Job 5:9

5:9 He does ¹  great and unsearchable ²  things,

marvelous things without ³  number; ⁴ 

Job 28:9

28:9 On the flinty rock man has set to work ⁵  with his hand;

he has overturned mountains at their bases. ⁶ 

Job 31:5

31:5 If ⁷  I have walked in falsehood,

and if ⁸  my foot has hastened ⁹  to deceit –

Job 33:29

Elihu’s Appeal to Job ¹⁰ 

33:29 “Indeed, God does all these things,

twice, three times, in his dealings ¹¹  with a person,

Job 36:25

36:25 All humanity has seen it;

people gaze on it from afar.

Job 41:4

41:4 Will it make a pact ¹²  with you,

so you could take it ¹³  as your slave for life?

[5:9]  ¹ tn Heb “who does.” It is common for such doxologies to begin with participles; they follow the pattern of the psalms in this style. Because of the length of the sentence in Hebrew and the conventions of English style, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[5:9]  ² tn The Hebrew has וְאֵין חֵקֶר (vÿ’en kheqer), literally, “and no investigation.” The use of the conjunction on the expression follows a form of the circumstantial clause construction, and so the entire expression describes the great works as “unsearchable.”

[5:9]  ³ tn The preposition in עַד־אֵין (’ad ’en, “until there was no”) is stereotypical; it conveys the sense of having no number (see Job 9:10; Ps 40:13).

[5:9]  ⁴ sn H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 54) notes that the verse fits Eliphaz’s approach very well, for he has good understanding of the truth, but has difficulty in making the correct conclusions from it.

[28:9]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew verb is simply “to stretch out; to send” (שָׁלח, shalakh). With יָדוֹ (yado, “his hand”) the idea is that of laying one’s hand on the rock, i.e., getting to work on the hardest of rocks.

[28:9]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew מִשֹּׁרֶשׁ (mishoresh) means “from/at [their] root [or base].” In mining, people have gone below ground, under the mountains, and overturned rock and dirt. It is also interesting that here in a small way humans do what God does – overturn mountains (cf. 9:5).

[31:5]  ⁹ tn The normal approach is to take this as the protasis, and then have it resumed in v. 7 after a parenthesis in v. 6. But some take v. 6 as the apodosis and a new protasis in v. 7.

[31:5]  ¹⁰ tn The “if” is understood by the use of the consecutive verb.

[31:5]  ¹¹ sn The verbs “walk” and “hasten” (referring in the verse to the foot) are used metaphorically for the manner of life Job lived.

[33:29]  ¹³ sn Elihu will repeat these instructions for Job to listen, over and over in painful repetition. See note on the heading to 32:1.

[33:29]  ¹⁴ tn The phrase “in his dealings” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation for clarification.

[41:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “will he cut a covenant.”

[41:4]  ¹⁸ tn The imperfect verb serves to express what the covenant pact would cover, namely, “that you take.”