Q.—What means Job 22:3030He shall deliver the island of the innocent: and it is delivered by the pureness of thine hands. (Job 22:30)? Or is it that the A. V. fails, as well as others? The connection too in ver. 29, is obscure as we read them. X.
A.—The translation correctly given serves to make all plain, as any one may find in a version which appeared long ago in the B. T. and reproduced by Morrish, the Publisher.
" When they are dejected, then shalt thou say, Lift up,
And He will save him of downcast eyes;
He will deliver him that is not guiltless,
And he is rescued by the cleanness of thy hands."
This was unexpectedly illustrated before the book closed in the rescue, not of Eliphaz only but of the other two self-righteous friends, when Jehovah's anger was kindled against them and their unjust opinions, and Job prayed for them. " Island" or " house " (J. M. Good) ruins the sense of the sentence; for the word here is simply a negative particle, as taken in the Chaldee paraphrase, and approved by the ablest of late. I. Leeser's Version is even closer: " He will even deliver " &c., i.e. not the humble only, but the faulty.