Job 42

And Job answered יְהוָה and said 1

I know that you have all power 2
and thought is not withheld from you
"who is this secreting counsel without knowledge?" 3
therefore I told and I had not understood
things too wonderful for me and I did not know

hear please and I myself will speak 4
"and I will ask you and you make known to me"
of the hearing of an ear I had heard of you 5
and now my eye sees you
therefore I refuse 6
and I am comforted in dust and ashes

7 And it happened after יְהוָה had spoken the words - these ones - to Job
that יְהוָה said to Eliphaz the Temanite: my wrath burns in you and your two friends
- for you have not spoken of me what is prepared as has my servant Job.

8 And now take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams
and go to my servant Job and offer an offering for yourselves
and Job my servant will mediate for you
for if I lift up his face I will not do with you foolishness
- for you have not spoken of me what is prepared as has my servant Job.

9 and they went, Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite and they did as the word of יְהוָה to them and יְהוָה lifted up יְהוָה the face of Job.

10 And יְהוָה turned the captivity of Job when he mediated for his friends
and יְהוָה added to all that was Job's double.
11 And all his brothers and sisters came to him and all who knew his face
and they ate bread with him in his house and they lamented for him
and comforted him about all the evil that יְהוָה had made come on him
and they gave him each one qasita and each one gold ring.
12 And יְהוָה blessed Job's end more than his beginning
and it came to him fourteen thousand sheep
and six thousand camels
and a thousand pair of oxen
and a thousand she-donkeys.

13 And there were to him seven sons and three daughters
14 and he called the name of the first, dove,
and the name of the second cinnamon,
and the name of the third eye-shadow.
15 And there were no women found as fair as the daughters of Job in all the earth
and their father gave to them an inheritance among their brothers.
16 And Job lived after this one hundred and forty years
and he saw his children and his children's children to four generations.
17 And Job died old and sated of days.

42.7	prepared - cf wisdom in chapter 28:27 or those things prepared for us to walk in - a mystery of what is 'right' - established before all time. Cf 18:12. One could be concordant with a different word here also - perhaps established. The connotations of either are quite different from 'right'.
42.8	cf 6:13, 6:28
42.11	lament and comfort = 2:11

Job 41

What madness it is to finish this first pass!

You will drag Leviathan with a hook? 1
or with rope sink his tongue
can you set a bullrush in his nose 2
or with thorn pierce his cheek
will he make many supplications to you? 3
if he will speak to you tenderly
will he cut a covenant with you 4
will you take him for servant for ever

will you laugh with him as with a bird? 5
or will you bind him for your lasses?
will the associates bargain for him? 6
will they divide him among traders?
can you fill with thorns his skin 7
or with whirring fish his head

set on him your open palm 8
remember the battle and do not add to it
lo his waiting gives the lie 9
surely even to see him is to be repelled
not fierce is one that will rouse him 10
so who is he that before my face will present himself?
who receives me that I may repay him? 11
under all the heavens he is mine

I will not keep silence in his deceptions 12
nor the words of his power nor the beauty of his value
who will reveal the face of his clothing? 13
in his double bridle who will come?
the doors of his face who will open? 14
his surrounding teeth horrible
a growing stream of shields 15
shutting up the impress of trouble
one to one they approach 16
and spirit cannot come between them
each to its other clings 17
they are captured and not dispersed

his sneezing shines a light 18
and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn
from his mouth lamps walk 19
and a striking of fire escapes
he snorts forth smoke 20
as the beloved blows the bullrushes

his being enflames coals 21
and a flash from his mouth goes forth
in his neck lodges might 22
and in his face faintness dances
the flaps of his flesh cling 23
poured on him without slippage

his heart poured like a stone 24
so poured like the lower pierced grinding stone
from his height the pillars shrink 25
from the breaking they make themselves clean from sin
a sword taking hold of him is not set 26
shaft dart and javelin

he counts iron straw 27
as a rotten tree brass
the child of the bow does not make him flee 28
to stubble turned by him are stones from a sling
as stubble he counts a bludgeon 29
and he laughs at the quake of a spear

his underparts are sharp potsherds 30
he spreads cuttings in the dirt
he makes the ocean deep boil like a pot 31
the sea he sets as spices
after him is an enlightened track 32
he counts the depth gray-haired

in all dust is his parable 33
the one who is made without fear
all the exalted he sees 34
he is king over all the children of pride

