12:15 If he holds back the waters, then they dry up; 1
if he releases them, 2 they destroy 3 the land.
15:29 He will not grow rich,
and his wealth will not endure,
nor will his possessions 4 spread over the land.
30:3 gaunt 5 with want and hunger,
they would gnaw 6 the parched land,
in former time desolate and waste. 7
38:26 to cause it to rain on an uninhabited land, 8
a desert where there are no human beings, 9
1 tc The LXX has a clarification: “he will dry the earth.”
2 sn The verse is focusing on the two extremes of drought and flood. Both are described as being under the power of God.
3 tn The verb הָפַךְ (hafakh) means “to overthrow; to destroy; to overwhelm.” It was used in Job 9:5 for “overturning” mountains. The word is used in Genesis for the destruction of Sodom.
4 tn This word מִנְלָם (minlam) also is a hapax legomenon, although almost always interpreted to mean “possession” (with Arabic manal) and repointed as מְנֹלָם (mÿnolam). M. Dahood further changes “earth” to the netherworld, and interprets it to mean “his possessions will not go down to the netherworld (“Value of Ugaritic for Textual Criticism,” Bib 40 [1959]: 164-66). Others suggest it means “ear of grain,” either from the common word for “ears of grain” or a hapax legomenon in Deuteronomy 23:26 [25].
5 tn This word, גַּלְמוּד (galmud), describes something as lowly, desolate, bare, gaunt like a rock.
6 tn The form is the plural participle with the definite article – “who gnaw.” The article, joined to the participle, joins on a new statement concerning a preceding noun (see GKC 404 §126.b).
7 tn The MT has “yesterday desolate and waste.” The word “yesterday” (אֶמֶשׁ, ’emesh) is strange here. Among the proposals for אֶמֶשׁ (’emesh), Duhm suggested יְמַשְּׁשׁוּ (yÿmashÿshu, “they grope”), which would require darkness; Pope renders “by night,” instead of “yesterday,” which evades the difficulty; and Fohrer suggested with more reason אֶרֶץ (’erets), “a desolate and waste land.” R. Gordis (Job, 331) suggests יָמִישׁוּ / יָמֻשׁוּ (yamishu/yamushu), “they wander off.”
8 tn Heb “on a land, no man.”
9 tn Heb “a desert, no man in it.”