15:12 Why 1 has your heart carried you away, 2
and why do your eyes flash, 3
22:10 That is why snares surround you,
and why sudden fear terrifies you,
22:11 why it is so dark you cannot see, 4
and why a flood 5 of water covers you.
1 tn The interrogative מָה (mah) here has the sense of “why?” (see Job 7:21).
2 tn The verb simply means “to take.” The RSV has “carry you away.” E. Dhorme (Job, 212-13) goes further, saying that it implies being unhinged by passion, to be carried away by the passions beyond good sense (pp. 212-13). Pope and Tur-Sinai suggest that the suffix on the verb is datival, and translate it, “What has taken from you your mind?” But the parallelism shows that “your heart” and “your eyes” are subjects.
3 tn Here is another word that occurs only here, and in the absence of a completely convincing suggestion, probably should be left as it is. The verb is רָזַם (razam, “wink, flash”). Targum Job and the Syriac equate it with a verb found in Aramaic and postbiblical Hebrew with the same letters but metathesized – רָמַז (ramaz). It would mean “to make a sign” or “to wink.” Budde, following the LXX probably, has “Why are your eyes lofty?” Others follow an Arabic root meaning “become weak.”
4 tn Heb “or dark you cannot see.” Some commentators and the RSV follow the LXX in reading אוֹ (’o, “or”) as אוֹר (’or, “light”) and translate it “The light has become dark” or “Your light has become dark.” A. B. Davidson suggests the reading “Or seest thou not the darkness.” This would mean Job does not understand the true meaning of the darkness and the calamities.
5 tn The word שִׁפְעַת (shif’at) means “multitude of.” It is used of men, camels, horses, and here of waters in the heavens.