Ayub 38:34-38

38:34 Can you raise your voice to the clouds

so that a flood of water covers you? ¹ 

38:35 Can you send out lightning bolts, and they go?

Will they say to you, ‘Here we are’?

38:36 Who has put wisdom in the heart, ² 

or has imparted understanding to the mind?

38:37 Who by wisdom can count the clouds,

and who can tip over ³  the water jars of heaven,

38:38 when the dust hardens ⁴  into a mass,

and the clumps of earth stick together?

[38:34]  ¹ tc The LXX has “answer you,” and some editors have adopted this. However, the reading of the MT makes better sense in the verse.

[38:36]  ² tn This verse is difficult because of the two words, טֻחוֹת (tukhot, rendered here “heart”) and שֶׂכְוִי (sekhvi, here “mind”). They have been translated a number of ways: “meteor” and “celestial appearance”; the stars “Procyon” and “Sirius”; “inward part” and “mind”; even as birds, “ibis” and “cock.” One expects them to have something to do with nature – clouds and the like. The RSV accordingly took them to mean “meteor” (from a verb “to wander”) and “a celestial appearance.” But these meanings are not well-attested.

[38:37]  ³ tn The word actually means “to cause to lie down.”

[38:38]  ⁴ tn The word means “to flow” or “to cast” (as in casting metals). So the noun developed the sense of “hard,” as in cast metal.