Job 38:3-5

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 38:3 tn Heb “Gird up your loins.” This idiom basically describes taking the hem of the long garment or robe and pulling it up between the legs and tucking it into the front of the belt, allowing easier and freer movement of the legs. “Girding the loins” meant the preparation for some difficult task (Jer 1:17), or for battle (Isa 5:27), or for running (1 Kgs 18:46). C. Gordon suggests that it includes belt-wrestling, a form of hand-to-hand mortal combat (“Belt-wrestling in the Bible World,” HUCA 23 [1950/51]: 136).
2. Job 38:4 tn The construction is the infinitive construct in a temporal clause, using the preposition and the subjective genitive suffix.
3. Job 38:4 tn The verb is the imperative; it has no object “me” in the text.
4. Job 38:5 tn The particle כִּי (ki) is taken here for a conditional clause, “if you know” (see GKC 498 §159.dd). Others take it as “surely” with a biting irony.