Job 31 · a question people ask

"If like Adam I have covered my transgressions" (31:33). Is Job speaking of Adam in Eden?

In the text

The WEB prints the name: "if like Adam I have covered my transgressions, by hiding my iniquity in my heart" (31:33). The Hebrew is ke'adam, like adam (tap Adam). Adam is the name of the first man, and the same word is also the ordinary Hebrew word for man, as in "Man, who is born of a woman" (14:1). One verse of Genesis has it both ways: "This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man" (Genesis 5:1). Strong's gives the name as "the same as 120", the word for man, and Brown-Driver-Briggs has one entry for both, with "man, mankind" and "Adam, first man" among its senses. So the one Hebrew word can be read as the name, or as like man, that is, like people in general. The same Hebrew, ke'adam, is in Hosea, where the WEB also reads the name: "But they, like Adam, have broken the covenant" (Hosea 6:7). Genesis tells that the man hid: "I was afraid, because I was naked; so I hid myself" (Genesis 3:10); 31:33's covered and hiding are other Hebrew verbs. Job doesn't name Eden or say more, and these notes don't decide which way to read the word.

The verses

“if like Adam I have covered my transgressions, by hiding my iniquity in my heart,”
Job 31:33 · World English Bible
““Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.”
Job 14:1 · World English Bible
“This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, he made him in God’s likeness.”
Genesis 5:1 · World English Bible
“But they, like Adam, have broken the covenant. They were unfaithful to me there.”
Hosea 6:7 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Job 31

Job 31: Here is my signature

Job asks to be weighed in "an even balance" (31:6), in Hebrew the law's own "just balances" (Leviticus 19:36). He signs his case, "Behold, here is my signature!" (31:35), adds one more if, about his land (31:38-40), and then the book, not Job, says, "The words of Job are ended" (31:40).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions