Job 26:12 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

He divideth the sea with his power “By his power he raises tempests, which make great furrows in the sea, and divideth, as it were, one part of it from another;” and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud “And, such is his wisdom, he knows how to appease it again, and repress its proud waves into the deadest calm.” Bishop Patrick. Waterland and Schultens render רגע הים, ragang hajam, he shaketh the sea. Bishop Warburton tells us, that the destruction of Pharaoh and his host in the Red sea is here plainly referred to, and that רהב, rahab, rendered proud, signifies Egypt. But Mr. Peters justly observes, “Others may see nothing more in it than the description of a storm or tempest. The Hebrew word translated divide, is not the same that is used, Exodus 14., of the Red sea, but signifies a violent breaking and tossing of the waves as in a storm. And if the former part of the sentence means that God sometimes, by his power, raises a violent storm at sea, the latter may well enough be understood of the pride and swelling of the sea itself, allayed again by the same divine power and will which raised it.”