verse, and most of them bracket the whole verse as an insertion,38 perhaps a redactor’s comment on v. 1. I myself would suggest that only לֹא אֶחָד (“not one”) is a gloss, the previous words making up a colon belonging with v. 3: vv. 3–4, less the gloss, will then be a tricolon matching other tricola in the chapter (vv. 5, 7, 12, 13, 19).

footnote 37: Friedrich Horst, Hiob (BKAT 16/1; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1968) 207; Marvin H. Pope, Job (AB 15; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1973) 104, 106–7; Norman C. Habel, The Book of Job (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985) 234.

footnote 38 See, e.g., Samuel R. Driver and George Buchanan Gray, The Book of Job (ICC; Edinburgh: Clark, 1921) 1.127; and Horst, Hiob.

William L. Holladay, “Hebrew Verse Structure Revisited (II): Conjoint Cola, and Further Suggestions,” ed. Jouette M. Bassler, Journal of Biblical Literature 118 (1999): 413–414.

Bruce Dunning

Thanks everyone for your posts. It is interesting to read about the ways people approach this verse. I think I shall have to research it and think about it some more before reaching a conclusion of my own. If anyone finds any more good discussions about it I would appreciate it if you would share the source.

Lee

Thinking that the second line is too short, Duhm supplies mēḥaṭṭāʾôṯ, "(not one is) without sin." In the opposite direction Hölscher eliminates the line, considering it to be poor poetry (cf. 4:17). Blommerde (Northwest Semitic Grammar and Job, pp. 69–70) revocalizes the consonants of MT to məṭummāʾ, a Pual participle meaning "impure," for MT miṭṭāmēʾ, "from an unclean thing," and in the second line he reads lēʾ, "the mighty one," instead of lōʾ, "not": "Who can make the impure clean? The Mighty One alone." This translation offers fine sense, but it does not seem to fit the context, which is discussing human limitations rather than God's ability to create change. Gordis translates: "Who can distinguish the pure from the impure? No one!" He sees this as an oblique response to Eliphaz's unanswerable argument that no one is pure (4:17–19), meaning that God should have no trouble telling the pure from the impure, for he knows each person's nature.

Hartley, J. E. (1988). The Book of Job. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.