Ayub 39:16-22

39:16 She is harsh ¹  with her young,

as if they were not hers;

she is unconcerned

about the uselessness of her labor.

39:17 For God deprived her of wisdom,

and did not impart understanding to her.

39:18 But as soon as she springs up, ² 

she laughs at the horse and its rider.

39:19 “Do you give the horse its strength?

Do you clothe its neck with a mane? ³ 

39:20 Do you make it leap ⁴  like a locust?

Its proud neighing ⁵  is terrifying!

39:21 It ⁶  paws the ground in the valley, ⁷ 

exulting mightily, ⁸ 

it goes out to meet the weapons.

39:22 It laughs at fear and is not dismayed;

it does not shy away from the sword.

[39:16]  ¹ sn This verb, “to deal harshly; to harden; to treat cruelly,” is used for hardening the heart elsewhere (see Isa 63:17).

[39:18]  ² tn The colon poses a slight problem here. The literal meaning of the Hebrew verb translated “springs up” (i.e., “lifts herself on high”) might suggest flight. But some of the proposals involve a reading about readying herself to run.

[39:19]  ³ tn The second half of the verse contains this hapax legomenon, which is usually connected with the word רַעְמָה (ra’mah, “thunder”). A. B. Davidson thought it referred to the quivering of the neck rather than the mane. Gray thought the sound and not the movement was the point. But without better evidence, a reading that has “quivering mane” may not be far off the mark. But it may be simplest to translate it “mane” and assume that the idea of “quivering” is part of the meaning.

[39:20]  ⁴ sn The same ideas are found in Joel 2:4. The leaping motion is compared to the galloping of the horse.

[39:20]  ⁵ tn The word could mean “snorting” as well (see Jer 8:16). It comes from the root “to blow.” If the horse is running and breathing hard, this could be the sense here.

[39:21]  ⁶ tc The Hebrew text has a plural verb, “they paw.” For consistency and for stylistic reasons this is translated as a singular.

[39:21]  ⁷ tn The armies would prepare for battles that were usually fought in the valleys, and so the horse was ready to charge. But in Ugaritic the word `mk means “force” as well as “valley.” The idea of “force” would fit the parallelism here well (see M. Dahood, “Value of Ugaritic for textual criticism,” Bib 40 [1959]: 166).

[39:21]  ⁸ tn Or “in strength.”