Job 37:8 | KD | STEP | For He saith to the snow: Fall towards the earth, And to the rain-shower And the showers of His mighty rain. 7 He putteth a seal on the hand of every man, That all men may come to a knowledge of His creative work. 8 The wild beast creepeth into a hiding-place, And in its resting-place it remaineth. 9 Out of the remote part cometh the whirlwind, And cold from the cloud-sweepers. 10 From the breath of God cometh ice, And the breadth of the waters is straitened. Like אבי, , and פּשׁ, , הוא, (is falsely translated “be earthwards” by lxx, Targ., and Syr.), also belongs to the most striking Arabisms of the Elihu section: it signifies delabere (Jer. ut descendat ), a signification which the Arab. hawâ does not gain from the radical signification placed first in Gesenius-Dietrich’s Handwörterbuch , to breathe, blow, but from the radical signification, to gape, yawn, by means of the development of the meaning which also decides in favour of the primary notion of the Hebr. הוּה, according to which, what was said on ; is to be corrected. . From this variously applied primary signification is developed the generally known and usual Arab. hawâ , loose and free, without being held or holding to anything one’s self, to pass away, fly, swing, etc., libere ferri, labi, in general in every direction, as the wind, or what is driven hither and thither by the wind, especially however from above downwards, labi, delabi, cadere, deorsum ruere. From this point, like many similar, the word first passes into the signification of sound (as certainly also שׁאה, שא): as anything falling has a full noise, and so on, δουπεῖν, rumorem, fragorem edere ( fragor from frangi ), hence hawat udhnuhu jawı̂jan of a singing in the ears. Finally, the mental Arab. hawan (perf. hawija , imperf. jahwâ with the acc.), animo ad or in aliquid ferri, is attached to the notion of passing and falling through space (though by no means to hiare , or the supposed meaning “to breathe, blow”). It is used both emotionally of desire, lust, appetites, passions, and strong love, and intellectually of free opinions or assertions springing from mere self-willed preference, caprices of the understanding. - Fl.) The ל of לשּׁלג influences also. The Hebr. name for rain, גּשׁם (cogn. with Chald. גשׁם, Arab. gism , a body), denotes the rain collectively. The expression is exceeded in , where מטרות does not signify rain-drops (Ew.), but, like the Arab. amtâr , rain-showers. The wonders of nature during the rough season (חרף, סתיו, Sol 2:11), between the autumnal and vernal equinoxes, are meant; the rains after the autumnal equinox (the early rain), which begin the season, and the rains before the vernal equinox (the late rain, Zec 10:1), which close it, with the falls of snow between, which frequently produce great desolation, especially the proper winter with its frosty winds and heavy showers, when the business of the husbandmen as of the nomads is brought to a stand-still, and every one retreats to his house or seeks a sheltering corner. This is the meaning of : He sealeth up (חתם בּ as ) the hand of all men that they cannot, viz., on account of the cold out of doors, be opened for work, that all people of His work (i.e., thanking Him for their origin as His handiwork, ) may come to the perception (of Him who doeth all things). The expression is remarkable, and by the insertion of a m may be as easily cleared up as : לדעת כּל־אנשׁים מעשׂהוּ, in order that each and every one may acknowledge His work; after which even Jer. translates: ut noverint singuli opera sua . The conjecture אנשׁים עשׂהוּ (Schultens junior, Reiske, Hirz.) is inferior to the former (Olsh.) by its awkward synecdoche num . The fut. consec. in continues the description of what happens in consequence of the cold rainy season; the expression calls to mind , as Job 34:14. does Psa 104:29. The winter is also the time of the stormy and raw winds. In Elihu means the storms which come across from the great wide desert, , therefore the south ( ; Zec 9:14), or rather south-east winds (Hos 13:15), increasing in violence to storms. החדר (properly the surrounded, enclosed space, never the storehouse, - so that should be compared, - but adytum, penetrale, as Arab. chidr , e.g., in Vita Timuri ii. 904: after the removal of the superincumbent earth, they drew away sitr chidrihâ , the curtain of its innermost part, i.e., uncovered its lowest depth) is here the innermost part of the south (south-east), - comp. חדרי תימן, and יעטף ימין (so far as יעטף there signifies si operiat se ), - especially of the great desert lying to the south (south-east), according to which ארץ חדרך, Zec 9:1, is translated by the Targ. דרומא ארעא. In opposition to the south-east wind, מזרים, , seems to mean the north winds; in and of itself, however, the word signifies the scattering or driving, as also in the Koran the winds are called the scatterers, dhârijât , Sur. li. 1. In מזרים, Reiske, without any ground for it, traces the Arab. mirzam (a name of two stars, from which north wind, rain, and cold are derived); the Targ. also has one of the constellations in view: מכּוּת מזרים (from the window, i.e., the window of the vault of heaven, of the mezarim ); Aq., Theod. ἀπὸ μαζούρ (= מזרות, ); lxx ἀπὸ δὲ τῶν ἀκρωτηρίων, we know not wherefore. Concerning מנּשׁמת־אל (with causal מן) with reference to the wind, vid., on Job 4:15. יתּן, it gives, i.e., comes to light, is used as in ; Pro 13:10. The idea of מוּצק (not fusum from יצק, but coarctatum from צוּק) cannot be doubtful in connection with the antithesis of רחב, comp. , the idea is like (comp. Mutenebbi: “the flood is bound by bands of ice”); the בּ of בּמוּצק is, as , the Beth essentiae, used far more extensively in Hebr. than in Arab. as an exponent of the predicate: the breadth of the water is (becomes) straitened (forcibly drawn together).

