Job 36:10

36:10 And he reveals ¹  this ²  for correction,

and says that they must turn ³  from evil.

Job 36:2

36:2 “Be patient ⁴  with me a little longer

and I will instruct you,

for I still have words to speak on God’s behalf. ⁵ 

Job 12:8

12:8 Or speak ⁶  to the earth ⁷  and it will teach you,

or let the fish of the sea declare to you.

[36:10]  ¹ tn The idiom once again is “he uncovers their ear.”

[36:10]  ² tn The revelation is in the preceding verse, and so a pronoun must be added to make the reference clear.

[36:10]  ³ tn The verb שׁוּב (shuv, “to turn; to return”) is one of the two major words in the OT for “repent” – to return from evil. Here the imperfect should be obligatory – they must do it.

[36:2]  ⁴ tn The verb כָּתַּר (kattar) is the Piel imperative; in Hebrew the word means “to surround” and is related to the noun for crown. But in Syriac it means “to wait.” This section of the book of Job will have a few Aramaic words.

[36:2]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew text simply has “for yet for God words.”

[12:8]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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).