5:9 He does 1 great and unsearchable 2 things,
marvelous things without 3 number; 4
38:25 Who carves out a channel for the heavy rains,
and a path for the rumble of thunder,
38:26 to cause it to rain on an uninhabited land, 5
a desert where there are no human beings, 6
38:27 to satisfy a devastated and desolate land,
and to cause it to sprout with vegetation? 7
38:28 Does the rain have a father,
or who has fathered the drops of the dew?
38:34 Can you raise your voice to the clouds
so that a flood of water covers you? 8
2:5 Now 9 no shrub of the field had yet grown on the earth, and no plant of the field 10 had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 11 2:6 Springs 12 would well up 13 from the earth and water 14 the whole surface of the ground. 15
65:9 You visit the earth and give it rain; 16
you make it rich and fertile 17
with overflowing streams full of water. 18
You provide grain for them, 19
for you prepare the earth to yield its crops. 20
65:10 You saturate 21 its furrows,
and soak 22 its plowed ground. 23
With rain showers you soften its soil, 24
and make its crops grow. 25
65:11 You crown the year with your good blessings, 26
and you leave abundance in your wake. 27
65:12 The pastures in the wilderness glisten with moisture, 28
and the hills are clothed with joy. 29
65:13 The meadows are clothed with sheep,
and the valleys are covered with grain.
They shout joyfully, yes, they sing.
5:6 I will make it a wasteland;
no one will prune its vines or hoe its ground, 30
and thorns and briers will grow there.
I will order the clouds
not to drop any rain on it.
14:22 Do any of the worthless idols 31 of the nations cause rain to fall?
Do the skies themselves send showers?
Is it not you, O Lord our God, who does this? 32
So we put our hopes in you 33
because you alone do all this.”
1 tn Heb “who does.” It is common for such doxologies to begin with participles; they follow the pattern of the psalms in this style. Because of the length of the sentence in Hebrew and the conventions of English style, a new sentence was started here in the translation.
2 tn The Hebrew has וְאֵין חֵקֶר (vÿ’en kheqer), literally, “and no investigation.” The use of the conjunction on the expression follows a form of the circumstantial clause construction, and so the entire expression describes the great works as “unsearchable.”
3 tn The preposition in עַד־אֵין (’ad ’en, “until there was no”) is stereotypical; it conveys the sense of having no number (see Job 9:10; Ps 40:13).
4 sn H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 54) notes that the verse fits Eliphaz’s approach very well, for he has good understanding of the truth, but has difficulty in making the correct conclusions from it.
5 tn Heb “on a land, no man.”
6 tn Heb “a desert, no man in it.”
7 tn Heb “to cause to sprout a source of vegetation.” The word מֹצָא (motsa’) is rendered “mine” in Job 28:1. The suggestion with the least changes is Wright’s: צָמֵא (tsame’, “thirsty”). But others choose מִצִּיָּה (mitsiyyah, “from the steppe”).
8 tc The LXX has “answer you,” and some editors have adopted this. However, the reading of the MT makes better sense in the verse.
9 tn Heb “Now every sprig of the field before it was.” The verb forms, although appearing to be imperfects, are technically preterites coming after the adverb טֶּרֶם (terem). The word order (conjunction + subject + predicate) indicates a disjunctive clause, which provides background information for the following narrative (as in 1:2). Two negative clauses are given (“before any sprig…”, and “before any cultivated grain” existed), followed by two causal clauses explaining them, and then a positive circumstantial clause is given – again dealing with water as in 1:2 (water would well up).
10 tn The first term, שִׂיחַ (siakh), probably refers to the wild, uncultivated plants (see Gen 21:15; Job 30:4,7); whereas the second, עֵשֶׂב (’esev), refers to cultivated grains. It is a way of saying: “back before anything was growing.”
11 tn The two causal clauses explain the first two disjunctive clauses: There was no uncultivated, general growth because there was no rain, and there were no grains because there was no man to cultivate the soil.
12 tn The conjunction vav (ו) introduces a third disjunctive clause. The Hebrew word אֵד (’ed) was traditionally translated “mist” because of its use in Job 36:27. However, an Akkadian cognate edu in Babylonian texts refers to subterranean springs or waterways. Such a spring would fit the description in this context, since this water “goes up” and waters the ground.
13 tn Heb “was going up.” The verb is an imperfect form, which in this narrative context carries a customary nuance, indicating continual action in past time.
14 tn The perfect with vav (ו) consecutive carries the same nuance as the preceding verb. Whenever it would well up, it would water the ground.
15 tn The Hebrew word אֲדָמָה (’adamah) actually means “ground; fertile soil.”
16 tn The verb form is a Polel from שׁוּק (shuq, “be abundant”), a verb which appears only here and in Joel 2:24 and 3:13, where it is used in the Hiphil stem and means “overflow.”
17 tn Heb “you greatly enrich it.”
18 tn Heb “[with] a channel of God full of water.” The divine name is probably used here in a superlative sense to depict a very deep stream (“a stream fit for God,” as it were).
19 tn The pronoun apparently refers to the people of the earth, mentioned in v. 8.
20 tn Heb “for thus [referring to the provision of rain described in the first half of the verse] you prepare it.” The third feminine singular pronominal suffix attached to the verb “prepare” refers back to the “earth,” which is a feminine noun with regard to grammatical form.
21 tn Heb “saturating” [the form is an infinitive absolute].
22 tn Heb “flatten, cause to sink.”
23 tn Heb “trenches,” or “furrows.”
24 tn Heb “soften it,” that is, the earth.
25 tn Heb “its vegetation you bless.” Divine “blessing” often involves endowing an object with special power or capacity.
26 tn Heb “your good,” which refers here to agricultural blessings.
27 tn Heb “and your paths drip with abundance.”
28 tn Heb “drip.”
29 tn That is, with rich vegetation that brings joy to those who see it.
30 tn Heb “it will not be pruned or hoed” (so NASB); ASV and NRSV both similar.
31 tn The word הֶבֶל (hevel), often translated “vanities”, is a common pejorative epithet for idols or false gods. See already in 8:19 and 10:8.
32 tn Heb “Is it not you, O
33 tn The rhetorical negatives are balanced by a rhetorical positive.