Job 26:8 Komentář

This is Job's short reply to Bildad's short discourse, in which he is so far from contradicting him that he confirms what he had said, and out-does him in magnifying God and setting forth his power, to show what reason he had still to say, as he did (Job 13:2), "What you know, the same do I know also." I. He shows that Bildad's discourse was foreign to the matter he was discoursing of - though very true and good, yet not to the purpose (Job 26:2-4). II. That it was needless to the person he was discoursing with; for he knew it, and believed it, and could speak of it as well as he and better, and could add to the proofs which he had produced of God's power and greatness, which he does in the rest of his discourse (Job 26:5-13), concluding that, when they had both said what they could, all came short of the merit of the subject and it was still far from being exhausted (Job 26:14).

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 26 In this chapter Job, in a very sarcastic manner, rallies Bildad on the weakness and impertinence of his reply, and sets it in a very ridiculous light; showing it to be quite foolish and stupid, and not at all to the purpose, and besides was none of his own, but what he had borrowed from another, Job 26:1; and if it was of any avail in the controversy to speak of the greatness and majesty of God, of his perfections and attributes, of his ways and works, he could say greater and more glorious things of God than he had done, and as he does, Job 26:5; beginning at the lower parts of the creation, and gradually ascending to the superior and celestial ones; and concludes with observing, that, after all, it was but little that was known of God and his ways, by himself, by Bildad, or by any mortal creature, Job 26:14.

He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds,.... The clouds are of his making; when he utters his voice, or gives the word of command, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens; and the vapours he exhales from the ends of the earth and forms them into clouds, and they are his chariots, in which he rides up and down in the heavens, and waters his gardens and plantations on earth; see Jer 10:13; which may be said to be thick in comparison of the air, in which they are; otherwise they are but thin, and the thinner they are, the greater wonder it is that the waters, and such a heavy body of them, should be bound up in them, as there often is; and which is bound up, held, and retained therein, as anything bound up in a sack or bag, or in a garment, or the skirt of a man's coat; see Pro 30:4; and what is still more marvellous: and the cloud is not rent under them; under the waters, and through the weight of them; which, if it was, would fall in vast water spouts, and were such to fall upon the earth, as it may be supposed they did at the general deluge, they would destroy man and beast, and wash off and wash away the things of the earth: but God has so ordered it in his infinite wisdom, and by his almighty power, that clouds should not be thus rent, but fall in small drops and gentle showers, as if they passed through a sieve or colander, whereby the earth is refreshed, and made fruitful; see Job 36:26.

He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds, that they should not burst forth alike beneath. For what does he call 'the waters' in this place but knowledge; what 'clouds' but the Preachers? For that in Holy Writ 'water' may sometimes be a term used for knowledge, we have been taught by Solomon bearing witness to it, who says, The words of a man's mouth are as deep waters, and the well-spring of wisdom as a flowing brook. That, by water knowledge is denoted, the Prophet David bears witness, saying, Dark water in clouds of the sky, i.e. secret knowledge in the Prophets, who before the Advent of the Lord, whilst, pregnant with secret sacraments, they were bearing in them boundless mysteries, to the eyes of beholders had their meaning obscured. But by the name of 'clouds,' what else is denoted in this passage but the holy Preachers, i.e. the Apostles, who being dispatched in every direction through the regions of the world, both knew how to shower in words, and to flash forth in miracles? Whom the Prophet Isaiah beholding long before, said, Who are these that fly as clouds? Thus because this man, filled with the spirit of prophecy, in this utterance of his voice longs that for the praise of God the rise of Holy Church may commence, he betakes himself to tell the order of her rise from the preaching of the Apostles, who took the greatest pains to preach to uninstructed people what was plain and comprehensible, not what was high and arduous. For holy knowledge, which is here set forth by the title of water, if in the same way that they drew it from the heart, so they poured it forth from the lips, by the immensity thereof they would overwhelm rather than water their hearers. Hence his knowledge being unbound within, that it should not burst forth alike beneath, in nourishing his hearers with the dropping of words, that 'cloud' spake, saying, And I brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat. For who could have borne it if he that was caught up to the third heaven, that was caught into paradise, even hearing unutterable words, which it was not permitted to man to speak, had opened such unbounded depths of celestial knowledge? or what hearer's power would he not overwhelm, if all that he might have been able to draw within, as far as tongue of flesh may suffice, overflowing without the mighty flood of this water had poured forth? But that uninstructed hearers might be comforted not by an inundation of knowledge, but by the tempered dropping of preaching, God tieth up the waters in the clouds, that they may not burst forth alike beneath. Because He tempers the preaching of the teachers, that so the infirmity of the hearers, being nourished by the dew of the things spoken, may be made strong. Which is well described in the Gospel by a mystical mode of representation, where it is said, Jesus entered into the boat of Peter, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land; and he sat down thus, and taught the people. By Peter's ship what else is denoted but the Church committed to Peter? and that the Lord may preach to the crowds flocking together out of this ship, He orders it to be 'thrust out a little from the land.' Which same he neither bids to be carried into the deep, and yet does bid that it be thrust out from the land, signifying, surely, that to uninstructed people His preachers ought not to preach either what is too deep relating to the heavenly world, nor yet what is earthly. And so 'water is bound up in the clouds,' because the knowledge of the Preachers, speaking to the minds of the frail, is forbidden to teach as much as it is able to see. Since, for the most part, if the heart of the hearers is spoilt by the vastness of the utterance, the tongue of the persons teaching is mulcted in the damage of indiscretion. Whence it is written; And if a man shall open a cistern, or if a man shall dig a pit and not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall therein, the owner of the pit shall make it good. For what is it 'to open a cistern,' saving with strong understanding to penetrate the mysteries of Holy Writ? And what is understood by an 'ox' and an 'ass,' viz. a clean and an unclean animal, save every believer and unbeliever? Accordingly, let him that 'diggeth a cistern cover it, lest an ox or an ass tumble headlong therein,' i.e. let him, who already makes out deep things in Holy Writ, by silence cover over his lofty perceptions before those that do not reach that compass, lest by a stumbling-block to the soul he kill either the believing little one, or the unbelieving, who might have been led to believe. For upon the death of the beasts of burthen there are damages due, plainly because he is convicted of having done that, whereby he is held a debtor for the exercising of penance. Accordingly, 'the cistern must be covered,' in that before little minds, deep knowledge requires to be veiled, lest by the same cause that the heart of the teachers is lifted up to the highest things, the infirmity of the hearer fall away to the lowest. Accordingly let it be said with justice, He bindeth up the waters in His clouds, that they should not burst forth alike beneath. For 'the waters would burst forth alike,' if, in the presence of weak hearers, the knowledge came forth from the lips of the speaker as great as it is, if all the whole fulness of preaching poured itself out at once, and reserved nought to itself together with those making progress. For it is fitting that he that preaches should have an eye to the measure of him that hears him, so that the preaching itself may grow with his hearers' stages of growth. For so does it behove every single preacher to do, as it is dealt with himself from heaven; never to tell to the weak all that he has the perception of, because he himself too, so long as by flesh of mortality he is weak, does not perceive all those things that belong to heaven. And therefore he ought not to preach to the ignorant as much as he is acquainted with, because even he himself, touching heavenly mysteries, cannot have his eyes open to see how great they are. For hence it is that Paul the Apostle, after he was admitted to the mysteries of heaven, saith, For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face.

