Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 6:8
Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant [me] the thing that I long for!
8, 9. So keenly does Job realize the loathsomeness of his sufferings that he forgets his defence and breaks out into a passionate cry for death, which he calls the thing that he longs for.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Oh that I might have my request – To wit, death. This he desired as the end of his sorrows, either that he might be freed from them, or that he might be admitted to a happy world – or both.
Would grant me the thing that I long for – Margin, My expectation. That is, death. He expected it; he looked out for it; he was impatient that the hour should come. This state of feeling is not uncommon – where sorrows become so accumulated and intense that a man desires to die. It is no evidence, however, of a preparation for death. The wicked are more frequently in this state than the righteous. They are overwhelmed with pain; they see no hope of deliverance from it and they impatiently wish that the end had come. They are stupid about the future world, and either suppose that the grave is the end of their being, or that in some undefinable way they will be made happy hereafter. The righteous, on the other hand, are willing to wait until God shall be pleased to release them, feeling that He has some good purpose in all that they endure, and that they do not suffer one pang too much. Such sometimes were Jobs feelings; but here, as in some other instances, no one can doubt that he was betrayed into unjustifiable impatience under his sorrows, and that he expressed an improper wish to die.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 8. O that I might have] As Job had no hope that he should ever be redeemed from his present helpless state, he earnestly begs God to shorten it by taking away his life.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
My request, i.e. the thing which I have so passionately desired, and, notwithstanding all your vain words and weak arguments, do still justly continue to desire, to wit, death, as is expressed Job 6:9, and more largely Job 3.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. To desire death is nonecessary proof of fitness for death. The ungodly sometimes desireit, so as to escape troubles, without thought of the hereafter. Thegodly desire it, in order to be with the Lord; but they patientlywait God’s will.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And that I might have my request,…. Or that it “might come” m; that it might go up to heaven, enter there, and come into the ears of the Lord, be attended to, admitted, and received by him, see
Ps 18:6; or come to Job, be returned into his bosom, be answered and fulfilled; the same with the desire that “cometh”, which is, when the thing desired is enjoyed, Pr 13:12; or that what he had requested would come, namely, death, which is sometimes represented as a person that looks in at the windows, and comes into the houses of men, and seizes on them, Jer 9:21; and this is what Job wishes for; this was his sole request; this was the thing, the one thing, that lay uppermost in his mind, and he was most importunately solicitous for:
and that God would grant [me] the thing that I long for! death, as the following words explain it; this is not desirable by nature, but contrary to it; it is itself a penal evil, the sanction and curse of the law; it is an enemy, and a very formidable one, the king of terrors; and, though a very formidable, one, is desired by good men from a principle of grace, and with right views, to be rid of sin, and to be with Christ; yet it often is done by persons in melancholy, sullen, and humorous fits, when they cannot have what they would, as in Rachel, Elijah, and Jonah, Ge 30:1; and because of sore troubles and afflictions, which was the present case of Job; though it must be said that it was not, as is frequently the case with wicked men, through the horrors of a guilty conscience, which he was free of; and he had faith, and hope of comfort in another world, and in some degree he submitted to the will and pleasure of God; though pressed with too much eagerness, importunity, and passion: and it may be observed, that Job did not make request to men, to his servants, or friends about him, to dispatch him, as Abimelech and Saul did; nor did he lay hands on himself, or attempt to do it, as Saul, Ahithophel, and Judas: the wretched philosophy of the stoics was not known in Job’s time, which not only makes suicide lawful, but commends it as an heroic action; no, Job makes his, request to the God of his life, who had given it to him, and had maintained it hitherto, and who only had a right to dispose of it; he asks it as a favour, he desires it as a gift, he had nothing else to ask, nothing was more or so desirable to him as death.
m “ut veniat”, V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Schmidt, Michaelis; “utinam veniret”, Schultens.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
8 Would that my request were fulfilled,
And that Eloah would grant my expectation,
9 That Eloah were willing and would crush me,
Let loose His hand and cut me off:
10 Then I should still have comfort –
(I should exult in unsparing pain) –
That I have not disowned the words of the Holy One.
