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From Linguistics to Hermeneutics: A Functional and Cognitive Approach to Job 12-14 by Pierre Van Hecke (Studia Semitica Neerlandica: Brill Academic) Linguistics and hermeneutics are often regarded as two mutually exclusive scholarly disciplines. Recent decades, however, have witnessed the rise of linguistic approaches that take meaning back to the heart of their inquiry and can be fruitful for textual interpretation. This book applies the insights of two such approaches, i.e. functional grammar and cognitive semantics, to the study of Biblical Hebrew with a specific focus on Job 12-14. The result is two-fold. The study offers a, detailed linguistic analysis, providing many new insights in the linguistic peculiarities of the text and Biblical Hebrew in general. Moreover, it proposes a fresh exegetical reading of Job's longest and central speech in the book.

Pierre Van Hecke, Ph.D. (2000) in Oriental Studies, K.U. Leuven, Belgium and Ph.D. (2006) in Theology, Tilburg University,. The Netherlands, is Professor of Languages and Cultures of Syria-Palestine, and of Hebrew Bible at K.U. Leuven. He has published on biblical metaphor, on Hebrew linguistics and on the book of Job.

These are interesting times for linguists. In both the field of syntax and semantics, the last few decades have witnessed the rise of new paradigms in which meaning plays a central role, and in which the relation with human communication and cognition is explicitly addressed. Because of this explicit linguistic interest in questions of meaning, these are interesting times for exegetes, too. The new insights into the meaning and functioning of linguistic phenomena open up perspectives for a renewed and deepened understanding of the meaning of texts.

The purpose of this study is to apply the insights of two recent—and complementary, as we will see—methods of linguistic description, viz. functional grammar and cognitive semantics, to the study of Biblical Hebrew, with a specific focus on three chapters in the book of Job, viz. Job 12-14. As a result, the present work has a double objective: on the one hand, it aims to advance and refine the application of two recent linguistic methods to the study of Biblical Hebrew, while, on the other hand, it seeks to provide a deepened understanding of the meaning of Job 12-14, with the help of the above-mentioned methods.

Job 12-14 is not exactly the part of the book of Job that enjoys most attention, neither from Bible readers nor from professional exegetes. For one thing, it lies buried in the middle of the dialogues between Job and his friends, which most readers tend to pass over, after the dramatic start of the book. In the discussion between Job and the friends, not much seems to happen; indeed, it is not before God enters the scene at the end of the book that any major development in the plot occurs. Exegetes describe the dialogues as showing hardly any thematic progression, and actually as hardly dialogues at all, since the different interlocutors seem to talk at cross-purposes.

However, the dialogues deserve better. After all, they constitute by far the largest part of the book; arguably, then, a good understanding of the book is impossible without being thoroughly acquainted with the dialogues. Within the conversation between Job and the friends, Job 12-14 stands out by virtue of its length and its position: not only is it Job's longest discourse (after Job's final monologue in 29-31), it is also Job's first answer after having heard each one of his three friends.2 Moreover, this prominence in position and length seems to reflect the thematic importance of the chapters in the book. Nowhere else in the dialogues does Job oppose his own attitude and conduct so explicitly to that of the friends. In addition, as Clines remarks, Job's speeches reach a climax in 12-14, since it is in those chapters that he formally summons God to court, after having toyed with the idea in his preceding speeches.' Both in his relationship with God and in that with the friends, the chapters thus seem to play an important role. The two relationships can be regarded as central to the book's thematic development: on the one hand, as von Rad has stated, God's credibility as a relational partner is what is really at stake for Job in the book. On the other hand, the problem of the credibility of God is elaborated in the growingly inimical confrontation between Job and his friends. The reader willing to engage in reflection about the relationship between God and Job is thus inevitably compelled to take a position in this confrontation between Job and his friends. Moreover, at the end of the book (42:7), God also makes a judgment on Job and his friends. Chapters 12-14, explicitly opposing Job and his friends, and formally marking a decisive step in the relationship between Job and God, hence arguably play an important role in the book of Job as a whole. Therefore, these chapters qualify well as a limited, yet relevant piece of text, on which to apply the linguistic analysis proposed in the present work.

