Chapter Twenty-Six

Job’s response to Bildad’s speech in the third dialogue. 1–4. Characterization of Bildad’s speech. 5–14. Job, like Bildad, knows of God’s almighty power.

Job 26:2. How you have helped the powerless, and supported the arm of one without strength! Since Bildad’s speech provides nothing for resolving the question that troubles and “weakens” Job’s heart (Job 23:16)—the question of the cause of the righteous man’s sufferings, the unjust treatment of him by God (XXIII) and the prosperity of sinners (Job 24:25)—it provokes from him a justified ironic remark: “How you have helped the powerless!” Bildad’s reasoning did not help Job, the powerless one unable to solve the riddle of his existence, and therefore did not comfort him at all (“supported the arm of one without strength”).

Job 26:3. What counsel you have given to the foolish, and how fully you have explained the matter! Job 26:4. To whom did you speak these words, and whose spirit came out of you? With even greater sarcasm Job speaks of the arguments brought by Bildad in favor of the idea of divine almighty power. How full and comprehensive his illumination of this question (“how fully you have explained the matter”). Did he not receive revelation from above? (“whose spirit came out of you?”). Everything Bildad said is known to Job, this fool (“foolish” in the opinion of the friends).

Job 26:5. The shades tremble beneath the waters, and those dwelling in them. Job knows of God’s almighty power no less, if not more than Bildad. He knows that it is restricted by nothing; for it there exist no obstacles. Proof of this is the trembling before the Lord of the shades (cf. Ps 87:11), the inhabitants of Sheol. Although the latter is separated from heaven, God’s dwelling place, by a watery expanse, it does not stop the action of divine almighty power: “the shades tremble.” “Shade” means weak, like a shadow, a name applied to the inhabitants of Sheol—the dead,—because the latter was imagined as a place of rest, sleep (Job 3:13; Isa 26:19), a semi-conscious state, from which its inhabitants emerge only under external influence (Isa 14:9).

Job 26:6. Sheol is naked before Him, and Abaddon has no covering. For divine almighty power not only Sheol is open, but also “Abaddon” (Ps 87:12; Prov 15:11; cf. Heb 4:13),—the lowest and deepest part of the abyss (“ ἄβυσσος “—the abyss; cf. Rev 9:11: “angels of the abyss”).

Job 26:7. He has spread the north over the void, hanging the earth on nothing. The almighty power of God is manifest in the establishment of laws of gravity, by which enormous heavenly bodies of the northern hemisphere are sustained in the air (the word “spread” applies only to the heavenly vault—Job 9:8; Ps 103:2; Isa 40:22, but never to the earth, and therefore “the north” cannot mean the northern hemisphere,—part of the earth) and the whole terrestrial globe.

Job 26:8. He binds up the waters in His clouds, and the cloud does not burst beneath them. From Him also proceed the laws determining the phenomenon of rain (cf. Ps 103:3; Jer 10:13).

Job 26:9. He has established His throne, spreading over it His cloud. The almighty God “has established His throne,” more precisely, “covers the face of His throne.” God’s throne is heaven (Isa 66:1); its forward, facing-the-earth side (“the face”) is covered with clouds like a veil (cf. Job 22:14; Ps 17:12; Amos 9:6), through which He is invisible (cf. Job 22:14). The reflection reaching to earth is the clear sky freed from clouds (Exod 24:10).

Job 26:10. He has drawn a line upon the surface of the waters, at the boundary of light with darkness. By the power of His might the Lord “has drawn a line upon the surface of the waters” (cf. Prov 8:27). According to the conception of ancient peoples, the earth is washed round (encircled) on all sides by the ocean, above which rises like a hemisphere the heavenly vault (cf. “the heavenly circle”—Job 22:14). Within this space lies the region of light emanating from the sun and stars; beyond it—the region of darkness: “at the boundary of light with darkness.”

Job 26:11. The pillars of heaven tremble and are afraid at His rebuke. Job 26:12. By His power He stirs up the sea and by His understanding He shatters Rahab. Divine almighty power is manifested in earthquakes, at which mountains tremble (cf. Job 9:5-6; Ps 28:5-6; Nah 1:5), which with their peaks as it were support heaven and are therefore called “pillars” of heaven, as well as in sea storms and their subduing: “by His understanding He shatters its arrogance” (v. 12; cf. Ps 88:10). The Synodal reading “its arrogance,” conveying the Hebrew word “rahab,” cannot be accepted because with “this” word there is no possessive suffix “o,”—its. “Rahab”—something self-subsistent in relation to the sea, although connected with it. The same is confirmed by Ps 88:10-11 and Isa 51, in which “rahab” is mentioned at the same time as the sea. In view of this, there are sufficient grounds to understand “rahab” in the sense of a sea monster. The Lord “shatters it” in order to prevent it from doing harm to people.

Job 26:13. By His Spirit the heavens are made beautiful; His hand has formed the swift serpent. The almighty power of God is witnessed by “the beauty of heaven”—all the heavenly bodies, and the divine hand—formed “the swift serpent,” Heb. “nahash bariah.” What should be understood by this expression, found also in Isa 27:1, is difficult to say. Judging from context, it is some kind of constellation, but which precisely, is unknown. It is supposed that it lies between the Great and Little Bear, encircling halfway the Polar circle. The Hebrew expression “holla” (Synodal “has formed”) is understood differently. Some derive it from “hul”—“to form” (Deut 22:18; Ps 89:2), others, including the translations of the LXX and Peshitta, from “hapal”—“to pierce.”

Job 26:14. Look, 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? What Job has said constitutes only a slight, brief outline of manifestations of divine almighty power, an outline of what is accessible to human understanding. But the full, nothing-weakened revelation of it is unbearable, intolerable for weak man: “the thunder of His power, who can understand?”