28:9 On the flinty rock man has set to work 1 with his hand;
he has overturned mountains at their bases. 2
33:5 Reply to me, if you can;
set your arguments 3 in order before me
and take your stand!
34:14 If God 4 were to set his heart on it, 5
and gather in his spirit and his breath,
38:33 Do you know the laws of the heavens,
or can you set up their rule over the earth?
1 tn The Hebrew verb is simply “to stretch out; to send” (שָׁלח, shalakh). With יָדוֹ (yado, “his hand”) the idea is that of laying one’s hand on the rock, i.e., getting to work on the hardest of rocks.
2 tn The Hebrew מִשֹּׁרֶשׁ (mishoresh) means “from/at [their] root [or base].” In mining, people have gone below ground, under the mountains, and overturned rock and dirt. It is also interesting that here in a small way humans do what God does – overturn mountains (cf. 9:5).
3 tn The Hebrew text does not contain the term “arguments,” but this verb has been used already for preparing or arranging a defense.
4 tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
5 tc This is the reading following the Qere. The Kethib and the Syriac and the LXX suggest a reading יָשִׂים (yasim, “if he [God] recalls”). But this would require leaving out “his heart,” and would also require redividing the verse to make “his spirit” the object. It makes better parallelism, but may require too many changes.