Job 4:16

16. An image תמונה (rendered by the Septuagint μορφη , form, comp. Philippians 2:6) is used in Numbers 12:8 of some glorious, visible representation of God. (Sept. δοξα , also same in Psalms 17:15.) The word happily blends the indefiniteness and the substantiality of spiritual existence answering to Milton’s idea of that which:

Substance might be called that shadow seemed.

The preceding word form Hitzig renders face, visage, that which has features.

Silence, and I heard a voice Septuagint, I heard a soft murmur ( αυραν ) and a voice. Dillmann scouts the idea of rendering דממה , silence, “because we cannot hear silence,” and in common with Schlottmann and other German commentators, adopts the Septuagint. Renan and Conant hold to the radical meaning of the word, which is unquestionably silence. Mercerus renders it, I heard silence and a voice, “as if his wonderful words were compounded of silence and a voice.” In 1 Kings 19:12, even prosaical description admits of the “voice of silence,” קול דממה . This would be no bolder a stroke for poetry than that of the author of “The Seasons,” who thus personifies silence,

Come, then, expressive silence, muse his praise.

We can almost feel the silence that for a little while prevailed as the shadowy form stood before the trembling Eliphaz. There is nothing in the structure of the sentence to conflict with the version of the text, (there was) silence, etc. Tyndale’s rendering is more explicit, “There was stylnes, so that I heard this voice.”