Ayub 39:2-5

39:2 Do you count the months they must fulfill,

and do you know the time they give birth? ¹ 

39:3 They crouch, they bear ²  their young,

they bring forth the offspring they have carried. ³ 

39:4 Their young grow strong, and grow up in the open; ⁴ 

they go off, and do not return to them.

39:5 Who let the wild donkey go free?

Who released the bonds of the donkey,

[39:2]  ¹ tn Here the infinitive is again a substantive: “the time of their giving birth.”

[39:3]  ² tc The Hebrew verb used here means “to cleave,” and this would not have the object “their young.” Olshausen and others after him change the ח (khet) to ט (tet) and get a verb “to drop,” meaning “drop [= give birth to] young” as used in Job 21:10. G. R. Driver holds out for the MT, arguing it is an idiom, “to breach the womb” (“Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 92-93).

[39:3]  ³ tn Heb “they cast forth their labor pains.” This word usually means “birth pangs” but here can mean what caused the pains (metonymy of effect). This fits better with the parallelism, and the verb (“cast forth”). The words “their offspring” are supplied in the translation for clarity; direct objects were often omitted when clear from the context, although English expects them to be included.

[39:4]  ⁴ tn The idea is that of the open countryside. The Aramaism is found only here.