9:7 he who commands the sun and 1 it does not shine 2
and seals up 3 the stars;
12:11 Does not the ear test words,
as 4 the tongue 5 tastes food? 6
15:18 what wise men declare,
hiding nothing,
from the tradition of 7 their ancestors, 8
15:32 Before his time 9 he will be paid in full, 10
and his branches will not flourish. 11
18:8 For he has been thrown into a net by his feet 12
and he wanders into a mesh. 13
22:19 The righteous see their destruction 14 and rejoice;
the innocent mock them scornfully, 15 saying,
III. Job’s Search for Wisdom (28:1-28)
No Known Road to Wisdom 1628:1 “Surely 17 there is a mine 18 for silver,
and a place where gold is refined. 19
28:25 When he made 20 the force of the wind
and measured 21 the waters with a gauge.
32:17 I too will answer my part,
I too will explain what I know.
37:10 The breath of God produces ice,
and the breadth of the waters freeze solid.
38:29 From whose womb does the ice emerge,
and the frost from the sky, 22 who gives birth to it,
39:28 It lives on a rock and spends the night there,
on a rocky crag 23 and a fortress. 24
40:22 The lotus trees conceal it in their 25 shadow;
the poplars by the stream conceal it.
1 tn The form could also be subordinated, “that it shine not” (see further GKC 323 §109.g).
2 tn The verb זָרַח (zarakh) means “rise.” This is the ordinary word for the sunrise. But here it probably has the idea of “shine; glisten,” which is also attested in Hebrew and Aramaic.
sn There are various views on the meaning of this line in this verse. Some think it refers to some mysterious darkness like the judgment in Egypt (Exod 10:21-23), or to clouds building (3:5), often in accompaniment of earthquakes (see Joel 2:10, 3:15-16; Isa 13:10-13). It could also refer to an eclipse. All this assumes that the phenomenon here is limited to the morning or the day; but it could simply be saying that God controls light and darkness.
3 tn The verb חָתַם (khatam) with בְּעַד (bÿ’ad) before its complement, means “to seal; to wall up; to enclose.” This is a poetic way of saying that God prevents the stars from showing their light.
4 tn The ו (vav) introduces the comparison here (see 5:7; 11:12); see GKC 499 §161.a.
5 tn Heb “the palate.”
6 tn The final preposition with its suffix is to be understood as a pleonastic dativus ethicus and not translated (see GKC 439 §135.i).
sn In the rest of the chapter Job turns his attention away from creation to the wisdom of ancient men. In Job 13:1 when Job looks back to this part, he refers to both the eye and the ear. In vv. 13-25 Job refers to many catastrophes which he could not have seen, but must have heard about.
7 tn The word “tradition” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation.
8 tn Heb “their fathers.” Some commentators change one letter and follow the reading of the LXX: “and their fathers have not hidden.” Pope tries to get the same reading by classifying the מ (mem) as an enclitic mem. The MT on first glance would read “and did not hide from their fathers.” Some take the clause “and they did not hide” as adverbial and belonging to the first part of the verse: “what wise men declare, hiding nothing, according to the tradition of their fathers.”
9 tn Heb “before his day.”
10 tn Those who put the last colon of v. 31 with v. 32 also have to change the verb תִּמָּלֵא (timmale’, “will be fulfilled”). E. Dhorme (Job, 225) says, “a mere glance at the use of yimmal…abundantly proves that the original text had timmal (G, Syr., Vulg), which became timmale’ through the accidental transposition of the ‘alep of bÿsi’o…in verse 31….” This, of course, is possible, if all the other changes up to now are granted. But the meaning of a word elsewhere in no way assures it should be the word here. The LXX has “his harvest shall perish before the time,” which could translate any number of words that might have been in the underlying Hebrew text. A commercial metaphor is not out of place here, since parallelism does not demand that the same metaphor appear in both lines.
11 tn Now, in the second half of the verse, the metaphor of a tree with branches begins.
12 tn See Ps 25:15.
13 tn The word שְׂבָכָה (sÿvakhah) is used in scripture for the lattice window (2 Kgs 1:2). The Arabic cognate means “to be intertwined.” So the term could describe a net, matting, grating, or lattice. Here it would be the netting stretched over a pit.
14 tn The line is talking about the rejoicing of the righteous when judgment falls on the wicked. An object (“destruction”) has to be supplied here to clarify this (see Pss 52:6 [8]; 69:32 [33]; 107:42).
15 sn In Ps 2:4 it was God who mocked the wicked by judging them.
16 sn As the book is now arranged, this chapter forms an additional speech by Job, although some argue that it comes from the writer of the book. The mood of the chapter is not despair, but wisdom; it anticipates the divine speeches in the end of the book. This poem, like many psalms in the Bible, has a refrain (vv. 12 and 20). These refrains outline the chapter, giving three sections: there is no known road to wisdom (1-11); no price can buy it (12-19); and only God has it, and only by revelation can man posses it (20-28).
17 tn The poem opens with כִּי (ki). Some commentators think this should have been “for,” and that the poem once stood in another setting. But there are places in the Bible where this word occurs with the sense of “surely” and no other meaning (cf. Gen 18:20).
18 tn The word מוֹצָא (motsa’, from יָצָא [yatsa’, “go out”]) is the word for “mine,” or more simply, “source.” Mining was not an enormous industry in the land of Canaan or Israel; mined products were imported. Some editors have suggested alternative readings: Dahood found in the word the root for “shine” and translated the MT as “smelter.” But that is going too far. P. Joüon suggested “place of finding,” reading מִמְצָא (mimtsa’) for מוֹצָא (motsa’; see Bib 11 [1930]: 323).
19 tn The verb יָזֹקּוּ (yazoqqu) translated “refined,” comes from זָקַק (zaqaq), a word that basically means “to blow.” From the meaning “to blow; to distend; to inflate” derives the meaning for refining.
20 tn Heb “he gave weight to the wind.” The form is the infinitive construct with the ל (lamed) preposition. Some have emended it to change the preposition to the temporal בּ (bet) on the basis of some of the versions (e.g., Latin and Syriac) that have “who made.” This is workable, for the infinitive would then take on the finite tense of the previous verbs. An infinitive of purpose does not work well, for that would be saying God looked everywhere in order to give wind its proper weight (see R. Gordis, Job, 310).
21 tn The verb is the Piel perfect, meaning “to estimate the measure” of something. In the verse, the perfect verb continues the function of the infinitive preceding it, as if it had a ו (vav) prefixed to it. Whatever usage that infinitive had, this verb is to continue it (see GKC 352 §114.r).
22 tn Or “heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.
23 tn Heb “upon the tooth of a rock.”
24 tn The word could be taken as the predicate, but because of the conjunction it seems to be adding another description of the place of its nest.
25 tn The suffix is singular, but must refer to the trees’ shade.