Job 28:11

28:11 He has searched ¹  the sources ²  of the rivers

and what was hidden he has brought into the light.

Job 14:11

14:11 As ³  water disappears from the sea, ⁴ 

or a river drains away and dries up,

Job 20:17

20:17 He will not look on the streams, ⁵ 

the rivers, which are the torrents ⁶ 

of honey and butter. ⁷ 

Job 22:16

22:16 men ⁸  who were carried off ⁹  before their time, ¹⁰ 

when the flood ¹¹  was poured out ¹² 

on their foundations? ¹³ 

Job 40:23

40:23 If the river rages, ¹⁴  it is not disturbed,

it is secure, ¹⁵  though the Jordan

should surge up to its mouth.

[28:11]  ¹ tc The translation “searched” follows the LXX and Vulgate; the MT reads “binds up” or “dams up.” This latter translation might refer to the damming of water that might seep into a mine (HALOT 289 s.v. חבשׁ; cf. ESV, NJPS, NASB, REB, NLT).

[28:11]  ² tc The older translations had “he binds the streams from weeping,” i.e., from trickling (מִבְּכִי, mibbÿkhi). But the Ugaritic parallel has changed the understanding, reading “toward the spring of the rivers” (`m mbk nhrm). Earlier than that discovery, the versions had taken the word as a noun as well. Some commentators had suggested repointing the Hebrew. Some chose מַבְּכֵי (mabbÿkhe, “sources”). Now there is much Ugaritic support for the reading (see G. M. Landes, BASOR 144 [1956]: 32f.; and H. L. Ginsberg, “The Ugaritic texts and textual criticism,” JBL 62 [1943]: 111).

[14:11]  ³ tn The comparative clause may be signaled simply by the context, especially when facts of a moral nature are compared with the physical world (see GKC 499 §161.a).

[14:11]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew word יָם (yam) can mean “sea” or “lake.”

[20:17]  ⁵ tn The word פְּלַגּוֹת (pÿlaggot) simply means “streams” or “channels.” Because the word is used elsewhere for “streams of oil” (cf. 29:6), and that makes a good parallelism here, some supply “oil” (cf. NAB, NLT). But the second colon of the verse is probably in apposition to the first. The verb “see” followed by the preposition bet, “to look on; to look over,” means “to enjoy as a possession,” an activity of the victor.

[20:17]  ⁶ tn The construct nouns here have caused a certain amount of revision. It says “rivers of, torrents of.” The first has been emended by Klostermann to יִצְהָר (yitshar, “oil”) and connected to the first colon. Older editors argued for a נָהָר (nahar) that meant “oil” but that was not convincing. On the other hand, there is support for having more than one construct together serving as apposition (see GKC 422 §130.e). If the word “streams” in the last colon is a construct, that would mean three of them; but that one need not be construct. The reading would be “He will not see the streams, [that is] the rivers [which are] the torrents of honey and butter.” It is unusual, but workable.

[20:17]  ⁷ sn This word is often translated “curds.” It is curdled milk, possibly a type of butter.

[22:16]  ⁷ tn The word “men” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied to clarify the relative pronoun “who.”

[22:16]  ⁸ tn The verb קָמַט (qamat) basically means “to seize; to tie together to make a bundle.” So the Pual will mean “to be bundled away; to be carried off.”

[22:16]  ⁹ tn The clause has “and [it was] not the time.” It may be used adverbially here.

[22:16]  ¹⁰ tn The word is נָהַר (nahar, “river” or “current”); it is taken here in its broadest sense of the waters on the earth that formed the current of the flood (Gen 7:6, 10).

[22:16]  ¹¹ tn The verb יָצַק (yatsaq) means “to pour out; to shed; to spill; to flow.” The Pual means “to be poured out” (as in Lev 21:10 and Ps 45:3).

[22:16]  ¹² tn This word is then to be taken as an adverbial accusative of place. Another way to look at this verse is what A. B. Davidson (Job, 165) proposes “whose foundation was poured away and became a flood.” This would mean that that on which they stood sank away.

[40:23]  ⁹ tn The word ordinarily means “to oppress.” So many commentators have proposed suitable changes: “overflows” (Beer), “gushes” (Duhm), “swells violently” (Dhorme, from a word that means “be strong”).

[40:23]  ¹⁰ tn Or “he remains calm.”