41.6	To what extent is Leviathan a symbol of Christ?
41.10	the verbs rouse and present oneself are threads in the story.
41.11	Romans 11:35
41.12	value: heavily used in Leviticus
41.15	this is the work of Christ and reflects the wording again of chapter 3
41.20	the language is too full of double entendres to translate as if imagining a monster.
41.25	height: (13:11, 31:23) second connection with the language of Leviticus
41.30	=2:8 is there a shade of ridicule as in the medieval portraits of the dragon in Revelation
41.31	Song 5:13

Some colour for the season

Getting out for an evening walk is good therapy - even when you are too tired to start. Tonight we visited the rose garden and the spice garden at Government House - just a block from our place - where we are also working hard to restore the gardens that were here once. Our house was owned by the Butchart family for 30 years - so its garden should never have been allowed to become degenerate.

Here are a couple of snaps - 1. Two of three old roses I dug out of our northern wasteland - perhaps 70 year old climbers - loving their new location without all the encroaching ivy that we cleared out last year. The root on the near one was the size of a bowling ball - but much more full of life... There is hope for a tree. The fence is the second that my son Jeremy built for us.

2. The cleared northern wasteland with a few hopeful annuals - this used to be a fall of dead trees. More work to be done in the fall.

3. The climbing rose garden at Government House. There is also a new formal rose garden and the best views in Victoria - more snaps here on facebook.


4. The spice garden. You can see we have a lot of rebuilding to do. This is what I would like to see for our northern garden - but too many trees still to do quite such a sunny requirement.

Job 40

The first part of the last speech.

And יְהוָה answered Job and he said
will he who contends with the Sufficient be the mentor?
God's referee - let him answer(1)

And Job answered יְהוָה and he said
Lo I am slight, what will I return to you?
my hand I set over my mouth
once I have spoken and I will not answer
and twice - and I will add no more

And יְהוָה answered Job out of the whirlwind and he said
gird please as a warrior your loins
and I will ask you and you make known to me

Indeed will you frustrate my judgment?
will you make me wicked so you are righteous?
and if an arm like that of the One is yours
or with a voice like his you thunder -
adorn yourself please pride and exaltation
and splendor and honor - let yourself be clothed

Scatter the rage of your wrath
and see all the arrogant and cast them down
See all the proud and humble them
and tread down the wicked under them
conceal them in the dust as one
their faces bind in concealment
and even I myself will instruct
that salvation is yours by your right hand

behold please Behemoth which I made with you(2)
grass like an ox he eats
behold please his strength in his loins
and the vigor in the navel of his belly
he desires his tail - like a cedar
the sinews of his testicles are intertwined
his bones are a stream of brass
his reserve like bars of iron

he is the beginning of the ways of the One (3)
the one who made him can approach his sword (4)
for produce the mountains lift up for him (5)
and all the beasts of the field play there
under the shadows he lies
in the concealment of reed and swamp

shadows hedge by shades
willows of the torrent surround him
lo he oppresses a river and is in no hurry
he trusts that the Jordan will break in his mouth
with his eyes he takes it
in snares his nose curses

(1) In some areas I have failed concordance. The word in exactly this form occurs only here and in 9:33 where I also used referee. in the 13 other places in other forms I have used reprove, reproof, prove (13 times). Good raises the question of whether the poem implies that there is a third party who could mediate.
(2) Tur Sinai claims that Behemoth is simply 'the beasts' and not a single creature. He says the whole of the last speech is about one creature Leviathan, not identified till the middle of the poem. I can't find anyone who agrees with him. Pope has two pages of serious notes here - proving it is not the Egyptian hippo. Again we have plural antecedent with singular pronouns.(Curiouser and curiouser - said Alice!) . Good has a whole chapter I will reflect on later.

Chapter 40 has 24 verses in KJV and 32 in JPS. A little more investigation at Church this morning into the REB shows that they have two chapter 41's - one preceding chapter 40 consisting of 41:1-6, a complete non-sequitur to the eagles. The REB has marvellous English - but it isn't even close to the Hebrew in places and there is no attempt at concordance. So in chapter 3 Leviathan and in chapter 41, the same word is whale. In chapter 3 'the eyelids of the morning' and in chapter 41 the same phrase is translated 'the shimmering dawn'. If you do this, the English reader doesn't have a chance at seeing or hearing frame and thread.

I will not subject my first reading to dictatorial and undocumented textual changes or shifts and will go with two creatures, Behemoth and Leviathan. It is not important to try and identify these beasties. (By the way if we go with one monster he eats oxen like grass.)
(3) There is no doubt this poem is about creation.
(4) And of new creation - hidden in the sword that pierces the heart.
(5) Companion Psalm 67 - the produce of the earth.

