What Sort of Friends? 395 divination (see below), two spheres in which the Rephaim are very much at home. Furthermore, the terms μyapr and lla fit this interpretation better than the more common interpretation. If the phrase lla yapr is understood to mean “worthless physicians”, then the construction is taken to be an attributive (epexegetical) genitive, where lla modifies yapr. Perhaps the best support for this interpretation comes from Jer 8,22, where a doctor is associated with a balsam balm (yrx), which presumably would have been rubbed onto an afflicted area of the skin. In Job 13,4, then, that image of healing would be turned on its head when Job calls his friends “you who smear with lies” (rqv ylpf). Did Job need a doctor? There are, again, just enough suggestions in the book up to that point to justify that conclusion (e.g. 7,5: “My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt; my skin hardens, then breaks out again”; 9,17: “For he crushes me with a tempest, and multiplies my wounds without cause”). However, (1) such statements are relatively formulaic complaints in ancient Near Eastern laments; (2) they are not in the immediate context of 13,4; and (3) as I will demonstrate, “smearers” is not the most likely translation of ylpf in this verse. In sum, this line of interpretation has survived because it is not without some warrant; but it is not the best one available (5). A look at the immediate context of Job 13,4 suggests a new interpretation. The opening of the chapter revolves around the theme of knowledge: Job has seen, heard and understood (13,1); and what the friends know, he too knows (v. 2). Job wants to speak with the Almighty (v. 3), and v. 4 introduces a contrast (marked by μlwa) between that face-to-face encounter and the corrupting mediation of knowledge by the friends. The chapter break at ch. 13 probably introduces a false interruption of Job’s thought. Knowledge and understanding are also the subject of 12,24-25, in which Yahweh is said to deprive leaders of reason so that they wander lost (v. 24), grope in darkness, and stumble like drunkards (v. 25). It is difficult to ignore here the loud echoes of Isaiah’s condemnations of leaders under the influence of necromancy in Isa 8,19-22; 19,3.13-14 (6). Those passages employ some of the same images, and some of the same terms, e.g., h[t, rwkv, consultation of the deceased Samuel in 1 Sam 28. As for the broader ancient Near Eastern picture, the necromantic aspects of the Mesopotamian kispu ritual and the Egyptian Letters to the Dead and cults of dead pharaohs are well established. At Ugarit, the rpum were at least invoked at the funeral of a king to bless the ongoing dynasty (KTU 1.161). The status of necromancy in Ugarit (and Syria-Palestine in general) is less clear, but G. del OLMO LETE has recently argued strongly for it: Canaanite Religion. According to the Liturgical Texts of Ugarit (Winona Lake, IN 2004) 232-246. (5) Another theory, less popular, connects apr with Arabic and Ethiopic roots meaning “to stitch”, so that the friends are “stitching a patchwork of lies” (so NEB). This theory has been propounded by A. DILLMANN, Kommentar zur Hiob (Leipzig 1891) 113; taken up by H. EWALD, Commentary on the Book of Job (London 1882) 160; and also by CLINES, Job 1–20, 281, 306. While this interpretation of apr might be thought to mirror the concreteness of the image of smearing in the parallel colon, it does not seem a likely linguistic argument, given the lack of early attestations of such a root in any northwest Semitic language. (6) On the date and interpretation of Isa 19, see my “Damming Egypt / Damning Egypt: The Paronomasia of skr and the Unity of Isa 19:1-15”, ZAW 120 (2008) 612-616.