Job 36:33

33. The noise thereof… the vapour This is one of the most difficult passages in the Bible, on account of the ambiguity of every important word. Of the discordant readings, that of Ewald is now generally accepted: “His thunder announces Him; the cattle even, that he is approaching;” literally, on the march. Some see in the allusion to cattle the instinctive apprehension which the brute manifests at the approach of a storm, as both Virgil and Pliny had observed, ( Georg., 1:374; Nat. Hist., 18:87, 88.) The reading of Dillmann, Hitzig, etc., who for the most part follow Symmachus, is not so well sustained, to wit: “His alarm-cry announces concerning him, making wrath to rage against iniquity;” essential to which is a change in the pointing of על עולה to על עולה , “against iniquity.” The former of these Hebraic words the accepted pointing of our text we would prefer, and read as above “concerning Him who is coming upward,” that is, that “He is approaching.” Conant renders the second clause of the verse, “to the herds, even of Him who is on high; making מקנה (which others, as above, render “wrath”) the object rather than the subject of the verb. In explanation of these comments, the reader may here be reminded that the vowel points form no part of the original Hebrew text, but were first introduced about the seventh century of the Christian era, and since the completion of the Talmud. For lengthened comment on the verse, the reader is referred to either Schultens, Dillmann or Conant.