His wish refers to the ending of his suffering by death. Hupfeld prefers to read instead of ( Job 6:8); but death, which he desires, he even indeed expects. This is just the paradox, that not life, but death, is his expectation. “Cut me off,” i.e., my soul or my life, my thread of life (Job 27:8; Isa 38:12). The optative (Ges. 136, 1) is followed by optative futt., partly of the so-called jussive form, as , velit ( Hiph. from , velle ), and , solvat ( Hiph. from ). In the phrase , the stretching out of the hand is regarded as the loosening of what was hitherto bound. The conclusion begins with , just like Job 13:5. But it is to be asked whether by consolation speedy death is to be understood, and the clause with gives the ground of his claim for the granting of the wish, – or whether he means that just this: not having disowned the words of the Holy One (comp. Job 23:11., and in the mouth of Balaam, the non-Israelitish prophet, Num 24:4, Num 24:16), would be his consolation in the midst of death. With Hupfeld we decide in favour of the latter, with Psa 119:50 in view: this consciousness of innocence is indeed throughout the whole book Job’s shield and defence. If, however, (with Kametz impurum) points towards , quod , etc., the clause is parenthetical. The cohortative is found thus parenthetical with a conjunctive sense also elsewhere (Psa 40:6; Psa 51:18). Accordingly: my comfort – I would exult, etc. – would be that I, etc. The meaning of , tripudiare , is confirmed by the lxx , in connection with the Arabic salada (of a galloping horse which stamps hard with its fore-feet), according to which the Targ. also translates (I will rejoice).
(Note: The primary meaning of , according to the Arabic, is to be hard, then, to tread hard, firm, as in pulsanda tellus; whereas the poetry of the synagogue (Pijut) uses in the signification to supplicate, and , litany (not: hymn, as Zunz gives it); and the Mishna-talmudic signifies to singe, burn one’s self, and to draw back affrighted.)
For , comp. Isa 30:14. (break in pieces unsparingly). certainly appears as though it must be referred to God (Ew., Hahn, Schlottm., and others), since sounds feminine; but one can either pronounce = as Milel (Hitz.), or take adverbially, and not as an elliptical dependent clause (as Ges. 147, rem. 1), but as virtually an adjective: in pain unsparing.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
8 Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant me the thing that I long for! 9 Even that it would please God to destroy me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off! 10 Then should I yet have comfort; yea, I would harden myself in sorrow: let him not spare; for I have not concealed the words of the Holy One. 11 What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life? 12 Is my strength the strength of stones? or is my flesh of brass? 13 Is not my help in me? and is wisdom driven quite from me?
Ungoverned passion often grows more violent when it meets with some rebuke and check. The troubled sea rages most when it dashes against a rock. Job had been courting death, as that which would be the happy period of his miseries, ch. iii. For this Eliphaz had gravely reproved him, but he, instead of unsaying what he had said, says it here again with more vehemence than before; and it is as ill said as almost any thing we meet with in all his discourses, and is recorded for our admonition, not our imitation.
I. He is still most passionately desirous to die, as if it were not possible that he should ever see good days again in this world, or that, by the exercise of grace and devotion, he might make even these days of affliction good days. He could see no end of his trouble but death, and had not patience to wait the time appointed for that. He has a request to make; there is a thing he longs for (v. 8); and what is that? One would think it should be, “That it would please God to deliver me, and restore me to my prosperity again;” no, That it would please God to destroy me, v. 9. “As once he let loose his hand to make me poor, and then to make me sick, let him loose it once more to put an end to my life. Let him give the fatal stroke; it shall be to me the coup de grace–the stroke of favour,” as, in France, they call the last blow which dispatches those that are broken on the wheel. There was a time when destruction from the Almighty was a terror to Job (ch. xxxi. 23), yet now he courts the destruction of the flesh, but in hopes that the spirit should be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Observe, Though Job was extremely desirous of death, and very angry at its delays, yet he did not offer to destroy himself, nor to take away his own life, only he begged that it would please God to destroy him. Seneca’s morals, which recommend self-murder as the lawful redress of insupportable grievances, were not then known, nor will ever be entertained by any that have the least regard to the law of God and nature. How uneasy soever the soul’s confinement in the body may be, it must by no means break prison, but wait for a fair discharge.
