properly · verb, hiphil imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
fathers
מֵאֲבוֹתָֽםme.'a.vo.Tam
H1
father · preposition + noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
hid
כִֽ֝חֲד֗וּkhi.cha.Du
H3582
to secrete · verb, piel perfect, 3rd person common plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Job 8:8 For enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers:
Job 15:10 With us are both the grayheaded and very aged men, much elder than thy father.
Psalms 71:18 Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every…
Psalms 78:3-6 Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
Isaiah 38:19 The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 15:17–end
Eliphaz, having reproved Job for his answers, here comes to maintain his own thesis, upon which he built his censure of Job. His opinion is that those who are wicked are certainly miserable, whence he would infer that those who are miserable are certainly wicked, and that therefore Job was so. Observe,
I. His solemn preface to this discourse, in which he bespeaks Job's attention, which he had little reason to expect, he having given so little heed to and put so little value upon what Job had said (Job 15:17): "I will show thee that which is worth hearing, and not reason, as thou dost, with unprofitable talk." Thus apt are men, when they condemn the reasonings of others, to commend their own.…
Rather, "and which as handed down from their fathers, they have not concealed."
John Gill on Job 15:18
Which wise men have told from their fathers,.... Men wise in the best sense, not to do evil, but to do good; not worldly wise men, but such who have wisdom, sound wisdom in the inward parts; who are wise to salvation, and who are partakers of divine and spiritual wisdom; and such men, as they would never tell an untruth, so they would never report a false or a foolish thing they had heard, nor any thing but upon a good testimony, what they have received from their fathers, who were also wise and good men; and therefore such a testimony, though not ocular, but by tradition, deserves regard:
and have not hid it; their fathers did not hide it from them, and what they have received from their f…
17 I will inform thee, hear me!
And what I have myself seen that I will declare,
18 Things which wise men declare
Without concealment from their fathers -
19 To them alone was the land given over,
And no stranger had passed in their midst - :
Eliphaz, as in his first speech, introduces the dogma with which he confronts Job with a solemn preface: in the former case it had its rise in a revelation, here it is supported by his own experience and reliable tradition; for חזיתי is not intended as meaning ecstatic vision (Schlottm.). The poet uses חזה also of sensuous vision, Job 8:17; and of observation and knowledge by means of the senses, not only the more exalted, as Job 19:26., but of any kin…
The Church Fathers
"What wise men said, and what they taught their fathers. Because the Apostles announced the truth to the Jews themselves.
Ver. 18. Wise men confess, and do not hide their fathers. And at once they leap out in praise of them, and boast that they had been as it were the only rulers of the Church. Hence it is yet further added, Unto whom alone the earth was given, and the stranger passed not among them. They think that 'the earth was given to their fathers alone,' in that the masters of their erroneous teaching alone really had rule in the Church. And who is termed 'the stranger,' but the Apostate Angel? Whence too it is said by the Psalmist concerning all the wicked spirits together; For strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul. And so Heretics, because they think that the hearts of their doctors were not subject to the Apostate Angel, say that 'the stranger passed not among them.' For which same stranger to pass through each individual, is his putting wicked thoughts into his heart. And hence it is said by the voice of the Prophet of the evil spirits arrayed against the soul standing erect, Which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over. But whereas Eliphaz the Temanite, when going to tell some things, wishes to be heard, though he knows many things which were proper to be said, and yet does not know that they were not proper to be said to blessed Job, let us hear the sentences which he uttered against blessed Job. For neither ought we to consider the person to whom, but only what it was that he said.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
before any foreigners arrived: Eliphaz’s contempt for foreign ideas is ironic because wisdom literature has a more international flavor than is characteristic of other Old Testament writings.
Rashi on Job 15:18
That the wise men tell and confess their transgression. and do not hide their iniquity from their fathers. This is what I saw, and behold, I will tell you. Now where did I see it? Judah confessed and was not ashamed in the incident of Tamar. Reuben confessed and was not ashamed in the incident of Bilhah. And what was their reward?