Job 39

I push on to complete my first reading of Job. Here's a thesis for you. I think all the animals are important in the poem and may often be ciphers for human experience. I probably will not attempt to prove this flyaway thought quickly. I had a similar one with my first reading of the Song - that all the place names were like children playing train with cardboard boxes. The lover and beloved had no intentions of traveling.

Enjoy the animals

do you know the time of the birthing of wild goats of the rock?
the writhing of the hart can you preserve?
you number the months they fulfill
and you know the time of their birthing

they bow - their young in piercing
cramps they send out
their children are healthy
they increase in corn
they go forth and do not return to them

who sends the wild ass free?
and the bonds of the onager who opens?(1)
for whom I set the plain as his house
and his dwellings salt land

he laughs at the town crowd
the clamour of the oppressor does not hear
the mountain range his pasture
and after every green thing he seeks

will a wild bull consent to serve you?
or lodge at your manger?(2)
will you confine a wild bull with a cord in a furrow
to plough the valleys after you?
will you trust in him for great is his strength
or abandon to him your labour?
will you have faith in him to return your seed
and gather to your barn?

the wings of those that cry - the peacock
if pinion of stork and ostrich?
for she abandons to the earth her eggs
and in dust she warms them
she forgets that a foot may squeeze her
or the beast of the field may trample her

he makes her severe on her children as if not hers
idle her labour and without dread
for God has removed her wisdom
and did not apportion to her understanding
as when she lifts herself on high
she laughs at horse and rider

Did you give to the horse power?
did you clothe his neck with silken vibration?
can you make him quake as a grasshopper?
the splendor of his nostrils horrible
he digs in the valley and rejoices in strength
he comes forth to encounter a kiss of armor

he laughs at dread and does not break
and does not turn from the face of a sword
against him rattles a quiver
flash of shaft and spear

in quake and trouble he swallows earth
nor does he believe for the sound of the shophar
among shopharim he says aha!
and from afar he smells battle
thunder of chiefs and a shout of joy

by your understanding does a hawk fly?
stretch his wings to the south?
if by your mouth the eagle rises high
and that he sets his nest
rock he dwells and lodges
on the tooth of a rock and stronghold
from there he seeks (3) food
from afar his eyes look
and his eaglets suck up blood
and where the slain are, there is he

(1) onager - Pope must have the same Hebrew Latin concordance I have. Onager is quickly found on the web - a type of horse according to Wiki - pictures too.
(2) can't resist the allusion to the nativity stories: O magnum mysterium et admirabile sacramentum, ut animalia viderent Dominum natum jacentem in praesepio. (That link is worth following for the music.)
(3) lit. digs

Job 38

And יְהוָה answered Job out of the whirlwind and he said
who is this darkening counsel
in speeches without knowledge?
gird please as a warrior your loins
and I will ask you and you make known to me

where were you when I founded earth?
tell if you know understanding
who set her measure? for you know
or who stretched out on her a line?
on what is her pedestal sunk?
or who instructed her cornerstone?
when as one the stars of the morning sang
and all the children of God raised the alarm

or screened in the sea with doors
when he rushed breaking forth from the womb?
when I set out cloud for his clothing
and murk his swaddling clothes
and broke in pieces my decree
and set out bar and doors
and said - to here you will come and not add to it
and here cease the pride of your rubbling

from your days have you commanded the morning
made dawn know his place?
that he grasp the wings of the earth
to shake the wicked from her
transformed as clay by the impress
they present themselves as clothing
and their light from the wicked is withheld
and the exalted arm is broken

have you come to the springs of the sea
and in search of the depth have you walked?
have the gates of death been revealed to you
or the gates of obscurity have you seen?
have you understood to the breadth of earth?
tell if you know all these

where is this? the way of the dwelling of light?
and darkness - where is this - his place?
that you take him to his border
and that you understand the tracks of his house
you know - for then you were born
and the number of your days is many

have you come to the storehouses of snow?
or the storehouses of hail have you seen?
which I have spared for the time of trouble
for the day of approach and of war

where is this? the way the west wind is apportioned(1)
the east wind scattered over earth?
who divided a trench for the overflow?
or a way for the lightning of voices?(2)
to make rain on earth - no man
a wilderness where no human is
to satisfy desolation and waste
and sprout the bud of the tender herb

has the rain a father?
or who birthed the reservoirs of dew?
from whose belly came forth the ice?
and the bowl of the heavens - who birthed it?(3)
as a stone waters are withdrawn(4)
and the face of the depth is frozen

can you confine the ties of a star cluster?(5)
or the belt of Orion open?
can you bring forth constellations in his season?(6)
or the Great Bear on her children - can you guide them?
do you know the decrees of the heavens?
can you set out his dominion in the earth?(7)

can you raise your voice to the cloud
so abundance of waters covers you?(8)
can you send out flashes and they go?
and say to you - behold us!

