In Hebrew, as in Revised Standard Version, these three verses form a single sentence and so will be handled together. Good News Translation expresses each verse as a separate “who” question. Verse 25 poses the question and verses 26 and 27 extend the question in terms of purposes. All three verses refer to God’s activity in sending rain. The implied answer to God’s question is “I did.”
Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain depicts the rain as coming to the earth directed along grooves or trenches in the sky. The word rendered as channel is the same as the “trench” built around the altar in 1 Kings 18.32. In 28.26 the rain is said to follow a “decree” or “rule,” which emphasizes the order of events in nature. These channels which guide the raindrops as they descend are in the sky, but Good News Translation “dug a channel” is likely to give the impression that they are on the earth. The word translated as cleft means “to cut up or to divide” and pictures God cutting grooves in the sky to direct the raindrops. Torrents of rain translates a noun based on a verb meaning “to flood.” These are rains which are so heavy that they cause flooding, and so “downpours, pouring rains, torrential rains.” It may be clearer in some languages to speak generally and say, “Who made a way for the pouring rains to fall?” or “Who made the path down which the torrential rains flow?”
Verse 25b is identical to 28.26b in the Hebrew. And a way for the thunderbolt is parallel in meaning to line a. The verb in the first line serves in the second line also. Way translates “path, road,” which is parallel to channel in line a. Thunderbolt translates “claps of thunder, rumble of thunder, noise of thunder.” Even the sound of thunder is depicted as being under God’s control. In some languages it may be preferable to join both lines of verse 25 into one and say, for example, “Who made a way for the pouring rain and the noise of thunder?” In some cases it will be better to shift “rains” to the end of verse 25 in order to relate it more closely to the subject “rain” in verse 26a.
To bring rain on a land where no man is states at least one of the purposes for which God controls the rain, and that is to make it rain where no human beings are found. The two lines are reduced to one by Good News Translation. In line a the purpose is to bring rain on the uninhabited land. The verb phrase to bring rain is not repeated in line b but is understood as applying there also.
On the desert suggests intensification in line b. God not only makes it rain on uninhabited land, but even on the desert. The word translated as man in line a is different from the word translated as man in line b. However, this difference is not crucial for the poetic movement nor for the sense. Verse 26 may be rendered, for example, as “Who makes it rain in places where no one lives, and even in empty deserts?”
Verse 27 gives the reason or purpose of verse 26. To satisfy the waste and desolate land: satisfy translates the word used in 9.18, where it was rendered as “fills me.” The sense is “to satisfy with water,” and this may be more clearly expressed as “to water,” as in Good News Translation “who waters the….” Waste and desolate land is a description of the desert. It translates the same Hebrew phrase used in 30.3, where Good News Translation translates “wild, desolate places.” A desolate place is one where human life cannot be sustained. Here Good News Translation translates “dry and thirsty land,” which appears to be a textual change, but no note is given. Job observes in 12.15 that if God “withholds the waters, they dry up.” Here God replies by pointing out that he sends rain even in the places where no humans live, in order to give life to the grass.
And to make the ground put forth grass is literally “and cause to sprout the source of grass,” which is not entirely clear. Dhorme makes a change to get “from the steppe.” Hebrew Old Testament Text Project gives “And make a yield of grass shoot up,” which is expressed adequately by Good News Translation “so that grass springs up.” “Springs up” means “grows up quickly” due to the rains. Translators may follow Good News Translation and others with another “who” question, or better Revised Standard Version, which has a clause of purpose. The latter may be rendered, for example, as “This is done to water the dry desert so that grass grows.”
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 .