Job 37:4-6

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 37:4 tn The verb simply has the pronominal suffix, “them.” The idea must be that when God brings in all the thunderings he does not hold back his lightning bolts either.
2. Job 37:5 tn The form is the Niphal participle, “wonders,” from the verb פָּלָא (palaʾ, “to be wonderful; to be extraordinary”). Some commentators suppress the repeated verb “thunders,” and supply other verbs like “shows” or “works,” enabling them to make “wonders” the object of the verb rather than leaving it in an adverbial role. But as H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 236) notes, no change is needed, for one is not surprised to find repetition in Elihu’s words.
3. Job 37:5 tn Heb “and we do not know.”
4. Job 37:6 tn The verb actually means “be” (found here in the Aramaic form). The verb “to be” can mean “to happen, to fall, to come about.”
5. Job 37:6 tn Heb “and [to the] shower of rain and shower of rains, be strong.” Many think the repetition grew up by variant readings; several Hebrew mss delete the second pair, and so many editors do. But the repetition may have served to stress the idea that the rains were heavy.
6. Job 37:6 tn Heb “Be strong.”