The double objective of this study, viz. the application and refinement of linguistic methodology, and the interpretation of some key chapters in a biblical book, has both advantages and drawbacks. Besides the theoretical problems of merging linguistics and exegesis, which will be dealt with extensively in the following chapter, the present approach suffers the practical disadvantage of leaving insufficient room to treat the different linguistic difficulties encountered in the text thoroughly. In linguistic studies, it is a common (and sound) practice to isolate a particular problem and to analyze it exhaustively in a sufficiently large text corpus. The present study takes a different approach in starting from a clearly delimited textual corpus, and studying how the consequent application of a (recent) linguistic methodology lays bare its meaning. The number of linguistic problems might thus be larger than in a typical linguistic study, leaving less room to give them sufficient in-depth treatment. For that reason, our study will contain quite a number of suggestions for further analysis.

This weakness is, at the same time, the present study's strength, in my opinion. In the first place, it shows how the application of linguistic insights, which are often based on individual cases without context, can be made fruitful for the interpretation of a longer portion of running text. At the same time, the systematic description of a running text can lay bare the lacunae of a linguistic method, in that the description is obliged to address all the problems which the text poses, including those that have not been treated before, and those which seem to run counter to the explanatory framework. In this way, a text-based analysis such as the present one is important for the advancement of linguistic theory.

In the second part of Job's speech addressed to the friends, the Topic is no longer knowledge: in 13:7-12, Job deals extensively with the friends' speech and God's presumed future reaction to it. This new Topic does not appear unannounced in Job's discourse, nor is it completely unrelated to the Topic of knowledge that was discourse active in the first part of the discourse: in the preceding verses, esp. in 13:3-4, Job's speaking is explicitly contrasted to that of the friends. Moreover, the clauses 3a and b with their formally marked Contrastive Foci make clear that, while Job and the friends are equals as far as knowledge is concerned, they differ fundamentally as far as their way of speaking is concerned. After the verses 13:1-2, in which it is repeated and concluded, after the extensive arguments for it in chapter 12, that Job knows what his friends know, and that he is not inferior to them, the double adversative conjunction 1:611•2 in 3-4 marks the point on which the friends and Job are different. The presence of Contrastive Foci in verse 3 makes clear that, for Job, this is a point on which he explicitly wishes to alter the friends' conceptions. What makes Job different from his friends is not what he or they know, but the fact that he will speak and argue with God (v.3), while the friends' words are no more than thick layers of plaster covering the truth and the drivel of quacks. What is introduced in the verses 3-4 as Contrastive Foci, becomes the main Topic of the discourse in the following verses.

Since the friends' words are worthless, they are requested to keep silent and to listen to Job's words in 5-6. Ironically enough, in 5b, this silence is the only way in which the friends can still show their intelligence and wisdom, Job concludes. In this way, the topic of knowledge is brought to a final conclusion: not only is Job not inferior to his friends as far as knowledge is concerned, the only thing that could be accounted for as intelligence in the friends is if they would keep silent. In the verses 7-12, Job expounds on why he considers the friends' way of speaking worthless: they speak on God's behalf, they deem it necessary to plead his cause, and they show partiality to him. At the same time, Job presumes that God would not be pleased with these interventions by the friends. In contrast, Job repeats his resolution to talk with God in the following verses 13-17, even if this would mean putting his own existence at risk. The concentration of formally marked Contrast Foci in 15c-16b indicates again the importance that this point has for Job in his speech to the friends: if anything, he wishes to communicate that he will speak to God, since that alone can be his salvation.

As of 13:18, Job addresses God directly, as he had also done in his two earlier replies to the friends (see 7:12-21; 10:2-22). This second part of the speech (13:18-14:22), as I have defined it earlier, features a smaller variety of Topics than the first: the main Topics in this part are limited to the first person singular (me), the second person singular (you=God) and the Topic "man". What Job is dealing with in addressing God is his own fate and his relationship with God, and, by extension, also the fate of humankind in general in relation to God. The other Topics that are discourse active for some length in this part of speech are subsidiary to this overarching Topic, either as source domain for a metaphorical comparison of human fate (14:7-9 [tree]; 14:19 [rock, stones]), or as a description of a counterfactual situation intended to stress the inescapability of human fate (14:11 [sea drying up]). Apart from the beginning, Job's address to God presents little topical development: this part of the speech is an extended complaining depiction of human fate, interspersed with the description of God's inept dealings with humankind. With regard to the latter point, it is remarkable that two of the three cases of Contrast Focus clustering (i.e. Contrast Foci in two adjoining clauses) make precisely this point: even though man is nothing else than a windblown leaf, dry straw (13:25), or a withering flower (14:2f.), he is precisely the one that God is after. Showing the incongruity of God's involvement with humankind seems to be one of Job's main intentions in his address to God, then.

