38:25 Who carves out a channel for the heavy rains,
and a path for the rumble of thunder,
38:26 to cause it to rain on an uninhabited land, 1
a desert where there are no human beings, 2
38:27 to satisfy a devastated and desolate land,
and to cause it to sprout with vegetation? 3
38:34 Can you raise your voice to the clouds
so that a flood of water covers you? 4
38:35 Can you send out lightning bolts, and they go?
Will they say to you, ‘Here we are’?
1 tn Heb “on a land, no man.”
2 tn Heb “a desert, no man in it.”
3 tn Heb “to cause to sprout a source of vegetation.” The word מֹצָא (motsa’) is rendered “mine” in Job 28:1. The suggestion with the least changes is Wright’s: צָמֵא (tsame’, “thirsty”). But others choose מִצִּיָּה (mitsiyyah, “from the steppe”).
4 tc The LXX has “answer you,” and some editors have adopted this. However, the reading of the MT makes better sense in the verse.