Job 3:15

3:15 or with princes who possessed gold, ¹ 

who filled their palaces ²  with silver.

Job 12:8

12:8 Or speak ³  to the earth ⁴  and it will teach you,

or let the fish of the sea declare to you.

Job 16:3

16:3 Will ⁵  there be an end to your ⁶  windy words? ⁷ 

Or what provokes ⁸  you that you answer? ⁹ 

Job 22:11

22:11 why it is so dark you cannot see, ¹⁰ 

and why a flood ¹¹  of water covers you.

Job 38:28

38:28 Does the rain have a father,

or who has fathered the drops of the dew?

Job 38:31

38:31 Can you tie the bands ¹²  of the Pleiades,

or release the cords of Orion?

[3:15]  ¹ tn The expression simply has “or with princes gold to them.” The noun is defined by the noun clause serving as a relative clause (GKC 486 §155.e).

[3:15]  ² tn Heb “filled their houses.” There is no reason here to take “houses” to mean tombs; the “houses” refer to the places the princes lived (i.e., palaces). The reference is not to the practice of burying treasures with the dead. It is simply saying that if Job had died he would have been with the rich and famous in death.

[12:8]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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).

[16:3]  ⁵ tn Disjunctive questions are introduced with the sign of the interrogative; the second part is introduced with אוֹ (’o, see GKC 475 §150.g).

[16:3]  ⁶ tn In v. 3 the second person singular is employed rather than the plural as in vv. 2 and 4. The singular might be an indication that the words of v. 3 were directed at Eliphaz specifically.

[16:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “words of wind.”

[16:3]  ⁸ tn The Hiphil of מָרַץ (marats) does not occur anywhere else. The word means “to compel; to force” (see 6:25).

[16:3]  ⁹ tn The LXX seems to have gone a different way: “What, is there any reason in vain words, or what will hinder you from answering?”

[22:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “or dark you cannot see.” Some commentators and the RSV follow the LXX in reading אוֹ (’o, “or”) as אוֹר (’or, “light”) and translate it “The light has become dark” or “Your light has become dark.” A. B. Davidson suggests the reading “Or seest thou not the darkness.” This would mean Job does not understand the true meaning of the darkness and the calamities.

[22:11]  ⁸ tn The word שִׁפְעַת (shif’at) means “multitude of.” It is used of men, camels, horses, and here of waters in the heavens.

[38:31]  ⁹ tn This word is found here and in 1 Sam 15:32. Dhorme suggests, with others, that there has been a metathesis (a reversal of consonants), and it is the same word found in Job 31:36 (“bind”). G. R. Driver takes it as “cluster” without changing the text (“Two astronomical passages in the Old Testament,” JTS 7 [1956] :3).