Job 40:13-15

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Job 40:13 tn The word “dust” can mean “ground” here, or more likely, “grave.”
2. Job 40:13 tn The verb חָבַשׁ (khavash) means “to bind.” In Arabic the word means “to bind” in the sense of “to imprison,” and that fits here.
3. Job 40:13 tn Heb “their faces.”
4. Job 40:13 tn The word is “secret place,” the place where he is to hide them, i.e., the grave. The text uses the word “secret place” as a metonymy for the grave.
5. Job 40:14 tn The verb is usually translated “praise,” but with the sense of a public declaration or acknowledgment. It is from יָדָה (yadah, in the Hiphil, as here, “give thanks, laud”).
6. Job 40:14 tn The imperfect verb has the nuance of potential imperfect: “can save; is able to save.”
7. Job 40:15 sn The next ten verses are devoted to a portrayal of Behemoth (the name means “beast” in Hebrew). It does not fit any of the present material very well, and so many think the section is a later addition. Its style is more like that of a textbook. Moreover, if the animal is a real animal (the usual suggestion is the hippopotamus), then the location of such an animal is Egypt and not Palestine. Some have identified these creatures Behemoth and Leviathan as mythological creatures (Gunkel, Pope). Others point out that these creatures could have been dinosaurs (P. J. Maarten, NIDOTTE, 2:780; H. M. Morris, The Remarkable Record of Job, 115-22). Most would say they are real animals, but probably mythologized by the pagans. So the pagan reader would receive an additional impact from this point about God’s sovereignty over all nature.
8. Job 40:15 sn By form the word is the feminine plural of the Hebrew word for “beast.” Here it is an abstract word—a title.
9. Job 40:15 tn Heb “with you.” The meaning could be temporal (“when I made you”)—perhaps a reference to the sixth day of creation (Gen 1:24).