12:15 If he holds back the waters, then they dry up; 1
if he releases them, 2 they destroy 3 the land.
20:28 A flood will carry off his house,
rushing waters on the day of God’s wrath.
26:8 He locks the waters in his clouds,
and the clouds do not burst with the weight of them.
26:10 He marks out the horizon 4 on the surface of the waters
as a boundary between light and darkness.
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 The expression חֹק־חָג (khoq-khag) means “he has drawn a limit as a circle.” According to some the form should have been חָק־חוּג (khaq-khug, “He has traced a circle”). But others argues that the text is acceptable as is, and can be interpreted as “a limit he has circled.” The Hebrew verbal roots are חָקַק (khaqaq, “to engrave; to sketch out; to trace”) and חוּג (khug, “describe a circle”) respectively.