Job 26 - ESV - Bible Reading / Study Notes

Job 26

Job Replies: God’s Majesty Is Unsearchable

26:1 Then Job answered and said:

2   “How you have helped him who has no power!
    How you have saved the arm that has no strength!
3   How you have counseled him who has no wisdom,
    and plentifully declared sound knowledge!
4   With whose help have you uttered words,
    and whose breath has come out from you?
5   The dead tremble
    under the waters and their inhabitants.
6   Sheol is naked before God,¹
    and Abaddon has no covering.
7   He stretches out the north over the void
    and hangs the earth on nothing.
8   He binds up the waters in his thick clouds,
    and the cloud is not split open under them.
9   He covers the face of the full moon²
    and spreads over it his cloud.
10   He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters
    at the boundary between light and darkness.
11   The pillars of heaven tremble
    and are astounded at his rebuke.
12   By his power he stilled the sea;
    by his understanding he shattered Rahab.
13   By his wind the heavens were made fair;
    his hand pierced the fleeing serpent.
14   Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways,
    and how small a whisper do we hear of him!
    But the thunder of his power who can understand?”

Footnotes

[1] 26:6 Hebrew him
[2] 26:9 Or his throne

Commentary

v1-4: Job's rebuke to Bildad. His words were without reality and action (see 1 John 3.18).

He didn't help or save. Bildad, and Eliphaz and Zophar, claimed to speak on behalf of God, but, Job points out, they are not like God at all.

v5-13: The great power of God in creation. The power of God is unlimited. Job speaks of Sheol and Abaddon, death and destruction, the skies, the earth, the moon.

v14: Yet the creation and its wonders are "but the outer fringe of His works". The word used for fringes (edges) is used of the curtains in the tabernacle (Ex 26; 36). A faint whisper is more than enough for us, for we struggle to grasp such things. The thunder of His power, a fuller revelation of Himself, is beyond human comprehension.