Job 26:5 - Meaning and Application

Truth came into clear focus through Job’s debate with his friends, because they disagreed on many things but agreed here. They all spoke about the infinite glory and power of God. Truth shines brightest when people are not trying to defeat each other, but to speak most honorably of God and praise him most fully. It would be good if all religious disputes ended this way, with God honored as Lord of all, and our Lord, with one mind and one voice (Romans 15:6). That much we all should agree on.

Many striking examples show God’s wisdom and power in making and preserving the world. If we look around at the earth and waters below, we see clear proofs of his power. He hangs the earth on nothing (Job 26:7). The huge world does not rest on pillars or hang from an axle, yet God has fixed it firmly in place by his almighty power. Human skill could not hang a feather on nothing, but divine wisdom hangs the whole earth that way. It is balanced by its own weight, as the poet says, and upheld by God’s powerful word, as the apostle says. What hangs on nothing can support our feet and our bodies, but never our hearts or souls.

He also sets limits for the sea and shuts it in (Job 26:10), so it cannot return and cover the earth. Those limits will stay firm, unchanged, and unworn until day and night end, when time itself is gone. This shows God’s rule over the wild waters of the sea, as Jeremiah also says (Jeremiah 5:22). It also shows his care for the sinful people who live on the earth. They deserve his judgment and live at his mercy, yet he keeps them from being swept away again by a flood. They are preserved for another judgment, since they are reserved for fire.

He forms the things under the waters. The verse speaks of the Rephaim, or giants, under the waters, which may mean huge creatures of great size, such as whales and other giant-like creatures among the sea’s many inhabitants. As Bishop Patrick explains it, God’s power reaches even there.

By strong storms and tempests, he shakes the mountains, which are called the pillars of heaven (Job 26:11), and he splits the sea and strikes through its proud waves (Job 26:12). At the Lord’s presence the sea runs away, and the mountains jump like sheep (Psalm 114:3-4). See also (Habakkuk 3:6). A storm cuts lines through the water, as if dividing it, and then a calm flattens the waves again. Some think Job lived at, or after, the time of Moses, and take this as a reference to the Red Sea being divided before Israel and the Egyptians being drowned in it. “By his understanding he strikes through Rahab,” the text says, and Rahab often means Egypt, as in (Psalm 87:4) and (Isaiah 51:9).

If we think about hell beneath us, even though it is hidden from our sight, we can still see God’s power there. By “hell and destruction” (Job 26:6), we may understand the grave and those buried in it. They are under God’s eye, even when they are out of our sight, which strengthens our faith in the resurrection of the dead. God knows where to find every scattered part of a body that has decayed. We may also understand these words as referring to the place of the damned, where the separated souls of the wicked suffer misery and torment. That is “hell and destruction,” which are said to be open before the Lord (Proverbs 15:11), and here are said to be naked before him. This may point toward (Revelation 14:10), where sinners are tormented in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.

This may help explain Job 26:5. Some old Bible versions read it in a way that seems more natural to the meaning of the word Rephaim: “Behold, the giants groan under the waters, and those who dwell with them.” Then comes, “Hell is naked before him.” This would picture the drowned giants of the old world, as learned Mr. Joseph Mede understood it, and he used (Proverbs 21:16) in the same way, where “the congregation of the dead” may mean the congregation of the giants. There is perhaps an allusion there to the drowning of the sinners of the old world. What shows God’s majesty more fearfully than the final ruin of the ungodly and the groans of those who live in darkness? Those who will not fear and worship with the angels will forever fear and tremble with demons. Even in that, God will be glorified.

If we look up to heaven above, we also see God’s rule and power. He stretches out the north over the empty space (Job 26:7). He did this at the beginning, when he stretched out the heavens like a curtain (Psalm 104:2), and he still keeps them stretched out. He will do so until the final burning of the world, when the heavens will roll up like a scroll (Revelation 6:14). He mentions the north because his land, like ours, lay in the northern half of the earth, and the air is the empty space over which it is stretched. See (Psalm 89:12). This world is an empty place compared with the next.

He also keeps the waters that are said to be above the sky from falling down on the earth, as they once did (Job 26:8). He binds the waters in his thick clouds, as if they were tightly tied in a bag, until there is a need to use them. Even with so much water lifted up and stored there, the cloud does not burst under its weight. If it did, the waters would pour out like from a spout. Instead, they drop through the cloud little by little, as rain, in mercy to the earth, whether as a light rain or heavy rain, according to his will.

He hides the glory of the upper world, whose bright light we weak humans could not bear (Job 26:9). He holds back the face of his throne, the light where he dwells, and spreads a cloud over it, through which he judges (Job 22:13). God wants us to live by faith, not by sight, because that fits a time of testing. It would not be fair trial if the face of God’s throne were fully visible now, as it will be in the great day. So, to keep that brightness from overwhelming our sight, he draws a screen of dark clouds between it and us.

The bright ornaments of heaven are the work of God’s hands (Job 26:13). By his Spirit, the eternal Spirit that moved over the face of the waters, and by the breath of his mouth (Psalm 33:6), he has adorned the heavens. He did not only make them, he made them beautiful. He has spread them with stars by night and painted them with sunlight by day.

God made people with an upward look, with faces meant to be lifted toward heaven. So he decorated the sky to draw our eyes upward. When we see the sun’s bright light, the stars’ sparkling light, their number, order, and different sizes, we should be led to admire the great Creator, the Father and source of light. We should say, if the floor is so richly inlaid, what must the palace be like? If the visible heavens are so glorious, what must those be like that we cannot see? From the beautiful decoration of the outer room, we may judge the costly furnishings of the room where the king receives his guests. If stars are so bright, what are angels like?

It is not certain what is meant by the crooked serpent his hands have formed. Some take it as part of the sky’s decoration, maybe the Milky Way. Others think it may be some particular star group with that name. The same word is used for Leviathan, a huge sea creature (Isaiah 27:1), so it probably refers to the whale or crocodile, where the Creator’s power is seen clearly. Job may well end with that thought, since God himself does the same in chapter 41.

At last, Job closes with a reverent “and so on” (Job 26:14). He says, “These are only part of his ways,” the outworkings of his wisdom and power, the ways by which he reveals himself to people. He first honors the little that has been shown about God. The things he has said, and the things Bildad has said, are truly some of God’s ways. This is something we really do know about him.

But Job also admires how much remains hidden. What we know is only a small part of God’s ways. What we know of God is nothing compared with what is in God and what God is. After all the discoveries God has made to us, and after all our searching, we are still in the dark about much of him. We must still say, “These are only parts of his ways.” We hear something of him through his works and his word, but how little of him do we hear? How little do we speak of him? We know only in part, and we speak only in part.

So, after saying all we can about God, we must do as Paul did (Romans 11:33). We must stop trying to reach the bottom, stand at the edge, and worship the depth: “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” In our present life, we know only a small portion of him. He is endless and beyond full understanding. Our minds are weak and shallow, and the full display of his glory is kept for the life to come.

Even the thunder of his power, one of the lowest signs of his ways in our own region, is beyond our understanding. See Job 37:4, Job 37:5. Much less can we understand the full strength and reach of his power, the terrible effects and work of it, and especially the power of his anger (Psalm 90:11). God is great, and we do not know him fully.