[50]. So Lightfoot (see Lowth, Prælect. xxxii.).
[51]. Le livre de Job, p. liv.
[52]. Davidson, The Book of Job, p. xlv.
[53]. See Sayce on ‘Babylonian Astronomy’ (Translations of Soc. of Bibl. Archæology, 1874); Lenormant, La magic chez les Chaldéens, and his Syllabaires cunéiformes (1876), p. 48.
[54]. This is not mere ‘patriarchal simplicity’ (Renan, p. lvi.), but a contradiction of the mythic view that a nature god like Baal is the ‘father’ or producer of the rain and the crops (see Cheyne, Isaiah, ed. 3, i. 28, 294, ii. 295). Elihu no doubt goes further in his explanations; see xxxvi. 27, 28.
[55]. Heb. kima; comp. Ass. kimtu, ‘a family.’ The word occurs again in ix. 9, Am. v. 8 (but are not this verse and the closely related one in iv. 13 additions by a later editor of Amos in the Exile period?)
[56]. Heb. k’sīl, the name of the foolhardy giant who strove with Jehovah. The Chaldeo-Assyrian astrology gave the name kisiluv to the ninth month, connecting it with the zodiacal sign Sagittarius. But there are valid reasons for attaching the Hebrew popular myth to Orion.
[57]. ‘He did not watch the stars of heaven, nor the mazarati.’ So Fox Talbot quotes from a cuneiform tablet (Transactions of Soc. of Bibl. Archæology, 1872, p. 341). The above explanation, however, which is that of Delitzsch on Job, differs from that of Fox Talbot.
[58]. Mr. Bateson Wright’s pointing, lá’ereb for la’ōrēbh, is plausible. The raven is an insignificant companion to the lion, and the birds of prey are mentioned at the end of Job’s picture gallery. Render ‘who provides in the evening his food,’ &c.; but in this case should not lābhī in ver. 39 be rendered ‘lion’ rather than ‘lioness’ (note ‘his young ones’)? The root idea is probably voracity. That lābhī in iv. 11 is the feminine is no objection. Comp. Ps. lvii. 5, and perhaps Hos. xiii. 8. Possibly, however, the ‘raven’ was inserted here to make up the number ten, by a reminiscence of Ps. cxlvii. 9.
[59]. The ‘unicorn’ of A. V. comes from the Sept. and Vulg.; but in Deut. xxxiii. 17 the re’ēm is said to have ‘horns.’ Schlottmann and Delitzsch identify it with the oryx or antelope, but the oryx was tamable (Wilkinson, Egyptians, i. 227), whereas our poet asks, ‘Will the re’ēm be willing to serve thee?’ See Cheyne on Isa. xxxiv. 7.