As mentioned in the preceding paragraph, the opening of Job's address to God displays more topical diversity. After the formal opening of his lawsuit against God in 18a, Job continues with two clauses in which the Topic can be regarded as SubTopics of the concept of lawsuit, viz. "being in the right" and "making a case": Job argues that it is he who will be in the right and rhetorically asks who will be able to make a case against him. These two clauses make clear the extent to which Job already dwells in the mental reality of the lawsuit yet to take place. In v.20, Job moves on, introducing a NewTop—that is to be developed further in v.21—and at the same time providing it with Contrastive Focus. Job has said it before: happen what may, he will talk his case out with God (13:13-17). In the present clause, Job implicitly repeats that resolution: God may do whatever pleases him, except for two conditions that should make Job's open communica
tion with God possible. After the stipulation of those conditions, and
the exposition of the formal rules with which the legal dispute is to take place (v.23), Job introduces the Topic of sin, which had not been mentioned before in the present speech, but had been addressed in the friends' former speeches. The relation of this Topic to the previous one of the litigation is clear enough: even though Job maintains he has no sins, he brings up the Topic here, since he cannot explain God's deeds in any other way than as the punishment for some alleged sin." In v.24 this becomes even more apparent: in two interrogative clauses, Job asks why God hides his face and considers him as his enemy. The fact, however, that God would do those things, is presented here as topical information, and, hence, as a matter of fact on which both Job and God should agree.

As mentioned above, in the remainder of his speech, Job repeats this type of accusation towards God, interspersed with descriptions of man's deplorable fate, without much further topical development.

The functional analysis executed in the preceding part disclosed the rough structure of Job's third reply to the friends (12-14). On the basis of the distribution of Topic and Focus throughout the text, an overall structure of the text emerged, and insight was gained into the major Topic chains running through each of the text's parts.

With this functional analysis, the general road map guiding the reader through the text is clarified. Continuing Givón's traffic metaphors, it is not only the general, say inter-city, directions that should be studied in order to understand where the text wants to lead us, a more detailed road map of the most important locations and junctions along the route should also be drawn. In the present study, these detailed maps will take the form of a closer semantic analysis of the terms that constitute the text's main Topics. On the basis of the functional study of the preceding part, the two most important Topics in Job's present reply were found to be the Topic of knowledge and the Topic of speaking. In the second chapter of the present part, I will, therefore, provide a semantic study of the essential lexical terms dealing with knowledge (chapter 6), while the terms connected to the domain of speaking will be treated in the third chapter of this part (chapter 7).

In the first chapter of this part (chapter 5), however, I will first briefly discuss the methodological approach I will be following in this semantic description.

As far as the interpretation of Job's speech in Job 12-14 is concerned, the present study has offered a number of important new insights. First of all, it has laid bare the discursive structure of the speech by a systematic description of each clause's pragmatic structure, and by charting the guiding discourse topics and the most contrastive focal information in the speech. On the basis of these insights, the close analysis of the different words and expressions has provided a deeper understanding of the position of Job's third speech in the discursive development of the book as a whole and it has reaffirmed that the dialogues are not devoid of thematic development.

The functionalist analyses of the first part of this study have led us to the conclusion that Job's reply in 12-14 should be understood as a diptych, with a hinge at 13:18. This division is not only called for by the change in addressees (from the friends to God) and by the conspicuous perfectum performativum in 13:18, but also by the change in discourse Topics in the text. As the analyses have shown, the first part of this speech has a richer variety in Topics than the second. In the first part, addressed to the friends, the main discourse Topics are the relations between Job and his friends, Job and God, and (less importantly) the friends and God, along with the important Topics of knowledge and speech. The second part, in which God is the addressee, is mainly concerned with Job's fate—and, by extension, the fate of all humans—and God's relation to man. From an argumentative perspective, viz. in the ongoing discussion between Job and his friends, and in the developing relationship between God and Job, the Topics of knowledge and speech are of primary importance. Nowhere else in the book does Job oppose his own attitude and behavior so strongly to that of the friends than in these chapters, while this speech also contains Job's formal call to court issued to God. The Topics of knowledge and speech are central in the way Job understands the difference between himself and his friends, and in his relation to God: it is not knowledge that sets the friends and Job apart, but the way in which they speak about God, and, more importantly, to God.

