doubt the meaning of as vapor or mist, in distinction from rain itself which comes from it. But the has given tronble. "According to the vapor thereof," E. V.; "with its mist," DELITZSCH; zu Regen läutert sich's im Nebel, SCHLOTTMANN; wenn er in Nebel sich gehüllt, UMBREIT; Qui se fondent en pluie et forment ses vapeurs, RENAN. But the vapor is the preceding state. Vice, in loco, in place of, is a meaning of, of which NOLDIUS in his Concordance of particles gives a good number of examples. The one nearest to this is Gen. or xi. 3, bitumen for mortar, ph2 ¬pon, is formed. The subject of api, taken intransitively, is water drops. They distill into rain, that is, the water or vapor that was raised up called by the name of what it be comes. The primary sense of ppt is binding (whence D'p chains, ver. 8), compression, hence straining or condensation. They condense into rain, would be a good rendering if it would not seem to make Elihu talk too scientifically; and yet some such idea must have been in his mind. may TT the nimbus. The pronoun is by many referred to God: He spreadeth the light upon himself; but there is no need of this. It mars the parallelism, and makes very difficult the rendering of the second clause, which then must be taken in the same way. 44 Ver. 30. Whilst darkening; Taken participially to denote the close conjunction of the two acts. Lit., and He covers, that is, with darkness, as the context demands. The object covered (not that with which he covers) is the roots or depths of the sea. The other rendering is, He covereth himself with the roots of the sea. This is grammatically harsh, and makes the English or German more difficult to understand than the simple Hebrew. Such a rendering, in both clauses, seems prompted by Ps. civ. 2, "He covereth himself with light, although there is no personal or reflex pronoun there. But in that case the verb is ỳ, which, more strictly than 2, follows, in its government, the analogy of verbs of clothing, arming, etc. It is there, moreover, a description of creation, and there is no other object of the verb. Here the design of Elihu is simply to present phenomena, and the language, therefore, is demonstrative and optical instead of reflective. Some take the sense of the light (the lightning) covering the roots of the sea, so vividly that the bottom of the ocean is illuminated. No one, however, ever saw that, and it would have been wholly imaginative in Elihu, instead of an appeal to things visible, and con ceivable by all. Again, the roots of the sea, say some, is the water drawn up, though once lying in the depths (ver. 27), and God has a robe of double texture woven of light and the We may doubt whe ther the mind of Elihu in this grand optical description was in the mood for such a fine-spun conceit. Everything, too, both here and in the next chapter, goes to show that he making its approach in the distance. There is a contrast unspoke under the vivid emotion of an actual storm then doubtedly betwek thunderstrupes of ver. 30, but it is one who view it, or conceive it, in connection with the vicinity be taken, grammatically, as either the direct or the remote TT TT T: 39 Ver. 28. The heavens. D' is the poetical word for the skies, the high, attenuated expanse, from pr attrivit, comminuit, made smooth or thin, as yp from yp, to beat out like gold leaf, to spread out. See xxxvii. 18, and Ps. lxxxix. 7. 40 Ver. 29. Is there? This may be treated as a section by itself. After the general account of the rain comes a special description of the thunder-storm. 41 Ver. 29. The floatings, y. Comp. xxxviii. 16, suspensions of the cloud. It is, in both cases, the mystery of the clond hanging in the air, seemingly without support. We talk of gravity and think we have explained it. GESENIUS gives to where the sense of expansion merely, as in Ezek. xxvii. It would then refer to it as stationary, or in a tranquil state, reminding us of Graham's description: Calmness sits throned on yon urmoving cloud. This sets the two phenomena in contrast and gives more force to the allusion to the gathering storm in the 2d clause. 42 Ver. 29. Thunderings of His canopy. ; see xxxix. 