Job 6:16

They ¹  are dark ²  because of ice; snow is piled ³  up over them. ⁴ 

when darkened by thawing ice and swollen with melting snow,

Which are turbid because of ice And into which the snow melts.

when it is swollen with ice and melting snow.

From melting ice and snow cascading out of the mountains,

Which are dark because of the ice, and the snow falling into them;

that run dark with ice, turbid with melting snow.

Which are dark because of the ice, And into which the snow vanishes.

They ¹  are dark ²  because of ice; snow is piled ³  up over them. ⁴ 

¹ tn The article on the participle joins this statement to the preceding noun; it can have the sense of “they” or “which.” The parallel sense then can be continued with a finite verb (see GKC 404 §126.b).

² tn The participle הַקֹּדְרים (haqqodÿrim), often rendered “which are black,” would better be translated “dark,” for it refers to the turbid waters filled with melting ice or melting snow, or to the frozen surface of the water, but not waters that are muddied. The versions failed to note that this referred to the waters introduced in v. 15.

³ tn The verb יִתְעַלֶּם (yit’allem) has been translated “is hid” or “hides itself.” But this does not work easily in the sentence with the preposition “upon them.” Torczyner suggested “pile up” from an Aramaic root עֲלַם (’alam), and E. Dhorme (Job, 87) defends it without changing the text, contending that the form we have was chosen for alliterative value with the prepositional phrase before it.

⁴ tn The LXX paraphrases the whole verse: “They who used to reverence me now come against me like snow or congealed ice.”