is an appropriate expression for it, but not נהרות, which as appropriately describes the conflux of water in the mine itself.
The meaning of Job 28:11 is, that he (the miner) binds or stops the watercourses which his working out of the pit has interfered with and injured, so that they may not leak, i.e., that they may not in the least ooze through, whether by building up a wall or by collecting the water that streams forth in reservoirs (Arab. mahbas) or in the channels which carry it outwards, - all these modes of draining off the water may be included in Job 28:11, only the channel itself is not, with von Veltheim, to be understood by נהרות, but the concourse of the water which, in one way or the other, is rendered harmless to the pit-work, so that he (the miner), as Job 28:11 says, can bring to light (אור = לאור) whatever precious things the bowels of the earth conceals (תּעלמהּ, according to Kimchi and others, with euphonic Mappik, as according to the Masora כבכורהּ Isa 28:4, גשׁמהּ Eze 22:24, and also וגלהּ Zec 4:2, only לתפארת הקריאה ולא לכינוי, i.e., they have Mappik only for euphony, not as the expression of the suff.).
Verse 12
With the question in Job 28:12 the description of mining attains the end designed: man can search after and find out silver, gold, and others metals and precious stones, by making the foundations of the earth accessible to him; but wisdom, whence shall be obtain it, and which (ואי־זה, according to another reading ואיזה) is the place of understanding? החכמה has the art. to give prominence to its transcendency over the other attainable things. חכמה is the principal name, and בּינה interchanges with it, as תּבוּנה, Pro 8:1, and other synonyms in which the Chokma literature abounds elsewhere in Prov 1-9. בינה is properly the faculty of seeing through that which is distinguishable, consisting of the possession of the right criteria; חכמה, however, is the perception, in general, of things in their true nature and their final causes.
