Can you hunt the prey for the lion…? shows that God, in contrast to human beings, provides the lion with victims for food. Hunt translates the same verb used in 10.16. It means to search for the purpose of killing, not just to find. Lions stalk their victims, as all cats do, by quietly creeping toward them and then springing on them. Obviously Job is not capable of doing this. Lion translates one of the terms for “lion” or “lioness” used by Eliphaz in 4.11, and young lions is used in 4.10. See there for comments. The same term is used in Psalm 104.21, where God supplies their food. See also 4.11 for comments on prey.

Satisfy the appetite of means “give them all they can eat,” “fill their stomachs.”

When they crouch in their dens depicts the lions hidden from sight while they lie in their dens. The word rendered as crouch is used in 9.13 (“bowed”) and 22.29 (“lowered [eyes]” for “lowly”), but in very different contexts. Here the sense is parallel to lie in wait in the next line. The word translated as dens was used in 37.8.

Lie in wait is what the lions are doing. Covert translates a word meaning “booth” or “hut,” as used in 27.18, and is here qualified further with “of their ambush.” So the whole phrase refers to a place such as a thicket where a lion can conceal itself and spring on its unsuspecting victim.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, Wiliam. A Handbook on Job. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .