Giobbe 38:8 Commento

In most disputes the strife is who shall have the last word. Job's friends had, in this controversy, tamely yielded it to Job, and then he to Elihu. But, after all the wranglings of the counsel at bar, the judge upon the bench must have the last word; so God had here, and so he will have in every controversy, for every man's judgment proceeds from him and by his definitive sentence every man must stand or fall and every cause be won or lost. Job had often appealed to God, and had talked boldly how he would order his cause before him, and as a prince would he go near unto him; but, when God took the throne, Job had nothing to say in his own defence, but was silent before him. It is not so easy a matter as some think it to contest with the Almighty. Job's friends had sometimes appealed to God too: "O that God would speak!" Job 11:7. And now, at length, God does speak, when Job, by Elihu's clear and close arguings was mollified a little, and mortified, and so prepared to hear what God had to say. It is the office of ministers to prepare the way of the Lord. That which the great God designs in this discourse is to humble Job, and bring him to repent of, and to recant, his passionate indecent expressions concerning God's providential dealings with him; and this he does by calling upon Job to compare God's eternity with his own time, God's omniscience with his own ignorance, and God's omnipotence with his own impotency. I. He begins with an awakening challenge and demand in general (Job 38:2, Job 38:3). II. He proceeds in divers particular instances and proofs of Job's utter inability to contend with God, because of his ignorance and weakness: for, 1. He knew nothing of the founding of the earth (Job 38:4-7). 2. Nothing of the limiting of the sea (Job 38:8-11). 3. Nothing of the morning light (Job 38:12-15). 4. Nothing of the dark recesses of the sea and earth (Job 38:16-21). 5. Nothing of the springs in the clouds (Job 38:22-27), nor the secret counsels by which they are directed. 6. He could do nothing towards the production of the rain, or frost, or lightning (Job 38:28-30, Job 38:34, Job 38:35, Job 38:37, Job 38:38), nothing towards the directing of the stars and their influences (Job 38:31-33), nothing towards the making of his own soul (Job 38:36). And lastly, he could not provide for the lions and the ravens (Job 38:39-41). If, in these ordinary works of nature, Job was puzzled, how durst he pretend to dive into the counsels of God's government and to judge of them? In this (as bishop Patrick observes) God takes up the argument begun by Elihu (who came nearest to the truth) and prosecutes it in inimitable words, excelling his, and all other men's, in the loftiness of the style, as much as thunder does a whisper.

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 38 In this chapter the Lord takes up the controversy with Job; calls upon him to prepare to engage with him in it, and demands an answer to posing questions he puts to him, concerning the earth and the fabric of it, Job 38:1; concerning the sea, compared to an infant in embryo, at its birth, in its swaddling bands and cradle, Job 38:8; concerning the morning light, its spread and influence, Job 38:12; concerning the springs of the sea, the dark parts of the earth, the place both of light and darkness, Job 38:16; concerning the various meteors, snow, hail, rain, thunder, lightning, and the influences of the stars, Job 38:22; and concerning provision for lions and ravens, Job 38:40.

Or who shut up the sea with doors,.... From the earth the transition is to the sea, according to the order of the creation; and this refers not to the state and case of the sea as at the flood, of which some interpret it, but as at its first creation; and it is throughout this account represented as an infant, and here first as in embryo, shut up in the bowels of the earth, where it was when first created with it, as an infant shut up in its mother's womb, and with the doors of it; see Job 3:10; the bowels of the earth being the storehouses where God first laid up the deep waters, Psa 33:7; and when the chaos, the misshapen earth, was like a woman big with child; when it brake forth out of the abyss, as the Targum, with force and violence, as Pharez broke out of his mother's womb; for which reason he had his name given, which signifies a breach, Gen 38:29; so it follows, as if it had issued out of the womb; as a child out of its mother's womb; so the sea burst forth and issued out of the bowels of the earth, and covered it all around, as in Psa 104:6; and now it was that the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, before they were drained off the earth; this was the first open visible production of the sea, and nay be called the birth of it; see Gen 1:2. Something like this the Heathen philosopher Archelaus had a notion of, who says (g), the sea was shut up in hollow places, and was as it were strained through the earth. (g) Laert. Vit. Philosoph. l. 2. p. 99.

