Dhorme, New American Bible, New English Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, Bible de Jérusalem, Pope, and Moffatt place verse 31 after verse 28, where it fits much better. This Handbook recommends that translators move verse 31 to this position, so that the order of verses will be: 28, 31, 29, 30, 32. It may be advisable to number this group of verses “28-32.” If the traditional order of verses is retained, an alternative suggestion is given in the discussion of verse 31. The Hebrew text of verse 29a begins with “also,” since Elihu is posing an additional rhetorical question.

Can any one understand the spreading of the clouds…? assumes a negative answer. Spreading translates a verb meaning “stretch out” and is used in 26.9, where God is said to spread clouds over the face of the moon. In this context it refers to the drifting motion of the clouds. Good News Translation expresses this line as a negative statement: “No one knows how the clouds move.” Verse 29 may be rendered as a question: “Can anyone understand how God makes the clouds move across the sky, or how the thunder roars across the heavens where God lives? No one!”

The thunderings of his pavilion translates the Hebrew literally, but most readers will get little of its significance. Thunderings here refers to the noise made by lightning in a storm. The word for pavilion is used in 27.18, where it refers to the hut of a watchman. Here the reference is to God’s abode in heaven, as in Psalm 18.11, “his canopy thick clouds dark with water.” In order to make this line clear, Good News Translation has used two lines to translate what in Hebrew is two words. Good News Translation has expressed thunderings as a verb phrase, and pavilion as “the sky, where God dwells.”

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 .