Job 12:8

12:8 Or speak ¹  to the earth ²  and it will teach you,

or let the fish of the sea declare to you.

Job 30:4

30:4 By the brush ³  they would gather ⁴  herbs from the salt marshes, ⁵ 

and the root of the broom tree was their food.

[12:8]  ¹ tn The word in the MT means “to complain,” not simply “to speak,” and one would expect animals as the object here in parallel to the last verse. So several commentators have replaced the word with words for animals or reptiles – totally different words (cf. NAB, “reptiles”). The RSV and NRSV have here the word “plants” (see 30:4, 7; and Gen 21:15).

[12:8]  ² tn A. B. Davidson (Job, 90) offers a solution by taking “earth” to mean all the lower forms of life that teem in the earth (a metonymy of subject).

[30:4]  ³ tn Or “the leaves of bushes” (ESV), a possibility dating back to Saadia and discussed by G. R. Driver and G. B. Gray (Job [ICC], 2:209) in their philological notes.

[30:4]  ⁴ tn Here too the form is the participle with the article.

[30:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “gather mallow,” a plant which grows in salt marshes.