39:10 Can you bind the wild ox 1 to a furrow with its rope,
will it till the valleys, following after you?
39:21 It 2 paws the ground in the valley, 3
exulting mightily, 4
it goes out to meet the weapons.
1 tn Some commentators think that the addition of the “wild ox” here is a copyist’s error, making the stich too long. They therefore delete it. Also, binding an animal to the furrow with ropes is unusual. So with a slight emendation Kissane came up with “Will you bind him with a halter of cord?” While the MT is unusual, the sense is understandable, and no changes, even slight ones, are absolutely necessary.
2 tc The Hebrew text has a plural verb, “they paw.” For consistency and for stylistic reasons this is translated as a singular.
3 tn The armies would prepare for battles that were usually fought in the valleys, and so the horse was ready to charge. But in Ugaritic the word `mk means “force” as well as “valley.” The idea of “force” would fit the parallelism here well (see M. Dahood, “Value of Ugaritic for textual criticism,” Bib 40 [1959]: 166).
4 tn Or “in strength.”