8:19 Indeed, this is the joy of his way, 1
and out of the earth 2 others spring up. 3
28:16 It cannot be measured out for purchase 4 with the gold of Ophir,
with precious onyx 5 or sapphires.
36:32 With his hands 6 he covers 7 the lightning,
and directs it against its target.
41:6 Will partners 8 bargain 9 for it?
Will they divide it up 10 among the merchants?
41:19 Out of its mouth go flames, 11
sparks of fire shoot forth!
41:24 Its heart 12 is hard as rock,
hard as a lower millstone.
1 tn This line is difficult. If the MT stands as it is, the expression must be ironic. It would be saying that the joy (all the security and prosperity) of its way (its life) is short-lived – that is the way its joy goes. Most commentators are not satisfied with this. Dhorme, for one, changes מְשׂוֹשׂ (mÿsos, “joy”) to מְסוֹס (mÿsos, “rotting”), and gets “behold him lie rotting on the path.” The sibilants can interchange this way. But Dhorme thinks the MT was written the way it was because the word was thought to be “joy,” when it should have been the other way. The word “way” then becomes an accusative of place. The suggestion is rather compelling and would certainly fit the context. The difficulty is that a root סוּס (sus, “to rot”) has to be proposed. E. Dhorme does this by drawing on Arabic sas, “to be eaten by moths or worms,” thus “worm-eaten; decaying; rotting.” Cf. NIV “its life withers away”; also NAB “there he lies rotting beside the road.”
2 tn Heb “dust.”
3 sn As with the tree, so with the godless man – his place will soon be taken by another.
4 tn The word actually means “weighed,” that is, lifted up on the scale and weighed, in order to purchase.
5 tn The exact identification of these stones is uncertain. Many recent English translations, however, have “onyx” and “sapphires.”
6 tn R. Gordis (Job, 422) prefers to link this word with the later Hebrew word for “arch,” not “hands.”
7 tn Because the image might mean that God grabs the lightning and hurls it like a javelin (cf. NLT), some commentators want to change “covers” to other verbs. Dhorme has “lifts” (נִשָּׂא [nissa’] for כִּסָּה [kissah]). This fit the idea of God directing the lightning bolts.
8 tn The word חָבַּר (khabbar) is a hapax legomenon, but the meaning is “to associate” since it is etymologically related to the verb “to join together.” The idea is that fishermen usually work in companies or groups, and then divide up the catch when they come ashore – which involves bargaining.
9 tn The word כָּרַה (karah) means “to sell.” With the preposition עַל (’al, “upon”) it has the sense “to bargain over something.”
10 tn The verb means “to cut up; to divide up” in the sense of selling the dead body (see Exod 21:35). This will be between them and the merchants (כְּנַעֲנִים, kÿna’anim).
11 sn For the animal, the image is that of pent-up breath with water in a hot steam jet coming from its mouth, like a stream of fire in the rays of the sun. The language is hyperbolic, probably to reflect the pagan ideas of the dragon of the deep in a polemical way – they feared it as a fire breathing monster, but in reality it might have been a steamy crocodile.
12 tn The description of his heart being “hard” means that he is cruel and fearless. The word for “hard” is the word encountered before for molten or cast metal.