7; Isai. xxii. 2. God is said to dwell which every black thunder-storm presents, especially to those of waters. It is the bright blazing in the heavens, and the dark horror, as the poet calls it, which it makes upon the face of the sea. See how Virgil pictures the the two things together, En. I., 90—89, -Micat ignibus ether,- Again En. III., 199-194: -Ingeminant abruptis nubibus ignes,- So Homer's Odyss. V., 294: ορώρει δ' οὐρανόθεν νύξ, And night rushed down the sky. 45 Ver. 32. O'er either hand. The Dual, D. 46 Ver. 32. Doth he wrap. П has here both its direct and remote object, and the sense is unmistakable. The light here is the lightning. It is the figure of the slinger 33 And giveth it commandment where" to strike. gathering up the cord around his hands, and taking a firm Ver. 32. Where to strike. 5, Hiphil participle here, admirably expresses the opposing object, that which comes in the way or causes a meeting. It seems strange that DELITZSCH should say that the Hiphil sense is lost in such rendering. He himself makes it, not the object, but the aimer, by virtue of the all-explaining beth essentire. The participle thus used as object becomes synonymous with vii. 20, only it is better here as more easily admitting the personificative idea, as though the thing hit were regarded, for the moment, as the adversary against whom the bolt is hurled. The verb in this Hiphil form appears most same image. It is so called because of the smoke ascending high in the air from the altar of incense and sacrifice. Comp. Gen. viii. 20, the ascent of Noah's offering; also such pas sages as Lev. vi. 2, p by viii. 11, .Ezek הָעוֹלָה הָעוֹלֶה py, "the cloud of incense going up." These passages are cited to show how easy and natural the image, and how difficult it is, in such a context to associate it with any other. Other views require changes in the text; for example, instead of p, some would read app, and then demand that it be regarded as equivalent to P governing (as a noun) and making it mean, arousing jealous wrath. This to make any sense requires hy (fem. of y) wickedness, and also that hy should expressively Isai, liii. 12, y'ib' D'yos?!, "and He (the have the sense against; thus taking it out of the obvious parallelism within the first clause. They say, too, is in the wrong place for it as a particle,-it should have come at the beginning of the clause. But the briefest consultation of NOLDIUS' Concord. Partic. would show that this is futile. See 2 Sam. xx. 14; Cant. i. 16; 1 Sam. ii. 7; Isai. xxvi. 9; Ps. lxx. 15, etc. It is frequently, as we here find Redeemer) interposed for the transgressors "-came between them and the bolt of justice, so that it might fall on Him. From the very nature of the verb y, its Kal and Hiphil must be very much alike in their general significance; the latter being only the more intensive. It is, in this respect, like the kindred verb 5, to meet, in which Kal, Piel, and even Niphal present nearly, the same idea. 48 Ver. 33. Of this. y; that is, the mark, the thing TT T: על עוֹלֶה it, when emphasizing a word as it emphasizes 46 עֶלְיוֹן kit, or the fact of hitting. Those who refer the pronoun to God, as in the other cases above, get into great confusion. It even of that which goeth up." Others take the text as it turns away the thought from the optical, or the direct pic-stands, but refer to God. But this is very difficult. ture, on which the speaker seems intent, to a kind of moralizing out of place and interrupting the effect. God does not go up in the storm. Still less fitting is the Ver. 33. The crashing roar. An error in respect | rendering im Anzug, on his approach (DELITZSCH) or im Zuge to 1 leads to a false view of y, or to the rendering (EWALD), on the march. is never used in such a way. friend, or thought, as some take it, whilst it so obviously Some of the Jewish commentators regard it as equivalent to means the sharp sound of the thunder when the lightning strikes near. See the use of it, Exod. xxiii. 