Job 5:10

5:10 he gives ¹  rain on the earth, ² 

and sends ³  water on the fields; ⁴ 

Job 14:19

14:19 as water wears away stones,

and torrents ⁵  wash away the soil, ⁶ 

so you destroy man’s hope. ⁷ 

Job 24:18

24:18 ⁸ “You say, ⁹  ‘He is foam ¹⁰  on the face of the waters; ¹¹ 

their portion of the land is cursed

so that no one goes to their vineyard. ¹² 

Job 26:10

26:10 He marks out the horizon ¹³  on the surface of the waters

as a boundary between light and darkness.

[5:10]  ¹ tn Heb “who gives.” The participle continues the doxology here. But the article is necessary because of the distance between this verse and the reference to God.

[5:10]  ² tn In both halves of the verse the literal rendering would be “upon the face of the earth” and “upon the face of the fields.”

[5:10]  ³ tn The second participle is simply coordinated to the first and therefore does not need the definite article repeated (see GKC 404 §126.b).

[5:10]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew term חוּצוֹת (khutsot) basically means “outside,” or what is outside. It could refer to streets if what is meant is outside the house; but it refers to fields here (parallel to the more general word) because it is outside the village. See Ps 144:13 for the use of the expression for “countryside.” The LXX gives a much wider interpretation: “what is under heaven.”

[14:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “the overflowings of it”; the word סְפִיחֶיהָ (sÿfikheyha) in the text is changed by just about everyone. The idea of “its overflowings” or more properly “its aftergrowths” (Lev 25:5; 2 Kgs 19:29; etc.) does not fit here at all. Budde suggested reading סְחִפָה (sÿkhifah), which is cognate to Arabic sahifeh, “torrential rain, rainstorm” – that which sweeps away” the soil. The word סָחַף (sakhaf) in Hebrew might have a wider usage than the effects of rain.

[14:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “[the] dust of [the] earth.”

[14:19]  ⁷ sn The meaning for Job is that death shatters all of man’s hopes for the continuation of life.

[24:18]  ⁹ tc Many commentators find vv. 18-24 difficult on the lips of Job, and so identify this unit as a misplaced part of the speech of Zophar. They describe the enormities of the wicked. But a case can also be made for retaining it in this section. Gordis thinks it could be taken as a quotation by Job of his friends’ ideas.

[24:18]  ¹⁰ tn The verb “say” is not in the text; it is supplied here to indicate that this is a different section.

[24:18]  ¹¹ tn Or “is swift.”

[24:18]  ¹² sn The wicked person is described here as a spray or foam upon the waters, built up in the agitation of the waters but dying away swiftly.

[24:18]  ¹³ tn The text reads, “he does not turn by the way of the vineyards.” This means that since the land is cursed, he/one does not go there. Bickell emended “the way of the vineyards” to “the treader of the vineyard” (see RSV, NRSV). This would mean that “no wine-presser would turn towards” their vineyards.

[26:10]  ¹³ tn The expression חֹק־חָג (khoq-khag) means “he has drawn a limit as a circle.” According to some the form should have been חָק־חוּג (khaq-khug, “He has traced a circle”). But others argues that the text is acceptable as is, and can be interpreted as “a limit he has circled.” The Hebrew verbal roots are חָקַק (khaqaq, “to engrave; to sketch out; to trace”) and חוּג (khug, “describe a circle”) respectively.