Job — Chapter 26

Authorship & Background

Deep Dive

Setting: The third round of the debate is falling apart. Eliphaz accused Job of hidden crimes (ch 22). Job answered by longing to find God and pointing again to injustice God seems to leave alone (chs 23–24). Then Bildad gave a six-verse speech (ch 25), the shortest in the book: God is so great that even the moon and stars are not pure before him, "how much less man, who is a maggot" (25:6). Zophar, whose turn should come after this, will never speak again. In chapter 26 Job replies to Bildad in two very different moods. First he mocks Bildad's "help" (vv2–4). Then he takes up Bildad's own theme of God's greatness and outdoes him, with one of the most powerful descriptions of God's rule over creation in the Old Testament (vv5–14). It ends by saying that all of this is only the edge of God's ways. Job's problem was never God's power. It was God's silence.

Job Replies: God's Majesty Is Unsearchable (vv1–14)

• "How you have helped him who has no power!" (v2). Job is being sarcastic. In Hebrew the "you" is singular, so he is speaking to Bildad. Guzik passes on Francis Andersen's note on this, and another view that the irony is meant for all three friends. JFB explains that Job describes himself as weak ("no power," "no strength," "no wisdom") on purpose, to show how little Bildad's speech did for someone in exactly that state. The Tyndale notes observe that the friends have been no help from the start (12:2; 16:4), and that Bildad's claim that no human could be innocent hurt Job deeply (13:18; 23:7). Guzik's lesson: the friends cared more about being right than about helping.
• "How you have counseled him who has no wisdom, and plentifully declared sound knowledge!" (v3). "Plentifully" is a jab. Bildad's speech was six verses long and said nothing new. JFB reads it as mocking the "abundant" wisdom Bildad claimed. Matthew Henry says Bildad's speech was "though very true and good, yet not to the purpose."
• "With whose help have you uttered words, and whose breath has come out from you?" (v4). Job asks where Bildad's words came from. "Breath" is neshamah, the breath of life, and it can also mean a person's spirit or inspiration. Were they from God, or just repeated from others? Bildad's line about man being impure before God was almost word for word from Eliphaz (4:17; 15:14–16), and JFB calls it "the borrowed sentiment of Eliphaz." Guzik connects the question with the spirit Eliphaz said had whispered to him at night (4:15–16). The Tyndale notes add that Eliphaz, Zophar and later Elihu all claimed the right spirit was guiding them (4:15; 20:3; 32:8), and point to the warning to "test the spirits" (1 John 4:1).
• Who is speaking in vv5–14? As the Bible stands, these verses are Job's, and Henry, JFB and Guzik all read them that way. Many modern scholars think vv5–14 were originally the rest of Bildad's speech, since chapter 25 is so short and these verses continue its theme of God's greatness. On that view Job's sarcastic opening (vv2–4) would lead straight into chapter 27. Guzik passes on Elmer Smick's judgment that there is no clear reason to make the change, because the theme of the hymn is similar to Bildad's but not the same. No ancient manuscript divides the chapters differently, and read as Job's words the hymn makes good sense: Job takes the friends' favorite subject and shows he knows it better. Henry: Job "knew it, and believed it, and could speak of it as well as he and better."
• "The dead tremble under the waters and their inhabitants" (v5). The hymn starts at the very bottom of the world. "The dead" is repha'im, which the lexicon defines as "shades" or "ghosts," the weak, shadowy dead in Sheol (Ps 88:10; Prov 9:18; Isa 14:9). Henry followed the King James "dead things are formed" and read it as the great sea creatures, but most modern readers, with JFB, take it as the dead in the depths below the sea. In the Hebrew picture of the world, the dead lay beneath the earth and the deep waters (Jonah 2:2–6). Even there, the dead tremble before God. Guzik lists the options and reads it as poetry for the unseen world.
• "Sheol is naked before God, and Abaddon has no covering" (v6). Abaddon comes from the verb "to perish," and means "Destruction." The lexicon notes that it appears only in the Bible's wisdom books, five times in all, and usually beside Sheol, death or the grave (28:22; 31:12; Ps 88:11). The Tyndale notes describe it as the place where the wicked go to destruction. The lexicon allows that it may name the part of Sheol for the ruined dead, though most uses are simply another name for the grave. Proverbs says nearly the same thing as Job: "Sheol and Abaddon lie open before the LORD; how much more the hearts of the children of man!" (Prov 15:11). In Revelation, Abaddon becomes the name of the angel of the bottomless pit, "in Greek he is called Apollyon" (Rev 9:11), and Guzik passes on John Trapp's link to that verse. Job's point is that nothing is hidden from God, not even the world of the dead. "If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!" (Ps 139:8).
