Job 28:27

then he looked at wisdom ¹  and assessed its value; ²  he established ³  it and examined it closely. ⁴ 

then he looked at wisdom and appraised it; he confirmed it and tested it.

Then He saw it and declared it; He established it and also searched it out.

Then, when he had done all this, he saw wisdom and measured it. He established it and examined it thoroughly.

He focused on Wisdom, made sure it was all set and tested and ready.

Then he saw it, and put it on record; he gave it its fixed form, searching it out completely.

then he saw it and declared it; he established it, and searched it out.

Then He saw wisdom and declared it; He prepared it, indeed, He searched it out.

then he looked at wisdom ¹  and assessed its value; ²  he established ³  it and examined it closely. ⁴ 

¹ tn Heb “it”; the referent (wisdom) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn The verb סָפַר (safar) in the Piel basically means “to tell; to declare; to show” or “to count; to number.” Many commentators offer different suggestions for the translation. “Declared” (as in the RSV, NASB, and NRSV) would be the simplest – but to whom did God declare it? Besides “appraised” which is the view of Pope, Dhorme and others (cf. NAB, NIV), J. Reider has suggested “probed” (“Etymological studies in biblical Hebrew,” VT 2 [1952]: 127), Strahan has “studied,” and Kissane has “reckoned.” The difficulty is that the line has a series of verbs, which seem to build to a climax; but without more details it is hard to know how to translate them when they have such a range of meaning.

³ tc The verb כּוּן (kun) means “to establish; to prepare” in this stem. There are several mss that have the form from בִּין (bin, “discern”), giving “he discerned it,” making more of a parallel with the first colon. But the weight of the evidence supports the traditional MT reading.

⁴ tn The verb חָקַר (khaqar) means “to examine; to search out.” Some of the language used here is anthropomorphic, for the sovereign Lord did not have to research or investigate wisdom. The point is that it is as if he did this human activity, meaning that as in the results of such a search God knows everything about wisdom.