"Binding water in his clouds, and the cloud is not dispersed under it." In fact, if he does not order the clouds to rain, they do not release rain on earth in the quantity that has been ordered by him.

Then he enumerates the effects of divine power in the middle space between heaven and earth. First, in the air, where one finds the wondrous fact that water is lifted up as vapor, is suspended in the air, and does not fall all at once, but drop by drop. One sees this in the rain, and so he says, "He binds up the waters in his thick clouds," in clouds caused by his power, "so that the clouds do not break," from the rainwater's, "falling out at the same time," but drop by drop to keep the earth at a moderate temperature. It is as though what remains in the clouds had been bound together to not fall immediately by God's power. For by divine power vapors do not condense at the same time so that they all must fall together after they are converted into water at the same time.

Honor is not seemly in a fool. The correction and treatment suitable to such. Of the slothful man. Of him who interferes with matters which do not concern him. Contentions to be avoided. Of the dissembler and the lying tongue.

He bindeth up the waters - Drives the aqueous particles together, which were raised by evaporation, so that, being condensed, they form clouds which float in the atmosphere, till, meeting with strong currents of wind, or by the agency of the electric fluid, they are farther condensed; and then, becoming too heavy to be sustained in the air, fall down in the form of rain, when, in this poetic language, the cloud is rent under them.

JOB'S REPLY. (Job 26:1-14) without power . . . no strength . . . no wisdom--The negatives are used instead of the positives, powerlessness, &c., designedly (so Isa 31:8; Deu 32:21). Granting I am, as you say (Job 18:17; Job 15:2), powerlessness itself, &c. "How hast thou helped such a one?" savest--supportest.

in . . . clouds--as if in airy vessels, which, though light, do not burst with the weight of water in them (Pro 30:4).

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 (צרר, 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 (תּחתּם); 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. אחז signifies to take hold of, in architecture to hold together by means of beams, or to fasten together (vid., Thenius on Kg1 6:10, comp. Ch2 9:18, מאחזים, 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 פּני־כסּה, the front of God's throne, which is turned towards the earth, so that it is hidden by storm-clouds as by a סכּה, Job 36:29; Psa 18:12. God's throne, which is here, as in Kg1 10:19, written כּסּה instead of כּסּא (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, פּרשׁז אליו עננו, by spreading over it the clouds which are led forth by Him. פּרשׁו is commonly regarded as a Chaldaism for פּרשׁז (Ges. 56, Olsh. 276), but without any similar instance in favour of this vocalizaton of the 3 pr. Piel (Pil.). Although רענן and שׁאנן, 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., ויּרא, it is more reliable to regard פרשז 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 פּרשׂז (with Sin), which some Codd. give, is preferred by Br, and in agreement with him by Luzzatto (vid., Br's Leket zebi, p. 244), and it seems to underlie the interpretation where פרשז עליו is translated by עליו (פּרשׂ) 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 פּרשׁז (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 = פּרשׂ (פּרשׂ), to expand, signifies to spread out (the legs). Job 26:10 passes from the waters above to the lower waters. תּכלית signifies, as in Job 11:7; Job 28:3; Neh 3:21, the extremity, the extreme boundary; and the connection of תּכלית אור 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 חג 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; עם 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.