¹ tc This verse has created all kinds of problems for the commentators. The first part is workable: “when he raises himself up, the mighty [the gods] are terrified.” The mythological approach would render אֵלִים (ʾelim) as “gods.” But the last two words, which could be rendered “at the breaking [crashing, or breakers] they fail,” receive much attention. E. Dhorme (Job, 639) suggests “majesty” for “raising up” and “billows” (גַּלִּים, gallim) for אֵלִים (ʾelim), and gets a better parallelism: “the billows are afraid of his majesty, and the waves draw back.” But H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 263) does not think this is relevant to the context, which is talking about the creature’s defense against attack. The RSV works well for the first part, but the second part need some change; so Rowley adopts “in their dire consternation they are beside themselves.”

⁸ tn Heb “your…your…” The second person masculine singular suffixes on מִשְׁבָּרֶיךָ וְגַלֶּיךָ (mishbarekha v^egallekha, “your breakers and your waves”) function as genitives of source. Just as God had hurled a violent wind upon the sea (1:4) and had sovereignly sent the large fish to swallow him (1:17 [2:1 HT]), Jonah viewed God as sovereignly responsible for afflicting him with sea waves that were crashing upon his head, threatening to drown him. Tg. Jonah 2:3 alters the second person masculine singular suffixes to third person masculine singular suffixes to make them refer to the sea and not to God, for the sake of smoothness: “all the gales of the sea and its billows.”

³ tn The proper nuance of מְקֻטֶּרֶת (m^equtteret, Pual participle fs from קָטַר, qatar, “to make a sacrifice, go up in smoke”) is illusive. The lexicons take the participle adjectivally and translate מְקֻטֶּרֶת מוֹר (m^equtteret mor) as “completely filled with fragrance or incense” (HALOT 1094 s.v. I קטר) or “fumigated with myrrh” (BDB 883 s.v. קָטַר). Most translations take it adjectivally: “perfumed with myrrh” (KJV, NASB, NIV); however, NJPS takes it as a substantive: “clouds of myrrh.” It is better to take the participle as a substantive and to nuance מְקֻטֶּרֶת מוֹר as “billow of myrrh,” as suggested by its parallelism with כְּתִימֲרוֹת עָשָׁן (k^etimarot ʿashan, “like a column of smoke”). While this is the only usage of the Pual stem of the verb, the root קטר appears frequently in other stems, all of which connote smoke, e.g., Piel: “to make a sacrifice, to go up in smoke” and Hiphil: “to cause to go up in smoke” (HALOT 1094-95 s.v. I קתר). In Middle Hebrew the root קִטְרָא (qitraʾ) meant “to steam, smell” (Qal) and “to smoke” (Hiphil). The Hebrew root is related to Ugaritic qtr “smoke, incense” (UT 19.2220; WUS 1404); Akkadian qataru “to billow (of smoke)” (AHw 2:907; CAD Q:166); Old South Arabic mqṭr “incense; Ethiopic qĕtārē “fragrance, spice”; Arabic qatara “to smell, smoke”; and Syriac ʿetar “vapour, fume, incense” (HALOT 1094). Due to the rarity of the Pual stem of this root, the Targum mistakenly vocalized the form as Piel participle מִקְּטֹרֶת (miqq^etoret, “going up in smoke”).