Yahweh Challenges Job

¹ Then¹ Yahweh answered Job from the storm, and he said,

1. Hebrew “And”

² “Who is this darkening counsel by words without knowledge?

Yahweh Interrogates Job

³ ⌞Prepare yourself for a difficult task like a man⌟,¹ and I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

1. Literally “Gird up like a man your loins”

⁴ “Where were you at my laying the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you possess understanding.

⁵ Who determined its measurement? Yes, you do know. Or who stretched the measuring line upon it?

⁶ On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone,

⁷ when the morning stars were singing together and all the sons of God¹ shouted for joy?

1. Or “heavenly beings”

⁸ “Or who shut the sea in with doors at its bursting, when it went out of the womb,

⁹ at my making the clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band,

¹⁰ and I prescribed my rule for it, and I set bars and doors,

¹¹ and I said, ‘You shall come up to here, but¹ you shall not go further, and here it will set a boundary ⌞for your proud surging waves⌟’?²

1. Hebrew “and”
2. Literally “for the pride of your surging waves”

¹² “Have you ⌞ever in your life⌟¹ commanded the morning? Have you made the dawn know its place,

1. Literally “from your days”

¹³ to take hold of the earth’s skirts so that¹ the wicked might be shaken off from it?

1. Hebrew “and”

¹⁴ It is changed like clay under a seal, and they appear like a garment.

¹⁵ And their light is withheld from the wicked, and their uplifted arm is broken.

¹⁶ “Have you entered into the sea’s sources? Or have you walked around in the recesses of the deep?

¹⁷ Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of deep shadow?

¹⁸ Have you considered closely the earth’s vast expanse? Declare it, if you know all of it.

¹⁹ “Where then¹ is the way where the light dwells? And where then² is its place,

1. Or “Where exactly”
2. Or “where exactly”

²⁰ that you may take it to its territory, and that you might discern the paths to its home?

²¹ You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great.

²² Have you entered into the storehouses of the snow, or¹ have you seen the storehouses of the hail,

1. Hebrew “and”

²³ which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?

²⁴ Where then¹ is the way where the light is distributed, where he scatters the east wind upon the earth?

1. Or “Where exactly”

²⁵ “Who has cut open a channel for the torrents and a way for the ⌞thunder bolts⌟,¹

1. Literally “bolt of thunders”

²⁶ to bring rain on a land ⌞where no one lives⌟,¹ a desert ⌞where no humans live⌟,²

1. Literally “not a man”
2. Literally “not humans in it”

²⁷ to satisfy desert and wasteland, and to cause the ground to put forth the rising of grass?

²⁸ Is there a father for the rain, or who fathered the drops of dew?

²⁹ From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who fathered the frost of heaven?

³⁰ Like stone the waters become hard, and the faces of the deep freeze.

³¹ “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or can you loosen the cords of Orion?

³² Can you lead forth the southern constellations at their appointed time, or¹ can you lead the Bear with its children?

1. Hebrew “and”

³³ Do you know heaven’s statutes, or can you establish their rule on the earth?

³⁴ Can you lift up your voice to the clouds so that¹ a flood of water may cover you?

1. Hebrew “and”

³⁵ Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go? And will they say to you, ‘Here we are’?

³⁶ Who has put wisdom in the ibis,¹ or who has given understanding to the rooster?²

1. Or “inner parts”
2. Or “mind”

³⁷ Who can number the clouds with wisdom? Or¹ who can tilt heaven’s jars,

1. Hebrew “And”

³⁸ at the flowing of the dust into a cast and the clods cling together?

³⁹ “Can you hunt prey for the lion? And can you satisfy the hunger of strong lions

⁴⁰ when they are crouched in the dens, when they lie in the thicket in an ambush?

⁴¹ Who prepares for the crow its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and they wander around ⌞for lack of food⌟?¹

1. Literally “for no food”