Job 38:4-38

Job 38:4-Zechariah : . The Wonders of the Inanimate Creation.— Where was Job when the earth was made? The work of creation is described as the building of a house. In Job 38:7 the stars, which are older than the world (contrast Genesis 1:16), are thought of as animated beings: the “ sons of God” are the angels. The morning stars and the angels then composed the choir at the laying of earth’ s foundation-stone; the stone-laying, therefore, took place in the morning.

Job 38:8-1 Kings : speaks of the taming of the sea: when it burst forth from the womb of chaos, God clothed the newborn child with the cloud and swaddled it with thick cloud. In Job 38:10 read as mg. “ and brake for it a boundary.” The verse as a whole describes how God set the rocky coast as the bound of the sea.

Job 38:12-Ezra : speaks of the miracle of the dawn. In Job 38:13 “ The personified Dawn is represented as seizing the coverlet of darkness under which the earth has been sleeping, and shaking the wicked out of it like flies” (Strahan).

Job 38:14 describes how with the coming of the dawn the shapelessness of the earth by night is suddenly changed into definiteness as when a seal is stamped upon clay: “ as a garment” seems to describe the varied colours of the landscape: mg. “ as in a garment” gives the sense, continuing Job 38:14 a, things are defined by the light as a garment by its clinging to the wearer. In Job 38:15 the light of the wicked is the darkness ( Job 24:17).

In Job 38:16 Job is asked if he has penetrated the fountains of the great deep, whence the sea is fed. These are openings in the floor of the ocean just as the “ windows of heaven” are openings in the sky.

Job 38:17 asks if Job has gone still deeper and penetrated Sheol. With Job 38:18 we pass on from depth to breadth. Light and darkness have their dwelling-places at the horizon, whence in due order they issue forth ( Gen_1:-5 *).

Job 38:22 describes the snow and hail, the artillery of heaven ( Job 38:23). In Job 38:24 a perhaps “ mist” should be read for light; light has already been mentioned. In Job 38:25 the waterflood “ is the torrential rain, supposed to pour from the upper ocean down a channel specially cleft for it by God through the vault of the sky. So the lightning has a track along which to shoot” (Peake). As Strahan observes, the meteorology is primitive.

Job 38:26-Daniel : are of great beauty, and also of great importance. The poet points out that nature has not only man as its end; there are other and wider purposes served by the order of creation. Job’ s fault has been to narrow things down to his own human outlook. With Job 38:28-Amos :, we have the further mysteries of dew, ice, and frost. In Job 38:30 a follow mg., in Job 38:30 b “ frozen” is literally “ hidden” : the ice hides the surface of the water under it.

Job 38:31 f. God asks Job if he controls the constellations. Here and on to the end of ch. 39 “ canst” should be “ Dost.” In Job 38:31 a either cluster or chain ( mg.) is possible; but what the bands of Orion are is not certain. In Job 38:32 it is not certain what constellation is meant by “ the Mazzaroth.”

Job 38:33-Zechariah : asks if Job controls the heavens. In Job 38:33 a translate with different pointing, “ Dost thou make the heavens to know the laws,” i.e. lay down the laws for them. In Job 38:34 read with LXX, “ that abundance of waters may answer thee.” In Job 38:36 the meaning of the words translated “ inward parts” and “ mind” is uncertain. But physical not psychical phenomena must be meant, as the context shows: follow therefore mg. in both cases. The bottles of heaven in Job 38:37 are the clouds, conceived as skins full of water ( Job 26:8).