Job 38:8-10

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 38:8 tn The MT has “and he shut up.” The Vulgate has “Who?” and so many commentaries and editions adopt this reading, if not from the Vulgate, then from the sense of the sequence in the text itself.
2. Job 38:8 tn The line uses two expressions, first the temporal clause with גִּיחַ (giakh, “when it burst forth”) and then the finite verb יֵצֵא (yetseʾ, “go out”) to mark the concomitance of the two actions.
3. Job 38:9 tn The temporal clause here uses the infinitive from שִׂים (sim, “to place; to put; to make”). It underscores the sovereign placing of things.
4. Job 38:9 tn This noun is found only here. The verb is in Ezek 16:4, and a related noun is in Ezek 30:21.
5. Job 38:10 tc The MT has “and I broke,” which cannot mean “set, prescribed” or the like. The LXX and the Vulgate have such a meaning, suggesting a verb עֲשִׁית (ʿashit, “plan, prescribe”). A. Guillaume finds an Arabic word with a meaning “measured it by span by my decree.” Would God give himself a decree? R. Gordis simply argues that the basic meaning “break” develops the connotation of “decide, determine” (2 Sam 5:24; Job 14:3; Dan 11:36).
6. Job 38:10 tn Dhorme suggested reversing the two verbs, making this the first, and then “shatter” for the second colon.