17 for the wild, a supposed name of God, Hos. xii. 27, or to -the cheering or uproar of the camp, and especially Micah iv. 9. The latter place leaves no doubt of its meaning, or of its deMost High, so frequently used in Genesis; but that denotes position, height as rank, not ascension in any way. Some, folrivation, yn, lamma tha-ringni reangh, if we lowing ABEN EZRA, refer it to the rising storm, and the cattle foreboding its approach; but that disorders the time, and give to the something of that nasal tone with which the takes us away from the scene so vividly painted as present modern Jews pronounce it: "Why ringest thou out, breakest to the imagination at least, if not to the actual sense of the thou out, with that roaring cry, quare vociferaris vociferando persons addressed. It is something startling, as is shown by the close connection with the 1st verse of ch. xxxvii., and which any such retrospective reflections of the speaker would interrupt and impair. Others render friend: SCHLOTTMANN, Er zeigt ihm seinen Freund-Zorneseifer über die Frevler; but that besides requiring two changes in the text of the second clause, seems a sort of reflective moralizing which would hardly come between such vivid description preceding and immediately following. It seems too forced to be capable of defence even by the reasoning of so excellent a commentator as SCHLOTTMANN. UMBREIT renders is onomatopically like 77, only its guttural, especially if there is something nasal in it, makes it better adapted to represent a rough, hoarse, roaring, crashing sound, in which everything seems breaking to pieces. When in a thunderstorm there is heard that peculiar crash simultaneous with the vivid lightning blaze, we say immediately, that has struck somewhere, and very near. It immediately announces the effect, such as is not expected when the thunder is distant, though it may be very heavy, and the lightning very vivid. Hence we call it a report. well expresses this-tellsdeclares-puts it before us (1) in a way we cannot doubt. Ver. 33. The ascending flame. Here is another example where the most literal following of the words in their most literal sense, but with a sharp look to the context, furnishes the best guide in the interpretation. pp ny, the herds, even of the ascending: Unchanged the words give that and nothing else. is to be taken as just before in "y. There it is, "make report of it," that is, the striking. Here it is a making report (for belongs to both clauses) of something else described as cendens), de surgente, or de ascendente. But what is it that goth up? This is to be determined by the context, and the use of the participle in other passages of Scripture, or of the verb from which it comes. Connecting it with the TT lightning stroke in the first clause we can hardly help thinking of Gen. xix. 28, where "the smoke of Sodom" is pictured as “going up, (ny), like the smoke of a furnace," or of Joshua viii. 20, yn hyn, "and lo, there went up the smoke of the city." For similar imagery see Judg. xx. 40; Jerem. xlviii. 15, and other places. The name, too, given to the burnt offering, hy, with only a change of vowel to make it a participial noun, presents the " in the same way; but in the second clause goes very far off in rendering das gewachs, the plant, for which the places he cites Gen. xl. 10: xli. 22. furnish no warrant. Even if ever used in the Bible for a plant, it would be unmeaning here, and the construction he gives altogether ungrammatical. The epithet frightened, in the translation, gives only what is clearly implied, if the view taken of the passage be coreect, and so is it used by RENAN, though referring it to the cattle's foreboding of an approaching storm: L'effroi des tropeaux revele son approche. Others content themselves with rendering simply and safely de surgente, or de ascendente,, without any attempt at expla nation. But what is that which goeth up after the crash and the striking of the lightning? Not unfrequently do we witness what ought to give us the idea. It is when the lightning strikes anything that is highly combustible, a barn with grain, a stack of dry sheaves in the field, or, as it often does, the dry trees of the forest. It could not have been uncommon on the plains of Uz. In such a case the smoke and flame rise up almost immediately from the fierce in the mind of the translator, with the study of this passage. combustion. A sight of this kind strongly associates itself During a storm of terrific blackness a most blinding flash of zigzag chain lightning came down over a near hill. The terrible crash