Job 6:17

6:17 When they are scorched, ¹  they dry up,

when it is hot, they vanish ²  from their place.

Job 38:31

38:31 Can you tie the bands ³  of the Pleiades,

or release the cords of Orion?

Psalms 147:18

147:18 He then orders it all to melt; ⁴ 

he breathes on it, ⁵  and the water flows.

Luke 12:55

12:55 And when you see the south wind ⁶  blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat,’ and there is.

[6:17]  ¹ tn The verb יְזֹרְבוּ (yÿzorÿvu, “burnt, scorched”) occurs only here. A good number of interpretations take the root as a by-form of צָרַב (tsarav) which means in the Niphal “to be burnt” (Ezek 21:3). The expression then would mean “in the time they are burnt,” a reference to the scorching heat of the summer (“when the great heat comes”) and the rivers dry up. Qimchi connected it to the Arabic “canal,” and this has led to the suggestion by E. Dhorme (Job, 88) that the root זָרַב (zarav) would mean “to flow.” In the Piel it would be “to cause to flow,” and in the passive “to be made to flow,” or “melt.” This is attractive, but it does require the understanding (or supplying) of “ice/snow” as the subject. G. R. Driver took the same meaning but translated it “when they (the streams) pour down in torrents, they (straightway) die down” (ZAW 65 [1953]: 216-17). Both interpretations capture the sense of the brooks drying up.

[6:17]  ² tn The verb נִדְעֲכוּ (nid’akhu) literally means “they are extinguished” or “they vanish” (cf. 18:5-6; 21:17). The LXX, perhaps confusing the word with the verb יָדַע (yada’, “to know”) has “and it is not known what it was.”

[38:31]  ³ 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).

[147:18]  ⁴ tn Heb “he sends his word and melts them.”

[147:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “he blows his breath.”

[12:55]  ⁶ sn The south wind comes from the desert, and thus brings scorching heat.