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Read the Bible

American Standard Version

Job 37:18

Canst thou with him spread out the sky, Which is strong as a molten mirror?

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Astronomy;   God;   God Continued...;   Meteorology and Celestial Phenomena;   Mirror;   Molding;   Religion;   Thompson Chain Reference - Sky;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Copper;   Glass;   Looking-Glasses;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Cloud, Cloud of the Lord;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Glass;   Heaven;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Firmament;   Glass;   Heaven;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Firmament;   Glass;   Looking Glass;   Mirror;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Glass, Looking-Glass, Mirror;   House;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Science (2);   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Glass, Looking Glass;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Elihu;   Looking-glass;   Smith Bible Dictionary - Mirror;   Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary - Glass;   Mirrors;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Sky;   World (Cosmological);   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Mirror;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
can you help God spread out the skiesas hard as a cast metal mirror?
Hebrew Names Version
Can you, with him, spread out the sky, Which is strong as a cast metal mirror?
King James Version
Hast thou with him spread out the sky, which is strong, and as a molten looking glass?
English Standard Version
Can you, like him, spread out the skies, hard as a cast metal mirror?
New Century Version
You cannot stretch out the sky like God and make it look as hard as polished bronze.
New English Translation
will you, with him, spread out the clouds, solid as a mirror of molten metal?
Amplified Bible
"Can you, with Him, spread out the sky, Strong as a molten mirror?
New American Standard Bible
"Can you, with Him, spread out the skies, Strong as a cast metal mirror?
World English Bible
Can you, with him, spread out the sky, Which is strong as a cast metal mirror?
Geneva Bible (1587)
Hast thou stretched out the heaues, which are strong, and as a molten glasse?
Legacy Standard Bible
Can you, with Him, spread out the skies,Strong as a molten mirror?
Berean Standard Bible
can you, like Him, spread out the skies to reflect the heat like a mirror of bronze?
Contemporary English Version
God can spread out the clouds to get relief from the heat, but can you?
Complete Jewish Bible
can you, with him, spread out the sky, hard as a cast metal mirror?
Darby Translation
Hast thou with him spread out the sky, firm, like a molten mirror?
Easy-to-Read Version
Can you help God spread out the sky and make it shine like polished brass?
George Lamsa Translation
Were you with him when he spread out the great sky, helping him hold it up?
Good News Translation
Can you help God stretch out the sky and make it as hard as polished metal?
Lexham English Bible
with him can you spread out the skies, hard as a molten mirror?
Literal Translation
Can you beat out the expanse with Him, hard like a cast mirror?
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
hast thou helped him to spred out the heauen, which is to loke vpo, as it were cast of cleare metall?
Bible in Basic English
Will you, with him, make the skies smooth, and strong as a polished looking-glass?
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Canst thou with Him spread out the sky, which is strong as a molten mirror?
King James Version (1611)
Hast thou with him spread out the skie, which is strong, and as a molten looking glasse?
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Hast thou helped him to spreade out the heauens which are strong and bright as a loking glasse?
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Wilt thou establish with him foundations for the ancient heavens? they are strong as a molten mirror.
English Revised Version
Canst thou with him spread out the sky, which is strong as a molten mirror?
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
In hap thou madist with hym heuenes, which moost sad ben foundid, as of bras.
Update Bible Version
Can you with him spread out the sky, Which is strong as a molten mirror?
Webster's Bible Translation
Hast thou with him spread out the sky [which is] strong, [and] as a molten looking-glass?
New King James Version
With Him, have you spread out the skies, Strong as a cast metal mirror?
New Living Translation
he makes the skies reflect the heat like a bronze mirror. Can you do that?
New Life Bible
Can you help Him spread out the sky, making it as hard as a mirror made from heated brass?
New Revised Standard
Can you, like him, spread out the skies, hard as a molten mirror?
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Didst thou spread out, with him, the skies, strong as a molten mirror?
Douay-Rheims Bible
Thou perhaps hast made the heavens with him, which are most strong, as if they were of molten brass.
Revised Standard Version
Can you, like him, spread out the skies, hard as a molten mirror?
Young's Literal Translation
Thou hast made an expanse with Him For the clouds -- strong as a hard mirror!
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"Can you, with Him, spread out the skies, Strong as a molten mirror?

Contextual Overview

14 Hearken unto this, O Job: Stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God. 15 Dost thou know how God layeth his charge upon them, And causeth the lightning of his cloud to shine? 16 Dost thou know the balancings of the clouds, The wondrous works of him who is perfect in knowledge? 17 How thy garments are warm, When the earth is still by reason of the south wind? 18 Canst thou with him spread out the sky, Which is strong as a molten mirror? 19 Teach us what we shall say unto him; For we cannot set our speech in order by reason of darkness. 20 Shall it be told him that I would speak? Or should a man wish that he were swallowed up?

