5:10 he gives 1 rain on the earth, 2
and sends 3 water on the fields; 4
14:19 as water wears away stones,
and torrents 5 wash away the soil, 6
so you destroy man’s hope. 7
24:18 8 “You say, 9 ‘He is foam 10 on the face of the waters; 11
their portion of the land is cursed
so that no one goes to their vineyard. 12
26:10 He marks out the horizon 13 on the surface of the waters
as a boundary between light and darkness.
1 tn Heb “who gives.” The participle continues the doxology here. But the article is necessary because of the distance between this verse and the reference to God.
2 tn In both halves of the verse the literal rendering would be “upon the face of the earth” and “upon the face of the fields.”
3 tn The second participle is simply coordinated to the first and therefore does not need the definite article repeated (see GKC 404 §126.b).
4 tn The Hebrew term חוּצוֹת (khutsot) basically means “outside,” or what is outside. It could refer to streets if what is meant is outside the house; but it refers to fields here (parallel to the more general word) because it is outside the village. See Ps 144:13 for the use of the expression for “countryside.” The LXX gives a much wider interpretation: “what is under heaven.”
5 tn Heb “the overflowings of it”; the word סְפִיחֶיהָ (sÿfikheyha) in the text is changed by just about everyone. The idea of “its overflowings” or more properly “its aftergrowths” (Lev 25:5; 2 Kgs 19:29; etc.) does not fit here at all. Budde suggested reading סְחִפָה (sÿkhifah), which is cognate to Arabic sahifeh, “torrential rain, rainstorm” – that which sweeps away” the soil. The word סָחַף (sakhaf) in Hebrew might have a wider usage than the effects of rain.
6 tn Heb “[the] dust of [the] earth.”
7 sn The meaning for Job is that death shatters all of man’s hopes for the continuation of life.
9 tc Many commentators find vv. 18-24 difficult on the lips of Job, and so identify this unit as a misplaced part of the speech of Zophar. They describe the enormities of the wicked. But a case can also be made for retaining it in this section. Gordis thinks it could be taken as a quotation by Job of his friends’ ideas.
10 tn The verb “say” is not in the text; it is supplied here to indicate that this is a different section.
11 tn Or “is swift.”
12 sn The wicked person is described here as a spray or foam upon the waters, built up in the agitation of the waters but dying away swiftly.
13 tn The text reads, “he does not turn by the way of the vineyards.” This means that since the land is cursed, he/one does not go there. Bickell emended “the way of the vineyards” to “the treader of the vineyard” (see RSV, NRSV). This would mean that “no wine-presser would turn towards” their vineyards.
13 tn The expression חֹק־חָג (khoq-khag) means “he has drawn a limit as a circle.” According to some the form should have been חָק־חוּג (khaq-khug, “He has traced a circle”). But others argues that the text is acceptable as is, and can be interpreted as “a limit he has circled.” The Hebrew verbal roots are חָקַק (khaqaq, “to engrave; to sketch out; to trace”) and חוּג (khug, “describe a circle”) respectively.