Adam Clarke Bible Commentary

He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha - The original is peculiarly emphatical: האח Heach! a strong, partly nasal, partly guttural sound, exactly resembling the first note which the horse emits in neighing. The strong, guttural sounds in this hemistich are exceedingly expressive: האח ומרחוק יריח מלחמה Heach! umerachok yariach milchamah; "Heach, for from afar he scenteth the battle." The reader will perceive that Mr. Good has given a very different meaning to Job 39:20 from that in the present text, Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper? by translating the Hebrew thus: - "Hast thou given him to launch forth as an arrow?" The word ארבה arbeh, which we translate locust or grasshopper, and which he derives from רבה rabah, the א aleph being merely formative, he says, "may as well mean an arrow as it does in Job 16:13, רביו rabbaiv, 'His arrows fly around me.'" The verb רעש raash in the word התועישנו hatharishennu, "Canst thou make him afraid?' he contends, "signifies to tremble, quiver, rush, launch, dart forth; and, taken in this sense, it seems to unite the two ideas of rapidity and coruscation." This is the principal alteration which this learned man has made in the text. I shall conclude on this subject by giving Coverdale's translation: Hast thou geven the horse his strength, or lerned him how to bow down his neck with feare; that he letteth himself be dryven forth like a greshopper, where as the stout neyenge that he maketh is fearfull? He breaketh the grounde with the hoffes of his fete chearfully in his strength, and runneth to mete the harnest men. He layeth aside all feare, his stomach is not abated, neither starteth he aback for eny swerde. Though the qyvers rattle upon him, though the speare and shilde glistre: yet russheth he in fearsley, and beateth upon the grounde. He feareth not the noise of the trompettes, but as soone as he heareth the shawmes blowe, Tush (sayeth he) for he smelleth the batell afarre of, the noyse, the captaynes, and the shoutinge. This is wonderfully nervous, and at the same time accurate.