Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 26:8 - 26:8
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
8 He bindeth up the waters in His clouds,
Without the clouds being rent under their burden.
9 He enshroudeth the face of His throne,
Spreading His clouds upon it.
10 He compasseth the face of the waters with bounds,
To the boundary between light and darkness.
The clouds consist of masses of water rolled together, which, if they were suddenly set free, would deluge the ground; but the omnipotence of God holds the waters together in the hollow of the clouds (צֹרֵר, Milel, according to a recognised law, although it is also found in Codd. accented as Milra, but contrary to the Masora), so that they do not burst asunder under the burden of the waters (תַּחְתָּם); by which nothing more nor less is meant, than that the physical and meteorological laws of rain are of God's appointment. Job 26:9 describes the dark and thickly-clouded sky that showers down the rain in the appointed rainy season. אָחַז signifies to take hold of, in architecture to hold together by means of beams, or to fasten together (vid., Thenius on 1Ki 6:10, comp. 2Ch 9:18, מָֽאֳחָזִים, coagmentata), then also, as usually in Chald. and Syr., to shut (by means of cross-bars, Neh 7:3), here to shut off by surrounding with clouds: He shuts off פְּנֵי־כִסֵּה, the front of God's throne, which is turned towards the earth, so that it is hidden by storm-clouds as by a סֻכָּה, Job 36:29; Psa 18:12. God's throne, which is here, as in 1Ki 10:19, written כִּסֵּה instead of כִּסֵּא (comp. Arab. cursi, of the throne of God the Judge, in distinction from Arab. 'l-‛arš, the throne of God who rules over the world),
(Note: According to the more recent interpretation, under Aristotelian influence, Arab. 'l-‛rš is the outermost sphere, which God as πρῶτον κινοῦν having set in motion, communicates light, heat, life, and motion to the other revolving spheres; for the causae mediae gradually descend from God the Author of being (muhejji) from the highest heaven into the sublunary world.)
is indeed in other respects invisible, but the cloudless blue of heaven is His reflected splendour (Exo 24:10) which is cast over the earth. God veils this His radiance which shines forth towards the earth, פַּרְשֵׁז אָלָיו עֲנָנֹו, by spreading over it the clouds which are led forth by Him. פַּרְשֵׁו is commonly regarded as a Chaldaism for פַּרְשֵׁז (Ges. §56, Olsh. §276), but without any similar instance in favour of this vocalizaton of the 3 pr. Piel (Pil.). Although רַֽעֲנַן and שַׁאֲנַן, Job 15:32; Job 3:18, have given up the i of the Pil., it has been under the influence of the following guttural; and although, moreover, i before Resh sometimes passes into a, e.g., וַיַּרְא, it is more reliable to regard פַרשז as inf. absol. (Ew. §141, c): expandendo. Ges. and others regard this פרשז as a mixed form, composed from פרשׁ and פרז; but the verb פרשׁ (with Shin) has not the signification to expand, which is assumed in connection with this derivation; it signifies to separate (also Eze 34:12, vid., Hitzig on that passage), whereas פרשׂ certainly signifies to expand (Job 36:29-30); wherefore the reading פַּרְשֵׂז (with Sin), which some Codd. give, is preferred by Bär, and in agreement with him by Luzzatto (vid., Bär's Leket zebi, p. 244), and it seems to underlie the interpretation where פרשז עליו is translated by עליו (פָּרַשׂ) פרש, He spreadeth over it (e.g., by Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, Ralbag). But the Talmud, b. Sabbath, 88 b (פירש שדי מזיו שכינתו ועננו עליו, the Almighty separated part of the splendour of His Shechina and His cloud, and laid it upon him, i.e., Moses, as the passage is applied in the Haggada), follows the reading פַּרְשֵׁז (with Shin), which is to be retained on account of the want of naturalness in the consonantal combination שׂז; but the word is not to be regarded as a mixed formation (although we do not deny the possibility of such forms in themselves, vid., supra, p. 468), but as an intensive form of פרשׂ formed by Prosthesis and an Arabic change of Sin into Shin, like Arab. fršḥ, fršd, fršṭ, which, being formed from Arab. frš = פָּרַשׂ (פְּרַשׂ), to expand, signifies to spread out (the legs).
Job 26:10 passes from the waters above to the lower waters. תַּכְלִית signifies, as in Job 11:7; Job 28:3; Neh 3:21, the extremity, the extreme boundary; and the connection of תַּכְלִית אֹור is genitival, as the Tarcha by the first word correctly indicates, whereas אור with Munach, the substitute for Rebia mugrasch In this instance (according to Psalter, ii. 503, §2), is a mistake. God has marked out (חן, lxx ἐγύρωσεν) a law, i.e., here according to the sense: a fixed bound (comp. Pro 8:29 with Psa 104:9), over the surface of the waters (i.e., describing a circle over them which defines their circuit) unto the extreme point of light by darkness, i.e., where the light is touched by the darkness. Most expositors (Rosenm., Hirz., Hahn, Schlottm., and others) take עד־תכלית adverbially: most accurately, and refer חָג to אור as a second object, which is contrary to the usage of the language, and doubtful and unnecessary. Pareau has correctly interpreted: ad lucis usque tenebrarumque confinia; עִם in the local sense, not aeque ac, although it might also have this meaning, as e.g., Ecc 2:16. The idea is, that God has appointed a fixed limit to the waters, as far as to the point at which they wash the terra firma of the extreme horizon, and where the boundary line of the realms of light and darkness is; and the basis of the expression, as Bouillier, by reference to Virgil's Georg. i. 240f., has shown, is the conception of the ancients, that the earth is surrounded by the ocean, on the other side of which the region of darkness begins.