was simultaneous with it, and hardly had the reverberation ceased when up rose from a barn behind the hill a lurid column of pitchy smoke and flame ascending perpendicularly towards the heavens, like that which went up from the blasted plain of Sodom. It was, indeed, an awful sight, and had the fleeing cattle formed part of the scene, it would have been in closest conformity with the picture so vividly presented to us in these few Hebrew words. Taken as a whole, this portion of Elihu's speech (vers. 27-33) suggests most of the ideas which are prominent in VIRGIL'S description of the thunder-storm, Georg. I. 328: Ipse Pater, media nimborum in nocte, corusca Fulmina molitur dextra. fugere fer, et mortalia corda Per gentes humilis stravit pavor; ille flagranti Aut Atho, aut Rhodopen, aut alta Ceraunia, telo Dejicit; ingeminant Austri et densissimus imber. With the 4th and 5th lines of the above, compare Ps. civ. 32; He touches the mountains and they smoke. The difficulty of the passage gives the apology for so long dwelling upen it. 3 4 5 6 As under all the heavens He sends it forth,- Then after it resounds a voice, The glorious voice' with which He thundereth. One cannot trace them when their sound is heard. 1 Ver. 1. At such a sight. 18, yea at this. There is intimated the closest connection with what pre cedes. 2 Ver. 1. Leaps wildly. ], trepidavit, palpitavit. In Piel it denotes the sudden leap of the locust. 3 Ver. 2. Roaring. The first loud, rough crash. 4 Ver. 2. Reverberation. The succeeding sound, loud, yet lower in tone, literally muttering, rumbling, etc., deep barytone, like a low murmuring voice. One cannot trace them, that is, the thunder voices. In giving the verb the sense of holding back, DELITZSCH and UMBREIT make lightnings the object. But thunders, mentioned just before, is more properly the grammatical object, especially in the sense above given. The reference is to the rolling or reverberating thunder, "under the whole heavens," or all round the sky; unlike the sharp crash of the striking bolt which immediately announces itself (xxxvi. 33). It seems to be every where. We hear but cannot trace it. 9 Ver. 5. With his voice. The repetitions of the 6 Ver. 3. Sends it forth. Not from to direct, but word p are somewhat remarkable, although the Hebrew from to set free, let loose. 6 Ver. 3. Edges. Literally wings, extremities. 7 Ver. 4. Glorious voice. Lit., voice of his glory. To avoid the tautology, in the 3d clause it is rendered sound. 8 Ver. 4. Cannot trace them, Dapy?. GESENIUS gives it the sense retardavit, citing the Arabic (Conj. II.) which does not support him, since it simply means coming behind (pressit vestigia). DELITZSCH, following GESENIUS, renders, und spart die Blitze nicht; SCHLOTTMANN, nicht zogern die Blitze; UMBREIT, und er halt's nicht zurück. On the other hand EWALD gives it the sense of finding, tracing, investigating, though he seems to regard as its object the men to be punished, for which there is no authority. This, too, is the rendering of the VULGATE (non investigatur, taken impersonally), of Symmachus, and of the Peschito, which uses the very word, and with the sense of investigating, tracing, tracking, which it always has in Syriac. See the numerous examples in N. T., and especially Acts xvii. 27, seeking after God and tracing Him (apy used for the Greek naphoelav, feel after). So among the older commentators. Spy is a denominative or noun verb, and all its uses are easily traceable from the primary sense of py the heel; such as to go behind one (at his heels), to supplant, or trip the heel; hence to retard (impedire) should the context demand it. The most natural idea, however, belonging to the Piel, (as to the Syriac Pael) is that of tracking, investigating (from vestigium, a footstep). The same metaphor appears in the nouns; as in Cant. i. 8; Ps. Ixxxix. 52, and especially, as strongly suggested by this, Ps. lxxvii. 