II. He puts this desire into a prayer, that God would grant him this request, that it would please God to do this for him. It was his sin so passionately to desire the hastening of his own death, and offering up that desire to God made it no better; nay, what looked ill in his wish looked worse in his prayer, for we ought not to ask any thing of God but what we can ask in faith, and we cannot ask any thing in faith but what is agreeable to the will of God. Passionate prayers are the worst of passionate expressions, for we should lift up pure hands without wrath.
III. He promises himself effectual relief, and the redress of all his grievances, by the stroke of death (v. 10): “Then should I yet have comfort, which now I have not, nor ever expect till then.” See, 1. The vanity of human life; so uncertain a good is it that it often proves men’s greatest burden and nothing is so desirable as to get clear of it. Let grace make us willing to part with it whenever God calls; for it may so happen that even sense may make us desirous to part with it before he calls. 2. The hope which the righteous have in their death. If Job had not had a good conscience, he could not have spoken with this assurance of comfort on the other side death, which turns the tables between the rich man and Lazarus. Now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
IV. He challenges death to do its worst. If he could not die without the dreadful prefaces of bitter pains and agonies, and strong convulsions, if he must be racked before he be executed, yet, in prospect of dying at last, he would make nothing of dying pangs: “I would harden myself in sorrow, would open my breast to receive death’s darts, and not shrink from them. Let him not spare; I desire no mitigation of that pain which will put a happy period to all my pains. Rather than not die, let me die so as to feel myself die.” These are passionate words, which might better have been spared. We should soften ourselves in sorrow, that we may receive the good impressions of it, and by the sadness of the countenance our hearts, being made tender, may be made better; but, if we harden ourselves, we provoke God to proceed in his controversy; for when he judgeth he will overcome. It is great presumption to dare the Almighty, and to say, Let him not spare; for are we stronger than he? 1 Cor. x. 22. We are much indebted to sparing mercy; it is bad indeed with us when we are weary of that. Let us rather say with David, O spare me a little.
V. He grounds his comfort upon the testimony of his conscience for him that he had been faithful and firm to his profession of religion, and in some degree useful and serviceable to the glory of God in his generation: I have not concealed the words of the Holy One. Observe, 1. Job had the words of the Holy One committed to him. The people of God were at that time blessed with divine revelation. 2. It was his comfort that he had not concealed them, had not received the grace of God therein in vain. (1.) He had not kept them from himself, but had given them full scope to operate upon him, and in every thing to guide and govern him. He had not stifled his convictions, imprisoned the truth in unrighteousness, nor done any thing to hinder the digestion of this spiritual food and the operation of this spiritual physic. Let us never conceal God’s word from ourselves, but always receive it in the light of it. (2.) He had not kept them to himself, but had been ready, on all occasions, to communicate his knowledge for the good of others, was never ashamed nor afraid to own the word of God to be his rule, nor remiss in his endeavours to bring others into an acquaintance with it. Note Those, and those only, may promise themselves comfort in death who are good, and do good, while they live.
