contrary, Schlottm. remarks that חבשׁ cannot signify such a connection, i.e., gathering together of watercourses; it occurs elsewhere only of hunting, i.e., binding up wounds. Nevertheless, although חבשׁ cannot directly signify “to collect,” the signification coercere (Job 34:17), which is not far from this idea, - as is evident from the Arab. ḥibs (ḥabs), a dam or sluice for collecting water, and Arab. maḥbas 'l-mâ', a reservoir, cistern, - is easily transferable to water, in the sense of binding = catching up and accumulating. But it is contrary to the form of the expression that מבכי, with this use of חבש, should denote the materia ex qua, and that נהרות should be referred to the miry ditches in which “the crushed ore is washed, for the purpose of separating the good from the worthless.” On the contrary, from the form of the expression, it is to be translated: a fletu (not e fletu) flumina obligat, whether it be that a fletu is equivalent to ne flent s. stillent (Simeon Duran: שׁלא יזלו), or obligat equivalent to cohibet (Ralbag: מהזּלה). Thus von Veltheim explains the passage, since he here, as in Job 28:10, understands the channels for carrying off the water. “The miner covers the bottom with mire, and fills up the crevices so exactly i.e., he besmears it, where the channel is broken through, with some water-tight substance, e.g., clay, that it may entirely carry off the water that is caught by it out of the pit in which the shaft terminates, and not let it fall through the fissures crevices to the company of miners below to the vein that lies farther down; then the miner can descend still deeper since the water runs outwards and does not soak through, and bring forth the ore that lies below the channel.” This explanation overlooks the fact that יארים is used in Job 28:10, whereas Job 28:11 has נהרות. It is not probable that these are only interchangeable expressions for the channels that carry off the water. יארים
