12:8 Or speak 1 to the earth 2 and it will teach you,
or let the fish of the sea declare to you.
36:30 See how he scattered 3 his lightning 4 about him;
he has covered the depths 5 of the sea.
38:8 “Who shut up 6 the sea with doors
when it burst forth, 7 coming out of the womb,
41:31 It makes the deep boil like a cauldron
and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment, 8
1 tn The word in the MT means “to complain,” not simply “to speak,” and one would expect animals as the object here in parallel to the last verse. So several commentators have replaced the word with words for animals or reptiles – totally different words (cf. NAB, “reptiles”). The RSV and NRSV have here the word “plants” (see 30:4, 7; and Gen 21:15).
2 tn A. B. Davidson (Job, 90) offers a solution by taking “earth” to mean all the lower forms of life that teem in the earth (a metonymy of subject).
3 tn The word actually means “to spread,” but with lightning as the object, “to scatter” appears to fit the context better.
4 tn The word is “light,” but taken to mean “lightning.” Theodotion had “mist” here, and so most commentators follow that because it is more appropriate to the verb and the context.
5 tn Heb “roots.”
6 tn The MT has “and he shut up.” The Vulgate has “Who?” and so many commentaries and editions adopt this reading, if not from the Vulgate, then from the sense of the sequence in the text itself.
7 tn The line uses two expressions, first the temporal clause with גִּיחַ (giakh, “when it burst forth”) and then the finite verb יֵצֵא (yetse’, “go out”) to mark the concomitance of the two actions.
8 sn The idea is either that the sea is stirred up like the foam from beating the ingredients together, or it is the musk-smell that is the point of comparison.