Ayub 38:29-31

38:29 From whose womb does the ice emerge,

and the frost from the sky, ¹  who gives birth to it,

38:30 when the waters become hard ²  like stone,

when the surface of the deep is frozen solid?

38:31 Can you tie the bands ³  of the Pleiades,

or release the cords of Orion?

[38:29]  ¹ tn Or “heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[38:30]  ² tn Several suggest that the verb is not from חָבָא (khava’, “to hide”) but from a homonym, “to congeal.” This may be too difficult to support, however.

[38:31]  ³ tn This word is found here and in 1 Sam 15:32. Dhorme suggests, with others, that there has been a metathesis (a reversal of consonants), and it is the same word found in Job 31:36 (“bind”). G. R. Driver takes it as “cluster” without changing the text (“Two astronomical passages in the Old Testament,” JTS 7 [1956] :3).