VI. He justifies himself, in this extreme desire of death, from the deplorable condition he was now in, Job 6:11; Job 6:12. Eliphaz, in the close of his discourse, had put him in hopes that he should yet see a good issue of his troubles; but poor Job puts these cordials away from him, refuses to be comforted, abandons himself to despair, and very ingeniously, yet perversely, argues against the encouragements that were given him. Disconsolate spirits will reason strangely against themselves. In answer to the pleasing prospects Eliphaz had flattered him with, he here intimates, 1. That he had no reason to expect any such thing: “What is my strength, that I should hope? You see how I am weakened and brought low, how unable I am to grapple with my distempers, and therefore what reason have I to hope that I should out-live them, and see better days? Is my strength the strength of stones? Are my muscles brass and my sinews steel? No, they are not, and therefore I cannot hold out always in this pain and misery, but must needs sink under the load. Had I strength to grapple with my distemper, I might hope to look through it; but, alas! I have not. The weakening of my strength in the way will certainly be the shortening of my days,” Ps. cii. 23. Note, All things considered, we have no reason to reckon upon the long continuance of life in this world. What is our strength? It is depending strength. We have no more strength than God gives us; for in him we live and move. It is decaying strength; we are daily spending the stock, and by degrees it will be exhausted. It is disproportionable to the encounters we may meet with; what is our strength to be depended upon, when two or three days’ sickness will make us weak as water? Instead of expecting a long life, we have reason to wonder that we have lived hitherto and to feel that we are hastening off apace. 2. That he had no reason to desire any such thing: “What is my end, that I should desire to prolong my life? What comfort can I promise myself in life, comparable to the comfort I promise myself in death?” Note, Those who, through grace, are ready for another world, cannot see much to invite their stay in this world, or to make them fond of it. That, if it be God’s will, we may do him more service and may get to be fitter and riper for heaven, is an end for which we may wish the prolonging of life, in subservience to our chief end; but, otherwise, what can we propose to ourselves in desiring to tarry here? The longer life is the more grievous will its burdens be (Eccl. xii. 1), and the longer life is the less pleasant will be its delights, 2Sa 19:34; 2Sa 19:35. We have already seen the best of this world, but we are not sure that we have seen the worst of it.
VII. He obviates the suspicion of his being delirious (v. 13): Is not my help in me? that is, “Have I not the use of my reason, with which, I thank God, I can help myself, though you do not help me? Do you think wisdom is driven quite from me, and that I am gone distracted? No, I am not mad, most noble Eliphaz, but speak the words of truth and soberness.” Note, Those who have grace in them, who have the evidence of it and have it in exercise, have wisdom in them, which will be their help in the worst of times. Sat lucis intus–They have light within.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
2. In his wasted condition, death is desirable. (Job. 6:8-13)
TEXT 6:813
8 Oh that I might have my request;
And that God would grant me the thing that I long for!
9 Even that it would please God to crash me;
That he would let loose his hand, and cat me off!
10 And be, it still my consolation,
Yea, let me exult in pain that spareth not,
That I have not denied the words of the Holy One.
11 What is my strength, that I should wait?
And what Is mine end, that I should be patient?
12 Is my strength the strength of stones?
Or is my flesh of brass?
13 Is it not that I have no help in me,
And that wisdom is driven quite from me?
COMMENT 6:813
Job. 6:8Jobs entreaty is that he be allowed to dieJob. 3:11. No facile repentance can remove Jobs sickness unto death. All that he desires is the healing of a hurried deathchp. 3.
Job. 6:9Oh that God, would be willing to free this prisoner of pain (cf. Isa. 53:10). The Hebrew which is translated let loose his hand is a verb used of setting prisoners freePsa. 105:20; Psa. 146:7.[86]
[86] Job has no awareness of guiltcompare with Lady MacBeth. The haunting, enslaving power of guilt is absent from Jobs existential angst. Note also this powerful imagery in C. Frys The Sleep of Prisoners. An enslaved spirit is more tortuously imprisoned than a shackled body. See Solzhenitsyns One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich; The Gulag Archipelago; and compare with Pauls imprisonments and Bonhoeffers.
Job. 6:10Job has one consolation that is that he has not betrayed Gods trust; that is, even though called on to endure such severe punishment. No accusing conscience would impair his comfort in death (Driver). Job has been and still is an obedient servant to the Holy One of IsraelIsa. 40:25; Heb. 3:3.
Job. 6:11Job can endure no more. Wait? For what? Eliphazs promised blessings. What does the future hold for Job?
Job. 6:12Men of stone and bronze feel nothing. Job is flesh and blood whose power to resist pain is all but exhausted.
