5:9 He does 1 great and unsearchable 2 things,
marvelous things without 3 number; 4
5:10 he gives 5 rain on the earth, 6
and sends 7 water on the fields; 8
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 “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.
6 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.”
7 tn The second participle is simply coordinated to the first and therefore does not need the definite article repeated (see GKC 404 §126.b).
8 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.”