• "He stretches out the north over the void" (v7). Now the hymn moves up to the sky. "North" is tsaphon. The Tyndale notes point out that the word was also the name of a mountain north of Israel, which the Canaanites believed was the home of their gods, much like Mount Olympus for the Greeks. Isaiah uses that background when the king of Babylon boasts of setting his throne "in the far reaches of the north" (Isa 14:13). Here tsaphon may mean the northern sky or simply the heavens, which God stretches out like a tent (Job 9:8; Isa 40:22). "The void" is tohu, the word for the formless earth in Genesis 1:2. The lexicon gives its sense here as "nothingness, empty space." The God who made order out of tohu in the beginning still spreads the sky over empty space.
• "And hangs the earth on nothing" (v7). "Nothing" is belimah, a word found only here. The lexicon explains it as built from "not" and "anything," literally "not-anything." Guzik finds it remarkable that Job says this, when other ancient peoples pictured the earth resting on something, and JFB calls the verse a "hint of the true theory of the earth." It is a striking line, but it is also poetry, not an astronomy lesson, and the book uses other pictures too, such as the earth's "pillars" (9:6; 38:4–6). What all the pictures share is Job's point, which Henry also draws out: the world does not hold itself up. It rests on God's power alone. The New Testament says the Son "upholds the universe by the word of his power" (Heb 1:3).
• "He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not split open under them" (v8). Clouds hold huge weights of water, yet they do not burst like overfilled bags. JFB calls them "airy vessels." God later asks Job, "who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens?" (38:37), and Proverbs asks, "Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment?" (Prov 30:4).
• "He covers the face of the full moon and spreads over it his cloud" (v9). The Hebrew word here can be read two ways. The ESV reads keseh, "full moon," which fits the setting in the sky. The lexicon, along with the King James, Henry and JFB, reads kisse, "throne," so that God "covers the face of his throne" with cloud. The two words differ by one letter. If "throne" is right, God veils his own glory: "Clouds and thick darkness are all around him" (Ps 97:2). JFB says the clouds veil it "from profane eyes." Either way, God decides what is seen and what stays hidden, which fits Job's experience of a God he cannot find (23:8–9).
• "He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness" (v10). The horizon over the sea is a circle where sky meets water, and there the sun rises and sets, the boundary between day and night. Wisdom says she was there "when he drew a circle on the face of the deep" (Prov 8:27), and Genesis describes God separating light from darkness (Gen 1:4). The Tyndale notes point to God setting limits for the waters (Ps 104:6–9; Prov 8:29). JFB and Guzik see a hint that the earth is round, which may ask more of the line than it was meant to carry. Plainly, God has drawn the lines that hold the world in order.
• "The pillars of heaven tremble and are astounded at his rebuke" (v11). The "pillars of heaven" are probably the great mountains at the edge of the horizon, which seemed to hold up the sky. The Tyndale notes, JFB and Matthew Poole (through Guzik) all take it this way. "Rebuke" is the word used of God driving back the waters at creation: "At your rebuke they fled" (Ps 104:7). The same word will matter in the Gospels, when Jesus "rebuked the wind" (Mark 4:39).
• "By his power he stilled the sea" (v12). The verb raga' can mean opposite things, and translations differ. The lexicon lists this verse under "disturb," the same sense as Isaiah 51:15, where God "stirs up the sea so that its waves roar" (also Jer 31:35). Another use of the same letters means "be at rest," which is the ESV's choice: God "stilled" the sea. Older versions read "divides." Either way, the sea, the most frightening force the ancient world knew, obeys God. JFB points to the wind God sent to make the waters of the flood subside (Gen 8:1), and Henry to the dividing of the Red Sea.