‏ Job 37:8

Job 37:6-10 6 For He saith to the snow: Fall towards the earth,

And to the rain-shower

And the showers of His mighty rain. 7 He putteth a seal on the hand of every man,

That all men may come to a knowledge of His creative work. 8 The wild beast creepeth into a hiding-place,

And in its resting-place it remaineth. 9 Out of the remote part cometh the whirlwind,

And cold from the cloud-sweepers. 10 From the breath of God cometh ice,

And the breadth of the waters is straitened.

Like אבי, Job 34:36, and פּשׁ, Job 35:15, הוא, Job 37:6 (is falsely translated “be earthwards” by lxx, Targ., and Syr.), also belongs to the most striking Arabisms of the Elihu section: it signifies delabere (Jer. ut descendat), a signification which the Arab. hawâ does not gain from the radical signification placed first in Gesenius-Dietrich’s Handwörterbuch, to breathe, blow, but from the radical signification, to gape, yawn, by means of the development of the meaning which also decides in favour of the primary notion of the Hebr. הוּה, according to which, what was said on Job 6:2; Job 30:13 is to be corrected. ^{▼▼Arab. hawâ is originally χαίνειν, to gape, yawn, hiare, e.g., hawat et - ta‛natu , the stab gapes (imperf. tahwı̂, inf. huwı̂jun), “when it opens its mouth” - the Turkish Kamus adds, to complete the picture: like a tulip. Thence next hâwijatun, χαίνουσα χαῖνον, i.e., χᾶσμα = hûwatun , uhwı̂jatun , huwâatun , mahwâtun , a cleft, yawning deep, chasm, abyss, βάραθρον, vorago; hawı̂jatun and hauhâtun (a reduplicated form), especially a very deep pit or well. But these same words, hâwijatun , hûwatun , uhwı̂jatun , mahwâtun , also signify, like the usual Arab. hawa'â'un, the χάσμα between heaven and earth, i.e., the wide, empty space, the same as 'gauwun. The wider significations, or rather applications and references of hawâ: air set in motion, a current of air, wind, weather, are all secondary, and related to that primary signification as samâ, rain-clouds, rain, grass produced by the rain, to the prim. signification height, heaven, vid., Mehren, Rhetorik d. Araber, S. 107, Z. 14ff. This hawâ, however, also signifies in general: a broad, empty space, and by transferring the notion of “empty” to mind and heart, as the reduplicated forms hûhatun and hauhâtun: devoid of understanding and devoid of courage, e.g., Koran xiv. 44: wa - af'i - datuhum hawâun , where Bedhâwî first explains hawâ directly by chalâ, emptiness, empty space, i.e., as he adds, châlijetun ‛an el - fahm , as one says of one without mind and courage qalbuhu hawâun . Thence also hauwun, emptiness, a hole, i.e., in a wall or roof, a dormar-window (kauwe , kûwe), but also with the genit. of a person or thing: their hole, i.e., the space left empty by them, the side not taken up by them, e.g., qa‛ada fi hauwihi , he set himself beside him. From the signification to be empty then comes (1) hawat el - mar'atu , i.e., vacua fuit mulier = orba oiberis, as χήρα, vidua, properly empty, French vide; (2) hawâ er - ragulu , i.e., vacuus, inanis factus est vir = exanimatus (comp. Arab. frg, he became empty, euphemistic for he died}.

From this variously applied primary signification is developed the generally known and usual Arab. hawâ, loose and free, without being held or holding to anything one’s self, to pass away, fly, swing, etc., libere ferri, labi, in general in every direction, as the wind, or what is driven hither and thither by the wind, especially however from above downwards, labi, delabi, cadere, deorsum ruere. From this point, like many similar, the word first passes into the signification of sound (as certainly also שׁאה, שא): as anything falling has a full noise, and so on, δουπεῖν, rumorem, fragorem edere (fragor from frangi), hence hawat udhnuhu jawı̂jan of a singing in the ears.

