6:24 “Teach 1 me and I, for my part, 2 will be silent;
explain to me 3 how I have been mistaken. 4
12:8 Or speak 5 to the earth 6 and it will teach you,
or let the fish of the sea declare to you.
34:32 Teach me what I cannot see. 7
If I have done evil, I will do so no more.’
1 tn The verb “teach” or “instruct” is the Hiphil הוֹרוּנִי (horuni), from the verb יָרָה (yarah); the basic idea of “point, direct” lies behind this meaning. The verb is cognate to the noun תּוֹרָה (torah, “instruction, teaching, law”).
2 tn The independent personal pronoun makes the subject of the verb emphatic: “and I will be silent.”
3 tn The verb is הָבִינוּ (havinu, “to cause someone to understand”); with the ל (lamed) following, it has the sense of “explain to me.”
4 tn The verb שָׁגָה (shagah) has the sense of “wandering, getting lost, being mistaken.”
5 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).
6 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).
7 tn Heb “what I do not see,” more specifically, “apart from [that which] I see.”