Job 16:20

20. My friends scorn me מליצי רעי is almost invariably rendered, My scorners are my friends. But the word melits, in its root, signifies not only to “mock,” but “to speak in a foreign tongue,” (Gesenius,) whence the meaning of interpreter, intercessor, which is the rendering it bears in the other places where it occurs, (Genesis 42:23; 2 Chronicles 32:31 margin; Job 33:23, and Isaiah 43:27 margin;) also in the Targum peraklit, “advocate.” This leads Arnheim, Carey, and Prof. Lee to read it, “My interpreter is my friend,” and to argue, not so reasonably, that it refers to the promised mediator. To the objection that both words are in the plural, it is replied that this is an instance of the plural of majesty the use of a word in the plural to express the idea of exaltation as in Isaiah 54:5, “Thy Maker is thy husband,” where both words also are plural. The ever-ready assumption that the context demands “scorners” is not altogether satisfactory.