פַּשׁ

From the study of Job 35:15

Range of meaning

This word occurs only once in the Hebrew Bible (a 'hapax legomenon'), so there is no other biblical use to compare it with. The proposals are: (1) 'folly' or 'empty foolishness', which BSB follows and BDB lists as one possibility; (2) 'arrogance, insolence', compared with an Arabic root meaning to boast or be puffed up, which WEB follows; (3) 'transgression, rebellion', taking it as pešaʿ with a letter lost or deliberately shortened, which is how the ancient Greek and Latin translators read it; (4) 'abundance, multitude' or 'extremity', from a root meaning 'to spread out', which some medieval Jewish interpreters followed and which lies behind KJV's 'great extremity'.

Against the English

English versions present one confident word ('folly', 'arrogance', 'transgression', 'extremity') where the Hebrew is genuinely uncertain. None of them signals the uncertainty in the text itself, though some do in footnotes.

Used elsewhere in the period

Septuagint: paraptōma ti, 'any transgression'. Vulgate: scelus, 'crime, wickedness'. Both point to a text read as pešaʿ ('transgression'). The idea closely matches Job's own complaint in Job 24:12, that God 'does not charge them with wrongdoing (tiplāh)', which supports a general sense of wrongdoing that goes unpunished.