תׇּהֳלָה

From the study of Job 4:18

Range of meaning

Occurs only here (a 'hapax legomenon', a word found once). Proposed meanings: 'error, mistake' (linked to an Arabic root meaning to err or be mistaken, and an Ethiopic root meaning to wander); 'folly, foolishness' (linked to Hebrew h-l-l, 'to act madly/boastfully', as in hōlēlôt, 'madness'); or a scribal variant of tiplāh, 'unseemliness, folly' (Job 1:22). The common ground of all options is a defect: something that makes the servants less than perfectly reliable.

Against the English

KJV 'folly', BSB/WEB 'error', most modern versions 'error'. YLT's 'praise' is an outlier: it read the word as related to təhillāh, 'praise' ('nor in his messengers does he set praise'), which most lexicons reject, though it is an attempt to keep the parallel with 'not trust'.

How it drifted

Not so much English drift as genuine uncertainty. The risk is that English 'error' or 'folly' gets heard as moral rebellion (sin, a fall), which is more than the word can be shown to carry.

Used elsewhere in the period

LXX: 'against his angels he noticed something crooked (skolion ti)'. Vulgate: 'in his angels he found perversity (pravitatem)'. Both translate by sense. BDB and HALOT list it as uncertain, favouring 'error'. Parallel ideas: Job 15:15 ('he puts no trust in his holy ones, and the heavens are not clean in his sight') and Job 25:5 ('even the moon is not bright… in his sight').