Job 26 - Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible

Job's Eighth Speech (Job 26, 27)

1-4. Job taunts Bildad with the worthlessness of his remarks as a solution of the problem.

2, 3, 4 are spoken ironically.

Him that is without power] i.e. Job himself.

To whom hast thou uttered words?] i.e. surely not to Job who knows it already.

5-14. The manifestations of God's power and work in the world below, in earth and in heaven. Some scholars think these vv., which are quite in the tone of Job 25:2-3, should be inserted after Job 25:3 as a misplaced portion of Bildad's last speech, and that Job's remarks (Job 26:1-4) are continued at Job 27:2.

The inhabitants] probably sea-monsters. The Babylonians believed in a judgment in Sheol under the ocean.

RV 'Sheol' (the place of the departed) 'is naked before him, and Abaddon' (i.e. destruction, another name for Sheol, cp. Revelation 9:11) 'hath no covering,' viz. from God.

The empty place] RV 'empty space.' The writer seems to speak here of God stretching the vault of the northern heavens with their bright constellations above the atmosphere, and of the earth hanging unsupported, as instances of His power.

The retention of rain in the clouds as in a skin or bag: cp. Job 38:37.

He holdeth back] RV 'He closeth in.' God veils His throne from men.

Davidson renders, 'He hath drawn as a circle a bound upon the face of the waters (of the sea) at the confines of light and darkness': i.e. God has marked out the horizon which forms to us the limit of vision.

The mountains (see on Job 9:6) tremble in the earthquake.

Divideth] RM 'stilleth.' The sea is a power hostile to God, that tosses its waves in impotent fury towards heaven.

Pride] RV 'Rahab,' i.e. the dragon of chaos, Tiâmat: cp. Job 7:12; Job 9:13.

Render, 'By His breath the heavens are bright (through the scattering of the storm clouds), and His hand pierceth the flying serpent,' or dragon, which was supposed to cause darkness or eclipse by swallowing the heavenly bodies: see on Job 3:8.

Job (or Bildad), after thus depicting the marvels of God's working, declares that what he has said is but a faint whisper of His power.