Genesis 11:6

Hebrew Bible

4 Then they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves. Otherwise we will be scattered across the face of the entire earth.” 5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people had started building. 6 And the Lord said, “If as one people all sharing a common language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be beyond them. 7 Come, let’s go down and confuse their language so they won’t be able to understand each other.” 8 So the Lord scattered them from there across the face of the entire earth, and they stopped building the city.

Job 42:2

Hebrew Bible

1 Then Job answered the Lord: 2 “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted; 3 you asked, ‘Who is this who darkens counsel without knowledge?’ But I have declared without understanding things too wonderful for me to know. 4 You said, ‘Pay attention, and I will speak; I will question you, and you will answer me.’

 Notes and References

"... The book of Job is vague concerning its precise setting, but as Hurvitz has shown, the book contains archaized language to make it appear contemporary to the patriarchs. The LXX and other traditions connected Job to Jobab, king of Edom (Genesis 36:33–34), in the era prior to the Israelite monarchy (Job 42:17 LXX). While the etymology of Job is unlikely to be from Jobab, as Job introduces a new consonant, aleph, the juxtaposition of other similar names to the Edomite kings with Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar indicates that the author(s) of the book of Job intended to connect Job and Jobab. Greenstein, among others, has shown how the Joban author(s) created the names of the characters from the list of Edomite kings in Genesis 36. The name of Eliphaz is from Esau’s son (Genesis 36:10), Bildad is an alteration of Bedad, the father of Hadad (Genesis 36:35), and Zophar is an alteration of Zepho, a son of Eliphaz (Genesis 36:11). This play on the texts of Genesis demonstrates an awareness of a developed Genesis; thus indicating the book of Job postdates most of Genesis. Other notable literary connections to Genesis exist. Michael Fishbane argued that Job 42:2 contains an indirect quotation from Genesis 11:6, and certain grammatical features make it nearly impossible to read it as Genesis quoting Job. Job lives an extraordinarily long life (Job 42:16), paralleled only by the Genesis patriarchs. The author(s) of the book of Job gave it a patriarchal setting; thus connections with Genesis exist. There is not space to cover the scholarly debate concerning the dating of Genesis, but Genesis 36, the section of the book with the most connections to Job, is aware of the Israelite monarchy (Genesis 36:31) ..."

Swinney, James Kipp Intertextual Discourse and the Problem of God: The Intersection of the Speeches of Job and Deuteronomy (pp. 8-9) Abiline Christian University, 2016

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