5:9 He does 1 great and unsearchable 2 things,
marvelous things without 3 number; 4
9:10 he does great and unsearchable things, 5
and wonderful things without number.
36:26 “Yes, God is great – beyond our knowledge! 6
The number of his years is unsearchable.
1 tn Heb “who does.” It is common for such doxologies to begin with participles; they follow the pattern of the psalms in this style. Because of the length of the sentence in Hebrew and the conventions of English style, a new sentence was started here in the translation.
2 tn The Hebrew has וְאֵין חֵקֶר (vÿ’en kheqer), literally, “and no investigation.” The use of the conjunction on the expression follows a form of the circumstantial clause construction, and so the entire expression describes the great works as “unsearchable.”
3 tn The preposition in עַד־אֵין (’ad ’en, “until there was no”) is stereotypical; it conveys the sense of having no number (see Job 9:10; Ps 40:13).
4 sn H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 54) notes that the verse fits Eliphaz’s approach very well, for he has good understanding of the truth, but has difficulty in making the correct conclusions from it.
5 tn Only slight differences exist between this verse and 5:9 which employs the simple ו (vav) conjunction before אֵין (’eyn) in the first colon and omits the ו (vav) conjunction before נִפְלָאוֹת (nifla’ot, “wonderful things”) in the second colon.
sn There is probably great irony in Job’s using this same verse as in 5:9. But Job’s meaning here is different than Eliphaz.
6 tn The last part has the verbal construction, “and we do not know.” This clause is to be used adverbially: “beyond our understanding.”