Ayub 15:8

15:8 Do you listen in on God’s secret council? ¹ 

Do you limit ²  wisdom to yourself?

Ayub 27:9

27:9 Does God listen to his cry

when distress overtakes him?

Ayub 31:8

31:8 then let me sow ³  and let another eat,

and let my crops ⁴  be uprooted.

Ayub 38:28

38:28 Does the rain have a father,

or who has fathered the drops of the dew?

[15:8]  ¹ tn The meaning of סוֹד (sod) is “confidence.” In the context the implication is “secret counsel” of the Lord God (see Jer 23:18). It is a question of confidence on the part of God, that only wisdom can know (see Prov 8:30,31). Job seemed to them to claim to have access to the mind of God.

[15:8]  ² tn In v. 4 the word meant “limit”; here it has a slightly different sense, namely, “to reserve for oneself.”

[31:8]  ³ tn The cohortative is often found in the apodosis of the conditional clause (see GKC 320 §108.f).

[31:8]  ⁴ tn The word means “what sprouts up” (from יָצָא [yatsa’] with the sense of “sprout forth”). It could refer metaphorically to children (and so Kissane and Pope), as well as in its literal sense of crops. The latter fits here perfectly.