Job. 6:13This verse contains an emphatic interrogative particle as in Numbers 17:28, and the question form is to express strong avowal, which means that it is a fact that I do not have within me the power to help myself. Naturalistic humanism would not care for Jobs pessimism. All human power to alleviate Jobs suffering is already banished from him.[87] Job is not thinking of rescue from suffering but of the strength to bear the pain.
[87] For analysis of this question form, see M. Dahood, Biblica et Orientalia XVII, 1965,13; and E. F. Sutcliffe, Biblica, XXXI, 1950, 368ff.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(8) Oh that I might have my request.Baffled in the direction of his fellow-creatures, he turns, like many others, to God as his only hope, although it is rather from God than in God that his hope lies. However exceptional Jobs trials, yet his language is the common language of all sufferers who think that relief, if it comes, must come through change of circumstances rather than in themselves in relation to circumstances. Thus Job looks forward to death as his only hope; whereas with God and in God there were many years of life and prosperity in store for him. So strong is this feeling in him, that he calls death the thing that he longs for, his hope or expectation. (Comp. Job 17, where even the hope that he had in death seems to have passed away and to have issued in blank hopelessness.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Third strophe So heavy is his burden of sorrow, that death would be true consolation, Job 6:8-10.
8. Oh that We have here the optative formula, “Who will give”=Oh that! quite frequent in the addresses of Job, and occurring once besides in this book, in the first address of Zophar. Job 11:5. The pathos of this appeal is exceedingly touching, and is heightened by his assuming that all must know what that wish must be.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 6:8-9. Oh that I might have my request, &c. These two verses, as well as the 11th, with many more that might be quoted to the same purpose, are, as Mr. Peters observes, utterly inconsistent with Job’s believing that God would restore him to his former happy state.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
(8) Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant me the thing that I long for! (9) Even that it would please God to destroy me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off! (10) Then should I yet have comfort; yea, I would harden myself in sorrow: let him not spare; for I have not concealed the words of the Holy One.
Is it not probable (I only propose it as a question, and do not determine upon it,) that Satan had secretly tempted Job to self-murder? His wife had openly recommended it. Job 2:9 . But though Job presumed to wish the LORD would take away his life; yet grace restrained all desires, to take it away with his own hand. Oh! that every poor tempted soul, when under such peculiar exercises from Satan, may look up and behold his security, in the restraining grace of JESUS. 2Co 12:7-9 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job 6:8 Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant [me] the thing that I long for!
Ver. 8. Oh that I might have my request! ] How heartily begs Job for death, as a medicine of all his maladies and miseries; as that which would bring him malorum ademptionem, bonorum adeptionem, freedom from all evil, fruition of all good; by the force of his faith he looks upon death as the best physician, that would cure him of all infirmities inward and outward, and of all at once, and for ever. Job might likely be of the same mind that Chaucer was, who took for his English motto, Farewell, medicine; and for his Latin one, Mors aerumnarum requies, death will be a sweet rest from all my labours. The same to a believer death is that Mount Ararat was to Noah, where his ark rested after long tossing; or as Michal was to David, a means to shift him out of the way when Saul sent to slay him; or as the fall of the house was to Samson, an end of all his sorrows and sufferings. Hence it is that he rejoiceth under hope, and with stretched out neck looks and longs for death’s coming, as dearly as ever Sisera’s mother did out of a window for the coming of her son laden with spoils from the battle. As when death is come indeed, he welcometh it, as Jael did the same Sisera (but much more heartily), with, “Turn in, my lord, turn in to me,” Jdg 4:18 ; and further bespeaketh it, as Jacob did his brother Esau, at their interview, Surely I have seen thy face as the face of God, who hath made thee to meet me with kisses instead of frowns, and hath sent thee to guard me safe home to my father’s house.
And that God would grant me the thing that I long for
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
the thing that I long for = my expectation. Figure of speech Metonymy (of Adjunct), App-6, put for the thing desired.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Job 6:8-13
Job 6:8-13
JOB REAFFIRMS HIS DESIRE TO DIE
“Oh that I might have my request:
And that God would grant me the thing that
I long for!