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

spread: Job 9:8, Job 9:9, Genesis 1:6-8, Psalms 104:2, Psalms 148:4-6, Psalms 150:1, Proverbs 8:27, Isaiah 40:12, Isaiah 40:22, Isaiah 44:24

as: Exodus 38:8

Reciprocal: Psalms 136:6 - General Isaiah 48:13 - my right hand hath spanned Isaiah 51:13 - that hath

Cross-References

Genesis 37:14
And he said to him, Go now, see whether it is well with thy brethren, and well with the flock; and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.
Genesis 37:15
And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou?
1 Samuel 19:1
And Saul spake to Jonathan his son, and to all his servants, that they should slay David. But Jonathan, Saul's son, delighted much in David.
Psalms 31:13
For I have heard the defaming of many, Terror on every side: While they took counsel together against me, They devised to take away my life.
Psalms 37:12
The wicked plotteth against the just, And gnasheth upon him with his teeth.
Psalms 37:32
The wicked watcheth the righteous, And seeketh to slay him.
Psalms 94:21
They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, And condemn the innocent blood.
Psalms 105:25
He turned their heart to hate his people, To deal subtly with his servants.
Psalms 109:4
For my love they are my adversaries: But I give myself unto prayer.
Matthew 21:38
But the husbandmen, when they saw the son, said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and take his inheritance.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Hast thou with him spread out the sky?.... Wast thou concerned with him at the first spreading out of the sky? wast thou an assistant to him in it? did he not spread it as a curtain or canopy about himself, without the help of another? verily he did; see Job 9:8

Isaiah 44:24;

[which] is strong: for though it seems a fluid and thin, is very firm and strong, as appears by what it bears, and are contained in it; and therefore is called "the firmament of his power", Psalms 150:1;

[and] as a molten looking glass; clear and transparent, like the looking glasses of the women, made of molten brass, Exodus 38:8; and firm and permanent u; and a glass this is in which the glory of God, and his divine perfections, is to be seen; and is one of the wondrous works of God, made for the display of his own glory, and the benefit of men, Psalms 19:1. Or this may respect the spreading out a clear serene sky, and smoothing it after it has been covered and ruffled with storms and tempests; which is such a wonderful work of God, that man has no hand in.

u χαλκεος ουρανος. Pindar. Nem. Ode 6.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Hast thou with him spread out the sky? - That is, wert thou employed with God in performing that vast work, that thou canst explain how it was done? Elihu here speaks of the sky as it appears, and as it is often spoken of, as an expanse or solid body spread out over our heads, and as sustained by some cause which is unknown. Sometimes in the Scriptures it is spoken of as a curtain (Notes, Isaiah 40:22); sometimes as a “firmament,” or a solid body spread out (Septuagint, Genesis 1:6-7); sometimes as a fixture in which the stars are placed (Notes, Isaiah 34:4), and sometimes as a scroll that may be rolled up, or as a garment, Psalms 102:26. There is no reason to suppose that the true cause of the appearance of an expanse was understood at that time, but probably the prevailing impression was that the sky was solid and was a fixture in which the stars were held. Many of the ancients supposed that there were concentric spheres, which were transparent but solid, and that these spheres revolved around the earth carrying the heavenly bodies with them. In one of these spheres, they supposed, was the sun; in another the moon; in another the fixed stars; in another the planets; and it was the harmonious movement of these concentric and transparent orbs which it was supposed produced the “music of the spheres.”

Which is strong - Firm, compact. Elihu evidently supposed that it was solid. It was so firm that it was self-sustained.

And as a molten looking-glass - As a mirror that is made by being fused or cast. The word “glass” is not in the original, the Hebrew denoting simply “seeing,” or a “mirror” (ראי re'ı̂y). Mirrors were commonly made of plates of metal highly polished; see the notes at Isaiah 3:23; compare Wilkinson’s Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, vol. iii. p. 365. Ancient mirrors were so highly polished that in some which have been discovered at Thebes the luster has been partially restored, though they have been buried for many centuries. There can be no doubt that the early apprehension in regard to the sky was, that it was a solid expanse, and that it is often so spoken of in the Bible. There is, however, no direct declaration that it is so, and whenever it is so spoken of, it is to be understood as popular language, as we speak still of the rising or setting of the sun, though we know that the language is not philosophically correct. The design of the Bible is not to teach science, but religion, and the speakers in the Bible were allowed to use the language of common life - just as scientific men in fact do now.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 37:18. Hast thou with him spread out the sky — Wert thou with him when he made the expanse; fitted the weight to the winds; proportioned the aqueous to the terrene surface of the globe; the solar attraction to the quantum of vapours necessary; to be stored up in the clouds, in order to be occasionally deposited in fertilizing showers upon the earth? and then dost thou know how gravity and elasticity should be such essential properties of atmospheric air, that without them and their due proportions, we should neither have animal nor vegetable life?

Strong-as a molten looking-glass? — Like a molten mirror. The whole concave of heaven, in a clear day or brilliant night, being like a mass of polished metal, reflecting or transmitting innumerable images.


 
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