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Job 23:8
New English Translation
Job 23:8
New English Translation
The Inaccessibility and Power of God
8 “If I go to the east, he is not there,
and to the west, yet I do not perceive him.
Job 23:9
New English Translation
Job 23:9
New English Translation
9 In the north[a] when he is at work,[b]
I do not see him;[c]
when he turns[d] to the south,
I see no trace of him.
Footnotes
- Job 23:9 sn The text has “the left hand,” the Semitic idiom for directions. One faces the rising sun, and so left is north, right is south.
- Job 23:9 tc The form בַּעֲשֹׂתוֹ (baʿasoto) would be the temporal clause using the infinitive construct with a pronoun (subject genitive). This would be “when he works.” Several follow the Syriac with “I seek him.” The LXX has “[when] he turns.” R. Gordis (Job, 261) notes that there is no need to emend the text; he shows a link to the Arabic cognate ghasa, “to cover.” To him this is a perfect parallel to יַעְטֹף (yaʿtof, “covers himself”).
- Job 23:9 tn The verb is the apocopated form of the imperfect. The object is supplied.
- Job 23:9 tn The MT has “he turns,” but the Syriac and Vulgate have “I turn.”
Psalm 139:15
New English Translation
Psalm 139:15
New English Translation
15 my bones were not hidden from you,
when[a] I was made in secret
and sewed together in the depths of the earth.[b]
Footnotes
- Psalm 139:15 tc The Hebrew term אֲשֶׁר (ʾasher, “which”) should probably be emended to כֲּאַשֶׁר (kaʾasher, “when”). The כ (kaf) may have been lost by haplography (note the kaf at the end of the preceding form).
- Psalm 139:15 sn The phrase depths of the earth may be metaphorical (euphemistic) or it may reflect a prescientific belief about the origins of the embryo deep beneath the earth’s surface (see H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 96-97). Job 1:21 also closely associates the mother’s womb with the earth.
Ecclesiastes 11:5
New English Translation
Ecclesiastes 11:5
New English Translation
5 Just as you do not know the path[a] of the wind,
or how the bones form[b] in the womb of a pregnant woman,[c]
so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.
Footnotes
- Ecclesiastes 11:5 tn Heb “what is the way of the wind.” Some take these words with what follows: “how the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a pregnant woman.” There is debate whether הָרוּחַ מַה־דֶּרֶךְ(mah derekh haruakh) refers to the wind (“the path of the wind”) or the human spirit of a child in the mother’s womb (“how the spirit comes”). The LXX understood it as the wind: “the way of the wind” (ἡ ὁδὸς τοῦ πνεύματος, hē hodos tou pneumatos); however, the Targum and Vulgate take it as the human spirit. The English versions are divided: (1) spirit: “the way of the spirit” (KJV, YLT, Douay); “the breath of life” (NAB); “how a pregnant woman comes to have…a living spirit in her womb” (NEB); “how the lifebreath passes into the limbs within the womb of the pregnant woman” (NJPS); “how the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child” (RSV); “how the breath comes to the bones in the mother’s womb” (NRSV); and (2) wind: “the way of the wind” (ASV, RSV margin); “the path of the wind” (NASB, NIV); and “how the wind blows” (MLB, Moffatt).
- Ecclesiastes 11:5 tn The term “form” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarity and smoothness.
- Ecclesiastes 11:5 tn Heb “the one who is full.” The feminine adjective מְלֵאָה (meleʾah, from מָלֵא, maleʾ, “full”) is used as a substantive referring to a pregnant woman whose womb is filled with her infant (HALOT 584 s.v. מָלֵא 2; BDB 571 s.v. מָלֵא). This term is used in reference to a pregnant woman in later Hebrew (HALOT 584 s.v. מָלֵא). The LXX understood the term in this sense: κυοφορούσης (kuophorousēs, “pregnant woman”).
New English Translation (NET)
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