02_Burnight-co_347_370 28/10/14 10:35 Pagina 361 DOES ELIPHAZ REALLY BEGIN “GENTLY”? 361 ing” negatively, either as a “cage” from which he cannot escape or, in Tur-Sinai’s view, a barrier or screen that separates him from God 36. The sense of the first colon is also clearly negative, but in one respect it is ambiguous: it is clear that the man’s “way is hidden”, but from whom? Nothing in the grammar of the verse provides a definitive answer. Some interpreters are of the opinion that it is Job himself, and that the phrase refers to some sort of existential crisis on his part, i.e. that he has “lost his way” 37. Others, however, argue that the “way” is not hidden from the “man,” but rather from God. Rashbam expresses this opinion in his medieval commentary, writing that “Job says this about himself: ‘All this has happened to me be- cause my path is hidden from God’” 38. Rashi’s interpretation is sim- ilar: he writes that “all the good deeds he has done are hidden from the Lord of Recompense, and he does not regard them” 39. Ehrlich and Tur-Sinai are among the more modern proponents of this view, with the latter asserting that the idea behind Job’s statement is that God does not recognize the man’s “blameless way” (see below) 40. It is impossible to say with certainty whether Job or God is in- tended here, given the ambiguity of the expression. As with some of the verses discussed above, however, an intertextual reading of 3,23a may shed light on the poet’s intent 41. A number of commen- 36 Tur-Sinai notes the orthographic variation between the verb in 1,10 (T'k.f;) and that in 3,23b (%s,Y"w:); he interprets the latter as being derived from the root $ks, “to screen”. He observes that this term is “used especially of the cloudy curtain which God spreads between himself and man”. If he is correct, then the poet is very cleverly maintaining the paronomasia with 1,10 while at the same time continuing the idea introduced in 3,23a: that God does not see Job’s “way”. See N. TUR-SINAI, The Book of Job, 66. 37 E.g., DRIVER-GRAY, Commentary, 39; HABEL, The Book of Job, 111- 112. The NRSV’s translation (“Why is light given to one who cannot see the way [...]”) makes this interpretation explicit, though such paraphrasing de- parts significantly from the Hebrew original. 38 S. JAPHET, Perush R. Shemu’el ben Me’ir (Rashbam) le-Sefer Iyov (Yerushalayim 2000) 353. 39 ~hb jybh alw lwmgh l[b tam wrtsn l[p rXa twbwj lk, see Mikra’ot Gedolot Sefer Iyov, 13. 40 A.B. EHRLICH, Randglossen zur Hebräischen Bibel (Leipzig 1918) 192; N.H. TUR-SINAI, Sefer Iyov: ‘im perush hadash (Tel-Aviv 1954) 38, and The Book of Job, 66. 41 See J. BURNIGHT, “The ‘Reversal’ of Heilsgeschichte in Job 3”, Reading Job Intertextually (eds. K. DELL – W. KYNES) (LHBOTS 574; London 2012) 30-41, here 38.