Job 38:31-41

38:31 Can you tie the bands ¹  of the Pleiades,

or release the cords of Orion?

38:32 Can you lead out

the constellations ²  in their seasons,

or guide the Bear with its cubs? ³ 

38:33 Do you know the laws of the heavens,

or can you set up their rule over the earth?

38:34 Can you raise your voice to the clouds

so that a flood of water covers you? ⁴ 

38:35 Can you send out lightning bolts, and they go?

Will they say to you, ‘Here we are’?

38:36 Who has put wisdom in the heart, ⁵ 

or has imparted understanding to the mind?

38:37 Who by wisdom can count the clouds,

and who can tip over ⁶  the water jars of heaven,

38:38 when the dust hardens ⁷  into a mass,

and the clumps of earth stick together?

38:39 “Do you hunt prey for the lioness,

and satisfy the appetite ⁸  of the lions,

38:40 when they crouch in their dens,

when they wait in ambush in the thicket?

38:41 Who prepares prey for the raven,

when its young cry out to God

and wander about ⁹  for lack of food?

Genesis 1:16

1:16 God made two great lights ¹⁰  – the greater light to rule over the day and the lesser light to rule over the night. He made the stars also. ¹¹ 

Psalms 147:4

147:4 He counts the number of the stars;

he names all of them.

Amos 5:8

5:8 (But there is one who made the constellations Pleiades and Orion;

he can turn the darkness into morning

and daylight ¹²  into night.

He summons the water of the seas

and pours it out on the earth’s surface.

The Lord is his name!

[38:31]  ¹ 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).

[38:32]  ² tn The word מַזָּרוֹת (mazzarot) is taken by some to refer to the constellations (see 2 Kgs 23:5), and by others as connected to the word for “crown,” and so “corona.”

[38:32]  ³ sn See Job 9:9.

[38:34]  ⁴ tc The LXX has “answer you,” and some editors have adopted this. However, the reading of the MT makes better sense in the verse.

[38:36]  ⁵ tn This verse is difficult because of the two words, טֻחוֹת (tukhot, rendered here “heart”) and שֶׂכְוִי (sekhvi, here “mind”). They have been translated a number of ways: “meteor” and “celestial appearance”; the stars “Procyon” and “Sirius”; “inward part” and “mind”; even as birds, “ibis” and “cock.” One expects them to have something to do with nature – clouds and the like. The RSV accordingly took them to mean “meteor” (from a verb “to wander”) and “a celestial appearance.” But these meanings are not well-attested.

[38:37]  ⁶ tn The word actually means “to cause to lie down.”

[38:38]  ⁷ tn The word means “to flow” or “to cast” (as in casting metals). So the noun developed the sense of “hard,” as in cast metal.

[38:39]  ⁸ tn Heb “fill up the life of.”

[38:41]  ⁹ tn The verse is difficult, making some suspect that a line has dropped out. The little birds in the nest hardly go wandering about looking for food. Dhorme suggest “and stagger for lack of food.”

[1:16]  ¹⁰ sn Two great lights. The text goes to great length to discuss the creation of these lights, suggesting that the subject was very important to the ancients. Since these “lights” were considered deities in the ancient world, the section serves as a strong polemic (see G. Hasel, “The Polemical Nature of the Genesis Cosmology,” EvQ 46 [1974]: 81-102). The Book of Genesis is affirming they are created entities, not deities. To underscore this the text does not even give them names. If used here, the usual names for the sun and moon [Shemesh and Yarih, respectively] might have carried pagan connotations, so they are simply described as greater and lesser lights. Moreover, they serve in the capacity that God gives them, which would not be the normal function the pagans ascribed to them. They merely divide, govern, and give light in God’s creation.

[1:16]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and the stars.” Now the term “stars” is added as a third object of the verb “made.” Perhaps the language is phenomenological, meaning that the stars appeared in the sky from this time forward.

[5:8]  ¹² tn Heb “darkens the day into night.”