who puts wisdom in the inward parts?
or who gives to the sense understanding?
who numbers the skies in wisdom?
and who lies with the skin-bottles of the heavens?
to pour dust into mold
and clods clung

will you hunt prey for the lion parent
and fill the life of the whelps?
for they bow in their habitations
they sit in the booth, their place of waiting
who establishes for the raven his provision?
for his babies to God cry out
they wander for lack of food

(1) Following TS re light as indicating an Aramaic word meaning west wind - a suitable parallel
(2) exactly as in 28:26 - the plural of voices is usually given as thunder. Only my stubbornness insists on voices...
(3) bowl - see also Job 21:20
(4) waters above the firmament?
(5) transposed letters and a moment of foolish creativity
(6) singular suffix, plural antecedent
(7) singular suffix, plural antecedent
(8) =22:11

What do you think you are doing!

No one has asked, but I think it is important to try and identify what I think I am doing when I translate.

First - Job is an intensely personal poem. It meets human emotion outside of the covenant framework. This is a contrast to the Psalms where I met both personal and corporate issues within the covenant framework.

Though Job is in the privileged and governing class, there is little focus with respect to governance and the corporate life of a nation or of Israel. So I work from within my own personal and individual frame in my assumptions about this poem and what I think it might mean. (So far I have largely held my peace on 'meaning'. When I complete, I will collect a few thoughts on such a topic.)

When I come to the details of content, I note especially those things that are in concord with my sense of God as love. This is a sensible reading. Experience that word 'sense'. My reading should appeal to feeling, touch, sensation, sound, rhythm, pattern, and those things that are known by the individual body as a sensing and sense-absorbing mechanism. This is a large part of the awakened individual's struggle with the goodness of creation.

Finally, my target is learning - for me, and for anyone who reads me. May novices lose their fear of translating and recognize the enormity of the decisions that are made on their behalf - and fear not to make a few themselves. May the expert, if any reads, see the types of confusion and error that creep into the best of efforts and see then how better to teach or approach the text.

With respect to concordant translation, my selections of word-root equivalences in Hebrew and English are in a constant state of revision. I am convinced that concordance is important for the sound and meaning of the text. Some concordance is more important than others. Words seldom used (2 to 5 times) and words used as threads (6 to 12 times) in the various conversations are critical. Words frequently used (50 times) are of lesser importance in this respect.

If only it was simpler!

Here is desolation, waste, and ruin - let's see how discordant I have been :( I fixed a bunch :)

יד עִם-מְלָכִים וְיֹעֲצֵי אָרֶץ הַבֹּנִים חֳרָבוֹת לָמוֹ	3.14	with kings and counselors of earth who built desolations for themselves supposedly unique - but see 14:11, 30.30
כא בְּשׁוֹט לָשׁוֹן תֵּחָבֵא וְלֹא-תִירָא מִשֹּׁד כִּי יָבוֹא	5.21	from the scourge of a tongue you will be withdrawn and you will not be afraid of ruin when it comes
כב לְשֹׁד וּלְכָפָן תִּשְׂחָק וּמֵחַיַּת הָאָרֶץ אַל-תִּירָא	5.22	at ruin and penury you will laugh and from the living of the earth you will not be afraid
יא אָזְלוּ-מַיִם מִנִּי-יָם וְנָהָר יֶחֱרַב וְיָבֵשׁ	14.11	waters fail from sea and stream desolate dries up
ג בְּחֶסֶר וּבְכָפָן גַּלְמוּד הַעֹרְקִים צִיָּה אֶמֶשׁ שׁוֹאָה וּמְשֹׁאָה	30.3	in want and in penury barren gnawing of drought yesterday desolate and waste - same word twice = 38:27
יד כְּפֶרֶץ רָחָב יֶאֱתָיוּ תַּחַת שֹׁאָה הִתְגַּלְגָּלוּ	30.14	as a broadside they burst on me beneath desolation they roll over me
ל עוֹרִי שָׁחַר מֵעָלָי וְעַצְמִי-חָרָה מִנִּי-חֹרֶב	30.30	my skin is black upon me and my bones scorched from dryness