20: "Thy way is in the many waters, and thy footsteps (or thy tracings Here, ,עקבות Tapy, vestigia tua) are unknown," untraceable. however, it must be taken indefinitely as in the VULGATE: seems to allow such a thing better than the English. It may be regarded as coming from the anxiety of Elihu to impress the idea that the thunder in the storm now raging around them, is really, and not metaphorically merely, the voice of God impressing itself in the undulations of the air. This idea of an actual thunder-storm coming up, subsiding or passing off, gathering again (as seems to be represented in the two chapters) and finally terminating in the tornado from which breaks forth the unmistakable voice of God, furnishes a clue to much that is peculiar in the style of this portion of Elihu's speech. Especially in ch. xxxvii. does he talk like a man amazed and awed by the approach of terrible phenomena. In the intervals of subsidence, he moralizes as men are wont to do at such seasons. Every few moments his attention seems called to some new appearance, interrupting and confusing his language: "See there "-"hear that," etc. A darkness comes up, and he "cannot speak by reason of it" (ver. 19); it passes away and his eyes are drawn to a strange electric light approaching from the North. For this effect of the storm on Elihu's speech, see INT. THEISM, pp. 25, 26, 27, and note. 10 Ver. 6. Be thou upon the earth. DELITZSCH, falle erdwärts. In thus rendering, he goes to the Arabic ", decidit, delapsus fuit. GESENIUS, rue in terram; but as CONANT Well falling of the snow." Its quiet descent has ever given, in "this very poorly expresses the gentle says, fact, its most poetical image. Homer uses it II. III. 222, to represent the steady persuasion of true eloquence: Καὶ ἔπεα νιφάδεσσιν ἐοικότα χειμερίησιν, which Bryant so exactly as well as beautifully renders: "And words came like the flakes of winter snow." The thin light-breaking" cloud He scattereth. See Lucian's allusion to this, Eulogy of Demosthenes, sec. | production or generation. Frost, there, comes in the second 15. A modern hymnist uses it for its soothing or sedative effect. SCHLOTTMANN regards N as simply the imperative of the Hebrew substantive verb in its older form: Sei auf erden, LXX., γίνου ἐπὶ γῆς. 11 Ver. 6. Pouring rain. DỪA (geshem) as its very sound seems to indicate (gush, giessen) denotes the heavy rain when it seems to descend in floods, or almost in a body (Arabic D jism) as it were, or like a mass or weight (Arabic DU josham). 12 Ver. 6. Flooding rain. Lit. pouring of rains of his strength. In a compound expression of this kind, the Hebrew puts the pronominal suffix, generally, to the last noun, and uses it like an adjective. 13 Ver. 7. Sealeth up. Confines them to their homes clause (the hoar frost, from the idea of covering, or overspreading, as the manna (Exod. xvi. 14). In Gen. xxxi. 40, and Jer. xxxv. 30, p. is used generally for cold, as is shown by its being, in both places, the antithesis of heat. So Prov. xxv. 30: 77 01, in die frigoris. 20 Ver. 20. Firmly bound. pour, to become fused. Hence the idea of something metallic that becomes solid from a molten state: It comes more di TIT מוּצָק from יצק to rectly, however, if we can regard pr as deriving one of its senses from the cognate ', stabilivil, or suppose מָצוּק or 1. Compare pp, xi. 15, pan xxxviii. during the storms, that, under shelter, they may think of 38. Akin to these are the derivatives from py, as God's works, and give Him glory. Comp. Ps. xxix., where there is a like description of a thunder-storm as witnessed columna, 1 Sam. ii. 8 p.7 pp, and especially 1 Sam. xiv. from the sheltering temple: "He maketh bare the forests," 15, where it seems to denote a basaltic pillar of rock, so whilst, at every thunder peal, every one who sits in his named from the appearance of fusion such rocks obviously temple 1, is crying, glory." The scenic state here is not easily determined, but they were all probably in 19 Ver. 9. Mezarim. The word is left untranslated. It evidently means the North, though on what grounds is not easily seen. Lit., the scatterers, and DELITZSCH refers it to the boreal winds that disperse the clouds and bring clear cold weather. It is not the Mazzaroth of xxxviii. 22. 