Job 15:12

Footnotes

1. 24 The interrogative מָה (mah) here has the sense of “why?” (see Job 7:21).
2. 25 The verb simply means “to take.” The has “carry you away.” E. Dhorme (Job, 212–13) goes further, saying that it implies being unhinged by passion, to be carried away by the passions beyond good sense (pp. 212–13). Pope and Tur-Sinai suggest that the suffix on the verb is datival, and translate it, “What has taken from you your mind?” But the parallelism shows that “your heart” and “your eyes” are subjects.
3. 26 Here is another word that occurs only here, and in the absence of a completely convincing suggestion, probably should be left as it is. The verb is רָזַם (razam, “wink, flash”). Job and the equate it with a verb found in Aramaic and postbiblical Hebrew with the same letters but metathesized—רָמַז (ramaz). It would mean “to make a sign” or “to wink.” Budde, following the probably, has “Why are your eyes lofty?” Others follow an Arabic root meaning “become weak.”