Finally, the mental Arab. hawan (perf. hawija, imperf. jahwâ with the acc.), animo ad or in aliquid ferri, is attached to the notion of passing and falling through space (though by no means to hiare, or the supposed meaning “to breathe, blow”). It is used both emotionally of desire, lust, appetites, passions, and strong love, and intellectually of free opinions or assertions springing from mere self-willed preference, caprices of the understanding. - Fl.)

The ל of לשּׁלג influences Job 37:6 also. The Hebr. name for rain, גּשׁם (cogn. with Chald. גשׁם, Arab. gism, a body), denotes the rain collectively. The expression Job 37:6 is exceeded in Job 37:6, where מטרות does not signify rain-drops (Ew.), but, like the Arab. amtâr, rain-showers. The wonders of nature during the rough season (חרף, סתיו, Sol 2:11), between the autumnal and vernal equinoxes, are meant; the rains after the autumnal equinox (the early rain), which begin the season, and the rains before the vernal equinox (the late rain, Zec 10:1), which close it, with the falls of snow between, which frequently produce great desolation, especially the proper winter with its frosty winds and heavy showers, when the business of the husbandmen as of the nomads is brought to a stand-still, and every one retreats to his house or seeks a sheltering corner.

This is the meaning of Job 37:7 : He sealeth up (חתם בּ as Job 33:16) the hand of all men that they cannot, viz., on account of the cold out of doors, be opened for work, that all people of His work (i.e., thanking Him for their origin as His handiwork, Job 34:19) may come to the perception (of Him who doeth all things). The expression is remarkable, and by the insertion of a m may be as easily cleared up as Job 33:17 : לדעת כּל־אנשׁים מעשׂהוּ, in order that each and every one may acknowledge His work; after which even Jer. translates: ut noverint singuli opera sua. The conjecture אנשׁים עשׂהוּ (Schultens junior, Reiske, Hirz.) is inferior to the former (Olsh.) by its awkward synecdoche num. The fut. consec. in Job 37:8 continues the description of what happens in consequence of the cold rainy season; the expression calls to mind Psa 104:22, as Job 34:14. does Psa 104:29. The winter is also the time of the stormy and raw winds. In Job 37:9 Elihu means the storms which come across from the great wide desert, Job 1:19, therefore the south (Isa 21:1; Zec 9:14), or rather south-east winds (Hos 13:15), increasing in violence to storms. החדר (properly the surrounded, enclosed space, never the storehouse, - so that Psa 135:7 should be compared, - but adytum, penetrale, as Arab. chidr , e.g., in Vita Timuri ii. 904: after the removal of the superincumbent earth, they drew away sitr chidrihâ , the curtain of its innermost part, i.e., uncovered its lowest depth) is here the innermost part of the south (south-east), - comp. Job 9:9 חדרי תימן, and Job 23:9 יעטף ימין (so far as יעטף there signifies si operiat se), - especially of the great desert lying to the south (south-east), according to which ארץ חדרך, Zec 9:1, is translated by the Targ. דרומא ארעא. In opposition to the south-east wind, מזרים, Job 37:9, seems to mean the north winds; in and of itself, however, the word signifies the scattering or driving, as also in the Koran the winds are called the scatterers, dhârijât , Sur. li. 1. ^{▼▼This dhârijât is also differently explained; but the first explanation in Beidhâwi (ii. 183, Fleischer’s edition) is, “the winds which scatter (blow away) the dust and other things.”}

In מזרים, Reiske, without any ground for it, traces the Arab. mirzam (a name of two stars, from which north wind, rain, and cold are derived); the Targ. also has one of the constellations in view: מכּוּת מזרים (from the window, i.e., the window of the vault of heaven, of the mezarim); Aq., Theod. ἀπὸ μαζούρ (= מזרות, Job 38:32); lxx ἀπὸ δὲ τῶν ἀκρωτηρίων, we know not wherefore. Concerning מנּשׁמת־אל (with causal מן) with reference to the wind, vid., on Job 4:15. יתּן, it gives, i.e., comes to light, is used as in Gen 38:28; Pro 13:10. The idea of מוּצק (not fusum from יצק, but coarctatum from צוּק) cannot be doubtful in connection with the antithesis of רחב, comp. Job 36:16, the idea is like Job 38:30 (comp. Mutenebbi: “the flood is bound by bands of ice”); the בּ of בּמוּצק is, as Job 36:32, the Beth essentiae, used far more extensively in Hebr. than in Arab. as an exponent of the predicate: the breadth of the water is (becomes) straitened (forcibly drawn together).