19 Ver. 10. The hoar frost is congealed. Lit. i gives; but the Hebrew in, is used as a substantive verb, like the German es gibt, for any mode by which the event is brought about. p is generally rendered ice, but that does not suit well the figure of breath. Hoar frost gives just the image: frozen vapor or moisture, such as that of descending dew, or of the breath congealing on a cold day as it is exhaled from the mouth. Ice, however, as the product of breath is not any easy conception. Congealed moisture may be taken as the general idea, whatever may be the degree or form of congelation as determined by the context. For this reason, in Job vi. 16, we have rendered it sleet (frozen rain) as agreeing best with the darkened floods and the snowflakes disappearing as they fall into them. The rendering crystal, Ezek. i. 32, is not primary, but comes from the sense of ice, which this word unquestionably has where the context demands it, as in xxxviii. 29, with its general words of present. Pa here is a clear case of the beth essentix. : .: : 21 Ver. 11. Drenching rain. Copious effusion. This verse has occasioned much difficulty. " has been derived from taken as equivalent to 1, and rendered purity, clearness, serenity. Then it has been taken as the subject of in its Arabic sense projecit, etc.: The serenity, or brightness (the clearing up), drives away, or precipitates the thick thunder-cloud. But this makes the two clauses express the same or a very similar idea. Others (like E. V.), take as a preposition, and as an abbreviation of '17, like (burning) for 19. Such an abbreviation would be still more likely with the preposition: for "17. The just the same way from 1. This makes a clear and suiArabic word copiosa irrigatio is just like it, and comes in table sense which is supported by E. V., and the majority, perhaps, of authorities. Some who take this sense of however, altogether change the idea by giving sense of loading or putting a load upon (with copious rain He loads the cloud) resorting to the Arabic word from which no such idea can be fairly abstracted. The sense, however, which the context demands, comes very easily from the Hebrew idea of, namely, weariness as in Deut. i. 12, and Isai. 1. 14, the only places where it occurs, but abundantly sufficient to fix its meaning. The idea of load is only passive or subjective, especially as it appears in the latter passage. The primary idea is molestia, defatigatio, and hence, exhaustion; by the copious flooding. He exhausts the or the dense heavy cloud. There would be an incongruity in the idea of loading (charging) the cloud by irrigation. That of exhaustion gives just the sense that best fits the whole verse, and this E. V. has well expressed by "He wearieth." the Ver. 11. Light-breaking cloud. The clouds through which the light is breaking. Heb. literally, cloud of his light. being in the construct state it cannot be rendered, His light disperses the cloud, though that would be a good sense, and in harmony with the general idea of the whole verse. There is, moreover, an evident contrast between, the dark dense storm cloud, and 1, the ordinary cloud, the cloud as it usually floats in the atmosphere, 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 26 In circling changes is it thus transformed," O Job! give ear to this; Be still and contemplate God's wondrous works. The wondrous works of Him whose knowledge has no bound? When from the South the land in sultry stillness rests? Dost thou with Him spread out the skies parallel with, thoughts, designs, and, consi lium (see also Prov. xxiv. 6), make it very clear. In regard to physical things it means just what we call laws (God's thoughts) though with a less pious meaning. The etymolo gical image is in harmony with this as derived from the pri חבל to bind (noun חבל mary sense of the verb a rope or string). ann, things or events tied together. God's counsels in the ligatures, linkings, or concatenations of nature. The earth and the skies belonging to it, above and around 20 Ver. 12. Sphere of earth. Lit., the world-earth: it. For this use of see 1 Sam. ii. 8; Ps. xviii. 16; "the morning cloud," Hos. vi., or "the passing cloud," Job vii. 9. The contrast is lost in many renderings. Its preservation, and the clear calling to mind of the phenomena that attend the breaking up of a heavy thunder-storm, lead us out of all difficulty. The symptom that the shower is nearly over is generally a sudden and unusual outpouring as though they or nimbus was emptying itself of all its contents. Very soon the clouds assume a lighter appearance. We say it is beginning to clear up, and in a short time we see them in motion with the light breaking out of them, and through them in all directions. 