Job 38:2-4

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 38:2 tn The demonstrative pronoun is used here to emphasize the interrogative pronoun (see GKC 442 §136.c).
2. Job 38:2 sn The referent of “counsel” here is not the debate between Job and the friends, but the purposes of God (see Ps 33:10; Prov 19:21; Isa 19:17). Dhorme translates it “Providence.”
3. 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).
4. Job 38:4 tn The construction is the infinitive construct in a temporal clause, using the preposition and the subjective genitive suffix.
5. Job 38:4 tn The verb is the imperative; it has no object “me” in the text.