the Week of Proper 25 / Ordinary 30
Click here to learn more!
Read the Bible
King James Version
Job 26:7
Bible Study Resources
Concordances:
- Nave'sDictionaries:
- CharlesEncyclopedias:
- InternationalParallel Translations
God stretches the northern sky over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing.
He stretcheth out the north over empty space, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.
He stretches out the north over empty space, And hangs the earth on nothing.
God stretches the northern sky out over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing.
He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth on nothing.
He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, [and] hangeth the earth upon nothing.
He stretches out the north over empty space, And hangs the earth on nothing.
"It is He who spreads out the north over emptiness And hangs the earth on nothing.
He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing.
Which God stretchith forth the north on voide thing, and hangith the erthe on nouyt.
He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth upon nothing.
who hung the northern sky and suspended the earth on empty space.
He stretcheth out the north over empty space, And hangeth the earth upon nothing.
By his hand the north is stretched out in space, and the earth is hanging on nothing.
He stretches the north over chaos and suspends the earth on nothing.
He stretcheth out the north over empty space, he hangeth the earth upon nothing;
God stretched the northern sky over empty space. He hung the earth on nothing.
He stretcheth out the north over the empty space, and hangeth the earth over nothing.
He stretcheth out the North ouer the emptie place, and hangeth the earth vpon nothing.
He spreads out the north over empty waste, and hangs the earth on nothing.
He stretches out Zaphon over the void, and hangs the earth upon nothing.
He stretcheth out the North ouer the emptie place, & hangeth the earth vpon nothing.
He stretches out the north from the empty place, and hangs the earth upon nothing.
God stretched out the northern sky and hung the earth in empty space.
Who stretcheth out the north over emptiness, hangeth the earth upon nothingness;
He stretched out the north over the empty space, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.
He stretches out the north over the void, and hangs the earth upon nothing.
He stretcheth out the noorth ouer the emptie place, and hangeth the earth vpon nothing.
He stretches out the north wind upon nothing, and he upon nothing hangs the earth;
He stretches the northern skies over empty space;he hangs the earth on nothing.
He stretches out the north over empty space, And hangs the eretz on nothing.
He stretches out the north over emptiness; he hangs the earth over nothing.
He stretched out the north over the empty place; and He hung the earth on nothing.
Stretching out the north over desolation, Hanging the earth upon nothing,
He stretcheth out ye north ouer the emptie, & hageth ye earth vpo nothinge.
"He stretches out the north over empty space And hangs the earth on nothing.
He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing.
"He stretches out the north over empty space And hangs the earth on nothing.
He stretches out the north over what is formlessAnd hangs the earth on nothing.
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
Job 9:8, Genesis 1:1, Genesis 1:2, Psalms 24:2, Psalms 104:2-5, Proverbs 8:23-27, Isaiah 40:22, Isaiah 40:26, Isaiah 42:5
Reciprocal: Genesis 1:6 - Let there Genesis 1:9 - General Job 38:6 - Whereupon Psalms 78:69 - earth Psalms 89:12 - north Psalms 104:5 - Who laid the foundations of the earth Psalms 136:6 - General Isaiah 44:24 - I am Jeremiah 10:12 - stretched Zechariah 12:1 - which
Cross-References
Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.
And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this.
And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her: and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up.
Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundredfold: and the Lord blessed him.
And the man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great:
The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe.
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
Gill's Notes on the Bible
He stretcheth out the north over the empty place,.... The northern hemisphere, which is the chief and best known, at least it was in the time of Job, when the southern hemisphere might not be known at all; though, if our version of Job 9:9 is right, Job seems to have had knowledge of it. Scheuchzer u thinks the thick air farthest north is meant, which expands itself everywhere, and is of great use to the whole earth. But if the northern hemisphere is meant, as a learned man w expresses it, it
"was not only principal as to Job's respect, and the position of Arabia, but because this hemisphere is absolutely so indeed, it is principal to the whole; for as the heavens and the earth are divided by the middle line, the northern half hath a strange share of excellency; we have more earth, more men, more stars, more day (the same also Sephorno, a Jewish commentator on the place, observes); and, which is more than all this, the north pole is more magnetic than the south:''
though the whole celestial sphere may be intended, the principal being put for the whole; even that whole expansion, or firmament of heaven, which has its name from being stretched out like a curtain, or canopy, over the earth; which was done when the earth was "tohu", empty of inhabitants, both men and beasts, and was without form and void, and had no beauty in it, or anything growing on it; see Genesis 1:2;
[and] hangeth the earth upon nothing; as a ball in the air x, poised with its own weight y, or kept in this form and manner by the centre of gravity, and so some Jewish writers z interpret "nothing" of the centre of the earth, and which is nothing but "ens rationis", a figment and imagination of the mind; or rather the earth is held together, and in the position it is, by its own magnetic virtue, it being a loadstone itself; and as the above learned writer observes,
"the globe consisteth by a magnetic dependency, from which the parts cannot possibly start aside; but which, howsoever thus strongly seated on its centre and poles, is yet said to hang upon nothing; because the Creator in the beginning thus placed it within the "tohu", as it now also hangeth in the air; which itself also is nothing as to any regard of base or sustentation.''
