„Wenn meine Hand meinen Mund geküsst hat, dann …“ Hi 31,27 zwischen Proskynese und Hybris

A phenomenology of kissing under 1. shows the almost ubiquitous significance of this gesture, also in the area of religion. 2. For ancient Mesopotamia, Angelika Berlejung has demonstrated the importance of “cultic kisses”, especially in the relationship between deity and king, whereby she differentiates between the kiss of dedication and the kiss of adoration. She sees important evidence for the latter kissing mode in Job 31:27. Under 3.
the expression that “my hand has kissed my mouth” is examined more closely. Different interpretations emerge, depending on which cultural and religious-historical position is taken. The text-critical intervention that “the mouth kissed the hand” is popular (e.g., Vulgate), as is the interpretation that this is de facto a worship of the celestial deities to whom Job “threw kissing hands”. Some scholars even suggest that the root nsq II is present here, which does not mean “to kiss” but “to silence”. Nevertheless, the expression “my hand kissed my mouth” is not nonsensical. It perhaps even describes the direction very accurately. When someone kisses another person on the hand, his mouth goes to the other person’s hand. But if he kisses himself, then – anatomically without alternative – his hand must go to his mouth. Such a gesture of kissing one’s own hand can either be interpreted as “standing proskynesis” in the context of Achaemenid court ritual, or as an expression
of hubris. Job was tempted to fall into a kind of narcissism because he saw himself as so eminently rich, important and successful (in the perspective 2 Macc 7–9 the iconography of the arrogant Antiochus IV is cited as an analogy nearly contemporary to the final form of Job).