HEBREW WORD STUDY – STOMPING HOOVES – SULAD  סלד   Samek Lamed Daleth 

Job 6:10: “Then I would still have this consolation – my joy in unrelenting pain – that I had not denied the words of the Holy One.” NIV

Job 6:10: “Then should I yet have comfort; yea, I would harden myself in sorrow: let him not spare; for I have not concealed the words of the Holy One” KJV

“He who put detergent on top shelf, jump for Joy.”  (Do they still sell Joy detergent or does that just age me.)

Well, here is a verse that can get the King James only brethren saying: “See there, this is what happens when you mess with the Bible and come up with all these modern translations.  In the NIV, the number one best selling Bible it says “My joy in unrelenting pain,”  In the King James Version, the second best selling Bible it says: “I will harden myself in sorrow.”   One says joy and the other says the opposite, sorrow.  So who is right? They both can’t be right or can they? 

Actually, from the Hebrew, they are both right. The problem revolves around the word sulad which has many possible meanings.  Not only that it is in Piel, intensive form. Sulad means both joy and harden.  Sulad also means to rise up, jump, climb, jump up and down, to leap.  Yet get the idea of joy from jumping up and down.  You get the idea of hardening by jumping up and down on the soft ground to harden it.  The basic idea and the common denominator is that sulad has the idea of jumping up and down.  So do you say: “My jumping up and down in pain?”  or do you say “My jumping up and down in sorrow.  I am not sure what fits if either does. Some commentators say he is jumping for joy over the prospects of dying and being freed from his pain in heaven.  Some say he is hardening, that is preparing himself for death.  I tell you commentators can be such fatalist.

I traced this word sulad all the way be to its Semitic origin which goes back to ancient warfare.  You see, what we know now that they did not know back when the commentaries were written is that Archaeological finds and ancient records which have been translated show us an identical word for sulad in Middle Egyptian used for the start of a battle. Before entering battle Egyptian commanders, who were on horseback and horses pulling chariots had trained horses that would stamp their hooves on the ground causing the ground to actually shake. It would create the appearance that the army was approaching and anxious to get into battle.  For the Egyptians, the cadence would also cause the adrenaline of the warriors to run preparing them for battle.  The enemy would freak out thinking their opponents were not only ready to attack but really excited and anxious to get into a fight. Not only that they had no idea how many warriors they were facing and the earth shaking from all that stamping around sounded like a lot more fighters than they had.  One soldier likely yelled out; “Man, those crazy Egyptians, they must have gotten word to the Hittites, the Amorites, the Amalekites the Parasites and here we are…let’s get out of here.”

How do you put that in a translation for Job 6:10?  I have no idea, however, I have an idea from this as to what it means to have “joy” in unrelenting pain.  One of Job’s most famous lines is:
“Though he slay me, yet I will trust in him.” Job 13:15.  Just as an army is threatening to attack by causing their horses to stomp their hooves, so too, Job is saying that he is also stomping his hooves so to speak.  After the enemy laid Job out flat he said: “Well, Job, you ready to surrender, you ready to curse God?”  Job replied like Captain John Paul Jones in the Battle of Flamborough Head during the American Revolutionary War when he was asked to surrender to Captain Richard Pearson of the Royal British Navy: “I have not yet begun to fight.” Job’s loyalty and love for God are what gave him consolation in the midst of his pain. He knew he did not disappoint the God He loved even in his most trying hour of his faith.  He was ready to continue doing battle with the enemy and even though he lost everything, he was still sulad, stomping his feet anxious to get back into the battle. 

For many Christians, the enemy gives them a little slap on the face and they are on the ground whining.  Ever watch those spy movies where our hero is strapped in a chair, bloodied, beaten, tortured and the evil enemy slaps him in the face and puts his nose against our hero’s bloody nose and says: “Well, do you give up, are you ready to tell me the plans to the doomsday bomb?”  What does our hero do? He sulads – he spits in that ugly, scared villain’s face.