Job's Displaced Kidneys: Job 19:27

אשר אני אחזה לי ועיני ראו ולא זר כלו כליתי בחיקי

One of the most famous passages in the Book of Job is 19:25-27, beginning, in the old Jewish Publication Society translation: ‘But as for me, I know that my Redeemer liveth.’ 1

There are many problems with this passage, but a minor one

can be solved simply.

Job expresses his longing to behold God with the words kalu kilyotai becheqi, in the old JPS translation: ‘My reins are consumed within me.’ and in the new JPS translation: ‘My heart pines within me.’ 2

Kilyotai means “my kidneys”;

becheki means “in my breast.” The problem, of course, is that the kidneys are not found in the breast. The old JPS translation accepts “kidneys,” (or “reins,” since the kidneys and ureters were likened to reins), while finessing “breast” as “within me”; the NJPS translation accepts that becheki refers to the chest cavity, and for consistency substitutes the organ found there for the organs that are not. Conceivably “kidneys” was understood solely as a metaphor for the emotions. By putting them in the breast, where the heart lies, the poet is mixing his metaphor but his audience would not find it incongruous. Nevertheless, biblical authors appear to use “kidneys” as a metaphor for intention (the image of “reins”), rather than the sense of psychic energy that this passage would require. Kilyotai כליתי[ ] here is written defectively, without a “vav,” although the “vav” is found in the other appearance of this word in Job, where it clearly means the physical kidneys.4

I suggest repointing k[i]ly[o]tai as kaliti כליתי[ ]

and repointing kalu [ ]כלו as kalo, the infinitive absolute of the same root. This would yield something like, “I am totally exhausted in my breast,” giving the correct sense without doing violence to anatomy.

NOTES

1. The Holy Scripture According to the Masoretic Text: A New Translation (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1917) p. 941-942

2. Job 19:27. JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh: The Traditional Hebrew Text and the New JPS Translation (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1999) [hereafter “New JPS”] p. 1686 3. E.g., Jeremiah 17:10: I the Lord probe the heart, search the mind [lit. kidneys] to repay every man according to his ways . . . .; Psalm. 26:2: Probe me O Lord, and try me, test my heart and mind [lit. kidneys and heart] for my eyes are on Your steadfast love.

3. Job 16:13. His bowmen surrounded me; He pierced my kidneys; He showed no mercy. QUESTIONS FROM Rabbi Hayyim

Halpern’s book TORAH DIALOGUESTORAH DIALOGUESTORAH DIALOGUESTORAH DIALOGUES 1.