1 is indeed used for the lightning in a number of places, but here it would seem to be taken in its ordinary sense. Even should we render it His lightning cloud, as Dr. CONANT does, it would make no great difference in the general view: the cloud or clouds out of which His lightning had been playing. It is, however, more literal and more easy to render it as it stands, the cloud of His light-His illumined cloud, his light or lightsome cloud now almost transparent instead of dark and dense. The distinction is well given in the Article on Clouds, Am. Encyclopedia: "The nimbus (the here) having discharged its moisture, the lighter forms of clouds appear (the cirrus in some of its mo-3, "He caused it to discharge itself," that is the difications), whilst the fragments of the nimbus are borne along by the winds." There is a resemblance to this picture in the interpretation of the old commentators MERCERUS and DRUSIUS. Hanc appellat nubem lucis Dei, nubem qua dispulsa, lux et serenitas inducitur. 23 Ver. 12. In circling changes. 30, a circuit, a rerolving. It is, however, in causality, rather than in space movement. The latter idea of a turning round, or over, of the cloud, gives no clear meaning here. In the kindred word nap, as used 1 Kings xii. 15 (2 Chron. x. 15, :יז representing the same thing), it denotes a political revolu tion, a bringing about of events by a combination of physical and moral means, yet still, as here, ascribed to God's agency, as though the Scriptures made little of our distinction between natural and supernatural causation. It is here the series of changes through which these phenomena occur, taking in the whole process, from His "drawing up of the water drops," xxxvi. 27, the distilling from vapor to rain, ver. 28, to the discharge and clearing up of the storm as described in the verse above. 24 Ver. 12. Transformed. may refer to the cloud thus formed, or to the event as it comes out of this circuitous causation bringing things back to their former state. See note on the Niphal ], xxviii. 5, and the Hophal xxx. 15. The Hithpahel may sometimes present the idea of charges in space and motion, as in Ge. iii. 24, but in this place, and xxxviii. 14, the general idea of transformation, metamorphosis, or the causal turning of one thing, or one phenomenon, into another is to be preferred. : T 25 Ver. 12. Wise laws. in. The uses of this word in such places as Prov. i. 5; xi. 14; xx. 18, where it is cloud. It is an unnecessary loading of the sense beyond the requirements of NY, which, in Hiphil, is sometimes used in the manner of a substantive verb-to make a thing present, that is to make, to be, as in Job xxxiv. 11. From this comes the frequent Rabbinical usage of NKD as a verb of existence. 2 Ver. 15. Cloudy darkness. This rendering is given to y, not only as suiting the etymological idea, covering, overspreading, but also as best suggesting the wonder, or seeming miracle intended: the brilliant light radiating from so dark a source, like the sparks from the flint. 29 Ver. 16. Knowest thou the poisings. Comp. xxviii. 25, 26, and notes: the law for the rain. Here, as in xxxvi. 29, the wonder presented is that of the cloud remaining balanced in the air with its heavy watery load. 30 Ver. 17. In sultry stillness rests: Compare Isaiah xviii. 4: "I am still (MPN), and look out in my place, as when the dry heat is in the air, or like the cloud of dew in the heat of harvest." The South, the region of heat and thunder-storms. 81 Ver. 18. So like a molten mirror smooth. The true point of the comparison is lost when we connect with It rather refers to y', and the resemblance is, not in the strength, but in the expansion or apparent smoothness. חזקים 32 Ver. 19. Cannot speak aright. Lit., cannot arrange (words) by reason of (or before) the darkness. If there were nothing else, this would naturally be interpreted of mental darkness. So RENAN, who, however, gives a very fine rendering: Mais plutôt, taisons-nous, ignorants que nous sommes. But the thought again suggests itself that this is a real |