With fierceness and rage he swallows the ground describes the excitement of the horse. In Isaiah 14.16 the verbs which give rise to fierceness and rage mean “shake” and “tremble.” Good News Translation expresses the idea well with “tremble with excitement,” and New English Bible “Trembling with eagerness.” Swallows the ground is an idiom meaning “to run at full speed.”

The phrase he cannot stand still translates the verb “to believe,” whose root meaning is “to be firm,” which many interpreters take to mean stand still. The blowing of a horn was the signal for the charge. Trumpet translates the Hebrew shofar, which is a ram’s horn. Translators may find it best to transpose the two lines of verse 24 and say, for example, “He cannot stand still, and when the trumpet sounds ‘Charge!’ he trembles with excitement and charges forward at full speed.”

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 .