Job 26

¹Then Job answered and said:[#Perhaps to be read as Job’s reply to Bildad’s short speech.]

²What help you give to the powerless,

what strength to the feeble arm!

³How you give counsel to one without wisdom;

how profuse is the advice you offer!

⁴With whose help have you uttered those words,

whose breath comes forth from you?

⁵The shades beneath writhe in terror,[#: the dead in Sheol, the nether world; cf. Ps 88:11; Is 26:14.; #Prv 9:18.]

the waters, and their inhabitants.

⁶Naked before him is Sheol,[#: cf. note on Ps 6:6. : Hebrew for “(place of) destruction,” a synonym for nether world; cf. Jb 28:22; Rev 9:11.]

and Abaddon has no covering.

⁷He stretches out Zaphon over the void,[#: lit., “the north,” used here as a synonym for the firmament, the heavens; cf. Is 14:13.]

and suspends the earth over nothing at all;

⁸He binds up the waters in his clouds,

yet the cloud is not split by their weight;

⁹He holds back the appearance of the full moon

by spreading his clouds before it.

¹⁰He has marked out a circle on the surface of the deep[#: the horizon of the ocean which serves as the boundary for the activity of light and darkness; cf. Prv 8:27.; #Jb 38:8–11; Prv 8:29.]

as the boundary of light and darkness.

¹¹The pillars of the heavens tremble

and are stunned at his thunderous rebuke;

¹²By his power he stilled Sea,

by his skill he crushed Rahab;

¹³By his wind the heavens were made clear,

his hand pierced the fleeing serpent.

¹⁴Lo, these are but the outlines of his ways,

and what a whisper of a word we hear of him:

Who can comprehend the thunder of his power?