02_Burnight-co_347_370 28/10/14 10:35 Pagina 357 DOES ELIPHAZ REALLY BEGIN “GENTLY”? 357 Nor does he address the occurrences of lsk in Ps 49,13 and Eccl 7,25, in which the proposed meaning of “strength” or “confidence” would lead to a clearly untenable reading (and where “folly” is the widely accepted interpretation in both cases) 27. This leaves just four other biblical passages, Prov 3,26, Ps 78,7, and Job 8,14 and 31,24, in which any form of the root lsk is trans- lated with a positive term such as “trust” or “confidence”. None of these occurrences of lsk, however, provides a clear parallel to the meaning widely assumed for hlsk in Job 4,6; i.e. that it denotes the existence of a feeling of “confidence” that is viewed as well- founded. In Prov 3,26, for example, most English translations (e.g., “For the LORD will be your confidence ... ”) obscures the peculiar syntax of the Hebrew, which reads $lskb hyhy hwhy (lit. “the LORD will be in your lsk”). Held proposes that the preposition here is a beth essentia, and compares it to the expression yrz[b in Exod 18,4 28. The other examples he adduces (Deut 33,26; Ps 146,5) are both dubious, however, and the texts he cites as further comparisons do not have the same construction. Given that the presence of the LORD “in” one’s lsk will “keep your foot from being caught” (Prov 3,26b), it seems more likely that the term is instead being used here with its physical meaning of “sinew, tendon”: the LORD will be “in” one’s musculature providing strength, thus preventing the foot from being caught. The use of lsk with its physical meaning in Ps 38,7-8 is an apt comparison; in that case, the supplicant is “bent over” and “greatly bowed down” because his ~ylsk are “filled with burning”. Nor does either of the occurrences of lsk in Job provide a suit- able parallel to hlsk as “confidence” or “trust” in Job 4,6; in both cases, the context indicates that the lsk is — or would be — mis- dition or evil nature (i.e. heathenism). The Peshiṭta renders the colon as an ad- monition to the people not to turn back to their previous (sinful) ways. Some exegetes emend hl'sk . li . to hOl ~B'li (following the LXX’S pro.j auvto.n kardi,an); the RSV, for example, translates the colon as “to those who turn to him in their hearts”. This would, however, also require the deletion of the aOl. In any case, the LXX renders hlsk in Job 4,6 as avfrosu,nh| (“folly”); see below. 27 Also cf. the post-biblical sense of lsk as “laziness, inactivity” (Jastrow compares it to Xpj, “be obdurate, dull, stupid”), and the Arabic cognate kasila (“to be sluggish”). See M. JASTROW, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (New York 1950) 654. 28 HELD, “Studies in Comparative Semitic Lexicography”, 403.