When More Leads to Less: Overstatement, Incrementum, and the Question in Job 4:17a

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.) In Job 4-5 Eliphaz tries to convince Job that he has done something wrong and that his suffering is divine punishment for that wrongdoing. In the course of doing that, he asks the following question in Job 4:17a:1 ... Can a human being be righteous ... God? There are three main interpretations of the preposition Nm in this question. First, the preposition is thought to mean "more than." Thus, "Can a human being be more righteous than God?" (hereafter the greater-than rhetorical question).2 Second, the preposition is thought to mean "before, in the presence of." Thus, "Can a human being be righteous before/in the presence of God?"3 Third, the preposition is thought to mean "in relation to/in comparison with." Thus, "Can a human being be righteous in relation to/in comparison with God?"4 Although it is sometimes acknowledged that the greater-than meaning is the more usual or ordinary sense of the construction,5 most scholars reject the first interpretation in favor of the second or third. They do this for the following reason. Since God is the standard of righteousness, it is obviously impossible for a human being to be more righteous than God, and Job never suggested, claimed, or considered that it was possible or true, for himself or for any other human being. Since Job does not then actually believe that a human being can exceed the righteousness of God, there is no need for Eliphaz to address this matter through his question. Consequently, the preposition Nm must mean something other than "more than," and the question must be something other than a greater-than rhetorical question.6 In arguing against the greater-than interpretation of the question in Job 4:17a, scholars have assumed that the only way to understand the greater-than rhetorical question is as a statement/refutation of an actually held belief. And since there is no such belief, there can be no such question. It is possible, however, to understand the greater-than rhetorical question not as a statement/refutation of an actual belief but as a rhetorical ploy that makes use of hyperbole or overstatement. That is, Eliphaz and Job both know that a human being cannot be more righteous than God, and Eliphaz knows that Job knows this. However, Eliphaz asks Job whether this obviously impossible thing is possible because asking the question achieves a certain rhetorical purpose. Assuming, then, for the moment that the question is a rhetorical ploy that uses hyperbole or overstatement, what would the ploy be?7 In order to answer this question, note first the context in which the question appears. Eliphaz's goal is to persuade Job that, despite his essential righteousness (4:6), he is flawed and has done something wrong. To do this, Eliphaz creates a contrast between God and human beings (4:18-19). God is held up as the standard of righteousness, and human beings are described as falling short of that measure (the arrow indicates both textual order and a descending scale of righteousness): Between God and human beings Eliphaz interposed angels, indicating that they reach a level of righteousness that is less than that of God, and that human beings reach a level of righteousness that is less than that of angels. Thus, Eliphaz formed the following graded series of items, or incrementum (i.e., a series of items that moves from the lesser to the greater or vice versa), in Job 4:18-19: One rhetorical effect of a graded series of items is to push the end items in such a series into opposition with each other or to bring the gap between them into greater relief by illustrating and enumerating the expanse that separates them with the intervening items in the series.8 Thus, in order to draw Job's attention to the fact that, as a human being, he does not match the righteousness of God, Eliphaz formed a graded series of items to create a sense of the moral distance that exists between God and a human being. …