Maurer and Gesenius translate verse 4 in a way wonderfully in accord with my theory: "The flood breaketh out from the inhabitants," they render, "a shaft, (or gulley-like pit,) is broken open far from the inhabitant, the dweller on the surface of the earth."[1] This is doubtless the pit in which Job was bidden, the narrow-mouthed, bottomless cave, referred to hereafter. And the words, "forgotten of the foot," confirm this view, for the high authorities, just cited, tell us that these words mean literally, "unsupported by the foot THEY HANG BY ROPES IN DESCENDING; they are dried up; they are gone away from men."[2]
Here we have, probably, a picture of Job and his companions descending by ropes into some great cavern, "dried up" by the heat, seeking refuge, far from the habitations of men, in some "deep shaft or gulley-like pit."
And the words, "they are gone away from men," Maurer and Gesenius translate, "far from men they move with uncertain steps--they stagger." They are stumbling through the darkness, hurrying to a place of refuge, precisely as narrated in the Central American legends.
[1. Fausset's "Commentaries," vol. iii, p. 66.
2. Ibid.]
{p. 303}
This is according to the King James version, but the Douay version gives it as follows:
"3. He hath set a time for darkness, and the end of all things he considereth; the stone also that is in the dark, and the shadow of death.
"4. The flood divideth from the people that are on their journey, those whom the foot of the needy man hath forgotten, and those who cannot be come at.
5. The land out of which bread grew in its place, hath been overturned with fire."