In short, what the foundations are on which it is laid, or the pillars by which it is sustained, cannot be said, except the mighty power and providence of God. The word used seems to come from a root, which in the Syriac and Chaldee languages signifies to "bind [and] restrain"; and may design the expanse or atmosphere, so called from its binding and compressing nature, על, "in" or "within" which the earth is hung; see Psalms 32:9.
u Physic. Sacr. vol. 4. p. 724. w Gregory's Notes and Observations, &c. c. 12. p. 55. x "Terra pilae similis nullo fulcimine nixa", Ovid. Fast. 6. y "Circumfuso pendebat in aere tellus, ponderibus librata suis----", Ovid. Metamorph. l. 1. Fab. 1. z Ben Gersom & Bar Tzemach in loc.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
He stretcheth out the north - This whole passage is particularly interesting as giving a view of the cosmology which prevailed in those early times. Indeed, as has been already remarked, this poem, apart from every other consideration, is of great value for disclosing to us the prevailing views on the subject of astronomy, geography, and many of the arts, at a much earlier period than we have an account of them elsewhere. The word north here denotes the heavens as they appear to revolve around the pole, and which seem to be stretched out as a curtain. The heavens are often represented as a veil, an expanse, a curtain, or a tent; see Isaiah 34:4, note; Isaiah 40:22, note.
Over the empty place - על־תהוּ ‛al-tôhû, “Upon emptiness, or nothing.” That is, without anything to support it. The word used here (תהוּ tôhû) is one of those employed Genesis 1:2, “And the earth was wlthout form and void.” But it seems here to mean emptiness, nothing. The north is stretched out and sustained by the mere power of God.
And hangeth the earth upon nothing. - It has nothing to support it. So Milton:
“And earth self-balaneed from her center hung.”
There is no certain evidence here that Job was acquainted with the globular form of the earth, and with its diurnal and annual revolutions. But it is clear that he regarded it as not resting on any foundation or support; as lying on the vacant air, and kept there by the power of God. The Chaldee paraphrasist, in order to explain this, as that Paraphrase often does, adds the word waters. “He hangeth the earth מיא עלוי upon the waters, with no one to sustain it.” The sentiment here expressed by Job was probably the common opinion of his time. It occurs also in Lucretius:
Terraque ut in media mundi regionne quieseat
Evallescere paullatim, et decrescere, pondus
Convenit; atque aliam naturam subter habere,
Et ineunte aevo conjunctam atque uniter aptam
Partibus aeriis mundi, quibus insita vivit
Propterea, non est oneri, neque deprimit auras;
Ut sua quoique homini nullo sunt pondere membra,
Nec caput est oneri collo, nec denique totum
Corporus in pedibus pondus sentimus inesse.
v. 535.
In this passage the sense is, that the earth is self-sustained; that it is no burden, or that no one part is burdensome to another - as in man the limbs are not burdensome, the head is not heavy, nor the whole frame burdensome to the feet. So, again, Lucretius says, ii. 602:
Hanc, veteres Grajum docti cecinere poetae,
Aeris in spatio magnam pendere -
Tellurem, neque posse in terra sistere terram.
- “In ether poised she hangs,
Unpropt by earth beneath.”
So Ovid says:
Ponderibus librata suis.
Self-poised and self balanced.
And again, Fastor, vi. 269:
Terra pilae similis, nullo fulcimine nixa,
Aere subjecto tam grave pendet onus.
From passages like this occurring occasionally in the Classical writers, it is evident that the true figure of the earth had early engaged the attention of people, and that occasionally the truth on this subject was before their minds, though it was neither worked into a system nor sustained then by suffient evidence to make it an article of established belief The description here given is appropriate now; and had Job understood all that is now known of astronomy, his language would have been appropriate to express just conceptions of the greatness and majesty of God. It is proof of amazing power and greatness that he has thus “hung” the earth, the planets, the vast sun himself, upon nothing, and that by his own power he sustains and governs all.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Job 26:7. He stretcheth out the north over the empty place — על תהו al tohu, to the hollow waste. The same word as is used, Genesis 1:2, The earth was without form, תהו tohu. The north must here mean the north pole, or northern hemisphere; and perhaps what is here stated may refer to the opinion that the earth was a vast extended plain, and the heavens poised upon it, resting on this plain all round the horizon. Of the south the inhabitants of Idumea knew nothing; nor could they have any notion of inhabitants in that hemisphere.
Hangeth the earth upon nothing. — The Chaldee says: "He lays the earth upon the waters, nothing sustaining it."
