Job 28:1

“Surely ²  there is a mine ³  for silver, and a place where gold is refined. ⁴ 

"There is a mine for silver and a place where gold is refined.

"Surely there is a mine for silver And a place where they refine gold.

"People know how to mine silver and refine gold.

"We all know how silver seams the rocks, we've seen the stuff from which gold is refined,

Truly there is a mine for silver, and a place where gold is washed out.

"Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold to be refined.

"Surely there is a mine for silver, And a place where gold is refined.

“Surely ²  there is a mine ³  for silver, and a place where gold is refined. ⁴ 

¹ 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).

² 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).

³ 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).

⁴ 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.