• "By his understanding he shattered Rahab" (v12). This is not Rahab of Jericho, whose name is spelled differently in Hebrew. The lexicon says the word literally means something like "storm" or "arrogance." It names a mythical sea monster, and twice it is a nickname for Egypt (Ps 87:4; Isa 30:7). Job has mentioned it before: "beneath him bowed the helpers of Rahab" (9:13). Isaiah asks, "Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?" (Isa 51:9), and the psalmist says, "You crushed Rahab like a carcass" (Ps 89:10). JFB and Henry do not take the word as a name. Following the King James, they read "he smites through the proud," which JFB explains as the sea's pride, its swelling waves.
• The sea monster in the ancient world (vv12–13). Israel's neighbors told stories of a god fighting a sea monster to bring order to the world. In Babylon, Marduk killed Tiamat, the salt sea, and made heaven and earth out of her body. In the Canaanite poems from Ugarit, Baal defeated Yam, the god "Sea," and the serpent Lotan. Most scholars note that the Ugaritic texts describe Lotan in almost the same words Isaiah uses for Leviathan: a "fleeing serpent" and a "twisting serpent" (Isa 27:1). The Bible borrows the imagery but changes the story. In the myths the sea is a rival god and the battle is close. In Job the sea is just "the sea," a creature, and God defeats it "by his power" and "by his understanding," without a struggle. Guzik passes on Smick's point that Job strips the sea of any divinity and that, unlike Marduk, God needs no help. The Tyndale notes likewise read the verse as a challenge to the myths. Genesis goes further still, with no battle at all.
• "By his wind the heavens were made fair" (v13). "Wind" can also be "breath" or "Spirit," the same word as in Genesis 1:2, where the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. After the storm, God's wind clears the sky. JFB and the Tyndale notes both read it this way. Henry reads it as the Spirit of God adorning the heavens with stars and light.
• "His hand pierced the fleeing serpent" (v13). "Fleeing serpent" (nachash bariach) is exactly the phrase Isaiah uses: "the LORD... will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent" (Isa 27:1). The lexicon notes an old idea of an "eclipse-dragon" that swallowed the sun or moon, which may stand behind Job's earlier line about those "ready to rouse up Leviathan" (3:8). JFB thinks of the constellation of the Dragon, which winds across the northern sky. Henry admits the meaning is uncertain and offers either a constellation or a great sea creature. The Tyndale notes trace the image forward. The serpent who opposes God becomes a picture of Satan, from the serpent of Eden whose head will be crushed (Gen 3:15) to "that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan" (Rev 12:9). Whatever the exact image, every power of chaos has felt God's hand.
• "Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways" (v14). After all that, Job says he has only described the edges. "Outskirts" means the fringes or outer ends. Everything in the hymn, from Sheol to the stars, is only the hem of the garment.
• "How small a whisper do we hear of him!" (v14). "Whisper" is shemets. The lexicon notes that it appears only twice in the Bible: here and in 4:12, where Eliphaz claimed that a word came to him secretly and "my ear received the whisper of it." Eliphaz used his whisper as proof that he knew what God thinks. Job says the whole of creation is only a whisper about God. The cross-references link it to Zophar's own question, "Can you find out the deep things of God?" (11:7).
• "But the thunder of his power who can understand?" (v14). If creation is a whisper, what would it be like to hear God at full strength? Elihu will later say, "God thunders wondrously with his voice" (37:5), and then God himself will answer Job "out of the whirlwind" (38:1). Henry says the hymn shows that all of Job's and Bildad's words together "came short of the merit of the subject."
• Commentators: All three treat vv5–14 as Job's words, spoken to show he knows God's greatness as well as the friends do. Henry's outline: Bildad's speech was true but beside the point (vv2–4), and Job already believed it and adds further proofs (vv5–14). His shorter commentary admits that Job too "darkened counsel by words without knowledge" (38:2), "But his views were more distinct." Oswald Chambers adds that Job sensed that the God who could explain the wonders of nature was the only one who could explain his suffering. Guzik and JFB both see hints of modern science in vv7 and 10 (an earth hanging in space, a round horizon). The lexicon confirms that belimah means "nothing" and tohu "empty space," but the verses' main point is God's power. JFB is most helpful on single words: Eliphaz's "borrowed sentiment" (v4), clouds as "airy vessels" (v8), "throne" rather than "moon" (v9) and "only the extreme boundaries of" his ways (v14). On v12 Henry and JFB follow the King James "the proud," not the name Rahab. The lexicon and the Tyndale notes support reading Rahab as the sea monster, as the ESV does. JFB has no comment on v1.

