14:5 Since man’s days 1 are determined, 2
the number of his months is under your control; 3
you have set his limit 4 and he cannot pass it.
22:15 Will you keep to the old path 5
that evil men have walked –
28:4 Far from where people live 6 he sinks a shaft,
in places travelers have long forgotten, 7
far from other people he dangles and sways. 8
28:26 When he imposed a limit 9 for the rain,
and a path for the thunderstorm, 10
1 tn Heb “his days.”
2 tn The passive participle is from חָרַץ (kharats), which means “determined.” The word literally means “cut” (Lev 22:22, “mutilated”). E. Dhorme, (Job, 197) takes it to mean “engraved” as on stone; from a custom of inscribing decrees on tablets of stone he derives the meaning here of “decreed.” This, he argues, is parallel to the way חָקַק (khaqaq, “engrave”) is used. The word חֹק (khoq) is an “ordinance” or “statute”; the idea is connected to the verb “to engrave.” The LXX has “if his life should be but one day on the earth, and his months are numbered by him, you have appointed him for a time and he shall by no means exceed it.”
3 tn Heb “[is] with you.” This clearly means under God’s control.
4 tn The word חֹק (khoq) has the meanings of “decree, decision, and limit” (cf. Job 28:26; 38:10).
5 tn The “old path” here is the way of defiance to God. The text in these two verses is no doubt making reference to the flood in Genesis, one of the perennial examples of divine judgment.
9 tc The first part of this verse, “He cuts a shaft far from the place where people live,” has received a lot of attention. The word for “live” is גָּר (gar). Some of the proposals are: “limestone,” on the basis of the LXX; “far from the light,” reading נֵר (ner); “by a foreign people,” taking the word to means “foreign people”; “a foreign people opening shafts”; or taking gar as “crater” based on Arabic. Driver puts this and the next together: “a strange people who have been forgotten cut shafts” (see AJSL 3 [1935]: 162). L. Waterman had “the people of the lamp” (“Note on Job 28:4,” JBL 71 [1952]: 167ff). And there are others. Since there is really no compelling argument in favor of one of these alternative interpretations, the MT should be preserved until shown to be wrong.
10 tn Heb “forgotten by the foot.” This means that there are people walking above on the ground, and the places below, these mines, are not noticed by the pedestrians above.
11 sn This is a description of the mining procedures. Dangling suspended from a rope would be a necessary part of the job of going up and down the shafts.
13 tn Or “decree.”
14 tn Or “thunderbolt,” i.e., lightning. Heb “the roaring of voices/sounds,” which describes the nature of the storm.