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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 38:16 - 38:16
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
16 Hast thou reached the fountains of the sea,
And hast thou gone into the foundation of the deep?
17 Were the gates of death unveiled to thee,
And didst thou see the gates of the realm of shades?
18 Hast thou comprehended the breadth of the earth?
Speak, in so far as thou knowest all this!
19 Which is the way to where the light dwelleth,
And darkness, where is its place,
20 That thou mightest bring it to its bound,
And that thou mightest know the paths of its house?
21 Thou knowest it, for then wast thou born,
And the number of thy days is great! -
The root נב has the primary notion of obtruding itself upon the senses (vid., Genesis, S. 635), whence נבך in Arabic of a rising country that pleases the eye (nabaka, a hill, a hillside), and here (cognate in root and meaning נבע, Syr. Talmud. נְבַג, Arab. nbg, nbṭ, scatuirire) of gushing and bubbling water. Hitzig's conjecture, approved by Olsh., נבלי, sets aside a word that is perfectly clear so far as the language is concerned. On חֵקֶר vid., on Job 11:7. The question put to Job in Job 38:17, he must, according to his own confession, Job 26:6, answer in the negative. In order to avoid the collision of two aspirates, the interrogative הֲ is wanting before הִתְבֹּנַנְתָּ, Ew. §324, b; התבנן עַד signifies, according to Job 32:12, to observe anything carefully; the meaning of the question therefore is, whether Job has given special attention to the breadth of the earth, and whether he consequently has a comprehensive and thorough knowledge of it. כֻּלָּהּ refers not to the earth (Hahn, Olsh., and others), but, as neuter, to the preceding points of interrogation. The questions, Job 38:19, refer to the principles of light and darkness, i.e., their final causes, whence they come forth as cosmical phenomena. יִשְׁכָּן־אֹור is a relative clause, Ges. §123, 3, c; the noun that governs (the Regens) this virtual genitive, which ought in Arabic to be without the art. as being determined by the regens, is, according to the Hebrew syntax, which is freer in this respect, הַדֶּרֶךְ (comp. Ges. §110, 2). That which is said of the bound of darkness, i.e., the furthest point at which darkness passes away, and the paths to its house, applies also to the light, which the poet perhaps has even prominently (comp. Job 24:13) before his mind: light and darkness have a first cause which is inaccessible to man, and beyond his power of searching out. The admission in Job 38:21 is ironical: Verily! thou art as old as the beginning of creation, when light and darkness, as powers of nature which are distinguished and bounded the one by the other (vid., Job 26:10), were introduced into the rising world; thou art as old as the world, so that thou hast an exact knowledge of its and thine own contemporaneous origin (vid., Job 15:7). On the fut. joined with אָז htiw denioj . regularly in the signification of the aorist, vid., Ew. §134, b. The attraction in connection with מִסְפַּר is like Job 15:20; Job 21:21.