[301] Cf. LXX.: Βαιθὴλ ἔσται ὡς οὐχ ὑπάρχουσα.
[302] The name Bethel is always printed as one word in our Hebrew texts. See Baer on Gen. xii. 8.
[303] Wellhausen thinks at Bethel not genuine. But Bethel has been singled out as the place where the people put their false confidence, and is naturally named here. LXX.: τῷ οἴκῳ Ἰσραήλ.
[304] Ver. 7 is plainly out of place here, as the LXX. perceived, and therefore tried to give it another rendering which would make it seem in place: ὁ ποιῶν εἰς ὕψος κρίμα, καὶ δικαιοσύνην εἰς γὴν ἔθηκεν. So Ewald removed it to between vv. 9 and 10. There it begins well another oracle; and it may be that we should insert before it הוי, as in vv. 18, vi. 1.
[305] Literally the Group and the Giant. כימה, Kimah, signifies group, or little heap. Here it is rendered by Aq. and at Job ix. 9 by LXX. Ἀρκτοῦρος; and here by Theod. and in Job xxxviii. 31, the chain, or cluster, of the group Πλειάδες. The Targ. and Pesh. always give it as Kima, i.e. Pleiades. And this is the rendering of most moderns. But Stern takes it for Sirius with its constellation of the Great Dog, for the reason that this is the brightest of all stars, and therefore a more suitable fellow for Orion than the dimmer Pleiades can be. כסיל, the Fool or Giant, is the Hebrew name of Ὠρίων, by which the LXX. render it. Targum ניפלא. To the ancient world the constellation looked like the figure of a giant fettered in heaven, "a fool so far as he trusted in his bodily strength" (Dillmann). In later times he was called Nimrod. His early setting came at the time of the early rains. Cf. with the passage Job ix. 9 and xxxviii. 31.
[306] The abstract noun meaning deep shadow, LXX. σκιά, and rendered shadow of death by many modern versions.
[307] So LXX., reading שׁבר for שׁד; it improves the rhythm, and escapes the awkward repetition of שׁד.
[308] So LXX.
[309] Possible alternative: make stagnant.
[310] Vision of Piers Plowman, Passus IV., l. 52. Cf. the whole passage.