Pointing to Christ

Job's hymn describes a God who sets the sea's limits, rebukes the waves and crushes the serpent, yet whom no one can see. Only a whisper of him reaches us. In Christ the whisper became a voice and a face. "No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known" (John 1:18). When Jesus woke in a boat on the Sea of Galilee and "rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Peace! Be still!'" (Mark 4:39), he did what Job says only God does: he "stilled the sea" by his own power. The disciples asked the right question: "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" (Mark 4:41). The God who "hangs the earth on nothing" is the Son in whom "all things hold together" (Col 1:17). And the "fleeing serpent" Job saw pierced by God's hand is finally defeated at the cross, where Christ "disarmed the rulers and authorities" (Col 2:15), crushing the serpent's head while his own heel was struck (Gen 3:15). Sheol and Abaddon lie naked before God, and Christ went down into death and came back with "the keys of Death and Hades" (Rev 1:18). The "outskirts of his ways" were enough to make Job worship. In Christ we are shown the heart of them.

Commentary

• Enduring Word (David Guzik): enduringword.com Guzik emphasizes the irony: Job, whom the friends accuse of not understanding God, here demonstrates a far more profound grasp of God's majesty than anything his friends have said. Verse 7 is particularly remarkable — the earth "hangs on nothing" is accurate cosmology stated millennia before it was scientifically confirmed. Guzik notes that v.14 is the theological key: if all creation is merely the whisper of God's ways, then human theology (including the friends' retribution system) captures only a fraction of reality.
• Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871): blueletterbible.org A critical and explanatory commentary on the whole Bible, more concise than Matthew Henry and closer to the Hebrew and Greek, with attention to historical and geographical detail. Public domain.
• Matthew Henry's Exposition (1710): blueletterbible.org A devotional verse-by-verse commentary in the Puritan tradition, still among the most widely read three centuries on. Public domain.

Videos

Articles

• BibleProject: bibleproject.com On the whole book: the speech from the whirlwind, and why it answers Job the way it does.
• GotQuestions.org: gotquestions.org On the whole book: an overview of the book of Job -- who wrote it, when, why, and how it fits the rest of Scripture.

Links open on the publisher's own site. Nothing here is reproduced on this page.

Reflection

• Honest Confrontation of Empty Counsel (vv.2-4) — Job's blistering questions expose that Bildad's brief speech helped no one and revealed nothing new. Where do you need the courage to name unhelpful counsel instead of politely accepting it?
• God's Reach Into the Deepest Places (vv.5-6) — Job describes God's dominion extending even to Sheol and the realm of the dead, where nothing is hidden from Him. Is there a dark place in your life you assume is beyond God's reach?
• The Majesty of God's Ordinary Creation (vv.7-13) — Job describes God suspending the earth on nothing and governing the sea and sky in staggering detail. Do you still notice the wonder in the world God sustains every day?
• Only a Whisper of His Ways (v.14) — Job concludes that everything just described is merely the outer edge of God's power, a faint whisper of what remains unseen. How does recognizing the limits of your understanding of God shape your humility before Him?