On the basis of these research results, the different terms related to the Topics of knowledge and speech were subjected to a closer seman tic analysis. Following the tenets of cognitive semantics, the semantic structure of each of those terms was studied, together with the conceptual domains to which the terms are used. Subsequently, attention was paid to the use of the terms in the book of Job in general and in Job 12-14 in particular. In chapter 6, the rather frequent terms and expressions related to knowledge were analyzed, with particular attention for the terms. The study of those terms demonstrated that, unlike what is repeatedly claimed in contemporary exegesis, Job and his friends do not differ much in their way of thinking; it is not the case that the friends are the defenders of traditional wisdom, while Job would be the advocate of independent, empirical knowledge. Rather than confronting two modes of thinking, Job argues in favor of the quality of his own reasoning: his thinking is not inferior to that of the friends. If the friends and Job differ with regard to their thinking, it is not so much because of a difference in the way they think, but, rather, in the experiences and observations on which they base their reasoning. Moreover, the examination of the terms in the book in general have made it clear that the dialogues between Job and his friends do not primarily deal with the quest for correct understanding, even though later in the book, in particular in Job 28 and in the divine speeches, this Topic is turned into an important interpretative category for the book as a whole: as Newsom has argued, Job 28 reinterprets the preceding dialogues as dealing with the quest for transcending while, in the divine speeches, God very emphatically and repeatedly questions Job's knowledge, causing Job to acknowledge that he spoke without knowledge. In the dialogues itself, however, the quest for correct insight was not the central issue, and definitely not the main point of difference between Job and his friends.

Rather, the investigation of the terms for verbal communication, presented in chapter 7, has shown that Job and his friends differ most fundamentally in the way in which they speak, and, more particularly, in the way in which they involve God in their respective speeches. The research in this chapter concentrated on the terms since both are used by Job in 13:3, the verse in which he most explicitly opposes his own way of speaking (to God) to that of the friends, who only speak lies on God's behalf. While the former term no' hi. is used quite often in a legal context, its meaning was shown not to be limited to this domain. When Job uses the term in 12-14, he does not primarily express his wish for a court case, but rather for a direct conversation with God. The fact that Job conceives of this conversation

as a litigation later in the chapter (as he had already done in 9-10) has everything to do with this desire for a discussion between equal partners: only a juridical case could guarantee that God would not immediately overpower him. The analysis of the frequent word has revealed the extent to which Job desires to have a direct conversation with God. The use of the verb followed by the preposition in 13:3, while taking up a topic which Job had been addressing in some of his previous speeches, also constitutes a decisive step in that development: speaking to God is a quite extraordinary thing to ask for, given the very limited number of people who are ever said to do so in the Hebrew Bible. More than the use of the terms alone, the dynamics of the dialogues and of the book as a whole also witness to Job's earnest desire to speak to God, as I have argued in the final paragraph of chapter 7. In his answers to God's speeches at the end of the book, Job gradually gives up his desire to speak, not because he is satisfied by what God had said, but, rather, because God's speech made him see with different eyes. Moreover, Job starts to understand, so it seems, that it is not his own speaking but God's that really matters. The use in 42:7f.—God's final words—of the same expression that is also employed in 13:3, viz. puts Job's desire for conversation in a final perspective. In contrast to the majority interpretation of the verse as commending Job's words about God, it is my conviction that God praises the fact that Job at least addressed him directly, even though his arguments were mistaken. This is what ultimately sets Job apart from his friends, as Job himself had already stated in 13:3, and as God eventually confirms.

In conclusion, I hope to have shown how a thorough linguistic analysis of a biblical text, focusing on the—pragmatic and semantic—aspects that are constitutive for its meaning, can and should play a central role in the hermeneutical process of its interpretation. That process has not come to a conclusion with this linguistic analysis, however. As I argued in the opening chapter, the goal of every hermeneutical endeavor is to conceptually reorganize one's being-in-the-world by analogically mapping onto it the meaning of the text. It will be clear that the present book did not aim to propose such a reconceptualization, which, moreover, could only be strongly contextually bound. It does provide, however, what Ricoeur has called the "linguistic explanation", necessary to validate and substantiate ensuing interpretation of this thought-provoking text.

 

 

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