Even that it would please God to crush me;
That he would let loose his hand and cut me off!
And be it still my consolation,
Yea, let me exult in pain that spareth not,
That I have not denied the words of the Holy One.
What is my strength, that I should wait?
And what is mine end, that I should be patient?
Is my strength the strength of stones?
Or is my flesh of brass?
Is it not that I have no help in me,
And that wisdom is driven quite from me.”
“Be it still my consolation … I have not denied the words of the Holy One” (Job 6:10). The fearlessness of Job in his contemplation of death is very significant. “He had nothing to fear in death; his conscience was clear; and the commandments of God he had never denied.”
“What is my strength that I should wait” (Job 6:11). “What Job is saying in this and the next verse is that, “I am a human. I am a weak, frail, faltering human”; I am not made of brass or stone; this is more than I can bear. Therefore, I pray for God to take me home. “Job’s resources were all spent; he had no endurance left.”
E.M. Zerr:
Job 6:8-9. The substance of this verse is a wish of Job that he might be allowed to die. He would prefer death to life under such fearful conditions as were then overwhelming him. But it would be a sin for a man to destroy himself, therefore Job’s wish was that God would destroy him by some kind of miraculous means.
Job 6:10. Job believed that man was conscious and could be happy after death. See the comments on Job 3:13-17 for this phase of the subject. But the present verse does not reach that far with the subject. Job means that whatever method God would see fit to use in bringing about his physical destruction, it would be pleasant compared with what he was then suffering. The reason for such a conclusion was the provocation that Eliphaz was adding to the situation by his false reasoning. I have not concealed, etc., means he had never evaded any of the words of God, therefore there were no hidden truths that would make Job dread anything from God.
Job 6:11-12. In these verses Job says practically the same things he has already said. He does not think he has much to live for, therefore it would be just as well for God to take him out of this world.
Job 6:13. This verse is in the form of a question, but it really means to express an assertion. It is about the same as if Job would say: “Help and wisdom have forsaken me, and there is none of it with me.”
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
the thing that I long for: Heb. my expectation, Job 6:11-13, Job 17:14-16, Psa 119:81
Reciprocal: Num 11:15 – kill me Job 10:1 – My soul Jon 4:3 – take
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 6:8-9. O that I might have my request! The thing which I so passionately desired, and which, notwithstanding all your vain words, and weak arguments, I still continue to desire, and beseech God to grant me. The thing that I long for! Hebrew, , tickvati, my hope or expectation. That it would please God to destroy me To end my days and calamities together: that he would let loose his hand Which is now, as it were, bound up or restrained from giving me that deadly blow which I desire. O that he would not restrain it any longer, and suffer me to languish in this miserable condition, but give me one stroke more and quite cut me off. Mr. Peters has justly observed, that these two verses, as well as Job 6:11, with many more that might be quoted to the same purpose, are utterly inconsistent with Jobs believing that God would restore him to his former happy state; as Bishop Warburton contended, that he might lay a foundation for an interpretation of the noted passage in Job 19:25-27, different from that commonly received, and might explain it, not of Jobs hope of immortality, but of his expectation of a restoration to temporal prosperity.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
6:8 Oh that I might have my {f} request; and that God would grant [me] the thing that I long for!
(f) In this he sins double, both in wishing through impatience to die, and also in desiring of God a thing which was not agreeable to his will.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Job’s desperate condition 6:8-13
Job longed for death. He wished God would release him from his enslavement to life (cf. Psa 105:20) and snip off his life as a weaver cuts thread (Job 6:9).
"Life is like a weaving, and only God can see the total pattern and when the work is finished." [Note: Wiersbe, p. 20.]
Job affirmed his faithfulness to God’s words (Job 6:10) but acknowledged that he had no hope and no help to live. Job 6:13 should read as an affirmation rather than as a question: "Indeed my help . . . and deliverance is driven from me."
"The fact that Job speaks about God in the third person should not be permitted to give the wrong impression. He is actually praying, not talking to Eliphaz. Such a convention is common in the respectful address to a superior." [Note: Andersen, p. 129.]