Who shut up the sea with doors, when it was breaking forth, as if proceeding from the womb? ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION For what do we understand by the 'sea,' but the world, and what by the 'womb,' but the corruption of carnal thoughts? For in this place by the word 'womb' is designated the secret and evil thought of carnal things. And this womb conceives not a bodily substance in order to produce offspring, but a cause of sorrow, in order to fulfil its wickedness. Of this womb of the heart of the wicked it is said in another place, He hath conceived sorrow, and hath brought forth iniquity. [Ps. 7, 14] By this womb do the wicked conceive when they think evil things. By this womb do they bring forth, when they execute the evils they have thought. The sea then was bursting forth, as if proceeding from the womb, when the waves of worldly threats, conceived in the iniquity of carnal thoughts, were raging for the destruction of Holy Church. But, by God's help, this sea was shut up with doors, because holy men were opposed as a kind of door, against the pride of persecutors, in order that the wrath of persecutors might be crushed by their miracles, and reverence. For when the princes of this world had been brought low, the Lord exalted Holy Church, by their means, above the height of the world, and restrained the assaults of the raging sea, by having raised up the power of the same Church. MORAL INTERPRETATION Who shut up the sea with doors? What is this sea, except our heart, agitated by fury, embittered by strife, swelling with the haughtiness of pride, darkened by the deceit of wickedness? And how mightily this sea rages, any one observes, who understands in himself the secret temptations of thoughts. For behold we are now abandoning our perversities, we are adhering to proper desires, we are now cutting off, outwardly, our wicked works. But yet we are secretly harassed within, by that tempest of our former life, with which we have come thus far; and unless the barriers of unbounded fear were confining it, with the thought of the judgment, and dread of eternal torment, all the foundations of the work which has been raised up in us would have utterly fallen. For if that which rages within in suggestion, were to burst forth in deliberate act, the whole fabric of our life would have lain utterly overthrown. For being conceived in iniquity and born in sin, we bring with us into this world a contest, through the plague of innate corruptions, which we must strive hard to overcome. Whence it is rightly said also of the sea; When it was breaking forth, as if proceeding from the womb. For youth is the womb of evil thought. Of which the Lord says by Moses, For the sense and thought of the human heart is prone to evil from its youth. [Gen. 8, 21] For the evil of corruption which each one of us has acquired from the springing up of his carnal desires, he exercises as he advances in years; and unless the hand of Divine fear speedily repress it, sin quickly swallows up all the goodness of created nature. Let no one then attribute the victory over his thought to himself, since the Truth says, Who shut up the sea with doors, when it was breaking forth, as if it was proceeding from the womb? For did not Divine grace restrain the waves of our heart, from the very first beginning of our thoughts, the sea, raging with the storms of temptations, would doubtless have overwhelmed the land of the human heart, so that, washed by the briny waves, it would have become barren; that is, it would have been charmed by the fatal pleasures of the flesh, and have perished. The Lord then alone shuts up the sea with doors, Who opposes to the evil motions of our hearts the barriers of inspired fear. But because we are prohibited following those things which we behold, because we are debarred from the enjoyment of bodily pursuits, we delight to raise the eyes of our mind even to things invisible, and to behold those very things we are ordered to follow. But what do we? These things are not yet open to our feeble sight. Behold we are invited to their love, and yet are restrained from their sight, because even if we ever see them by stealth and partially, we are in darkness from our still too imperfect sight.

The sea is like a baby who gets out after being fashioned in the womb and is wrapped in clothes of wool. After bringing it into existence from nothing, God gathers the sea together from the place where it was and delimits, shuts and encircles it in the womb of the earth.

After the foundation of the earth, he continues then speaking about the waters which are immediately placed over the land. The natural order of the elements requires that water surrounds the earth at every point like air surrounds earth and water at every point. But by divine disposition, it has been effected for the generation of men, animals, and plants, some part of the land remains uncovered by the waters, as God holds back the waters of the sea within their certain limits by his power, and so he says, "Who shut up the sea with doors," with determined limits. There were some who thought the action of the sun dried up some part of the earth, but the Lord shows that it has been disposed from the beginning that the sea does not cover the land everywhere. He describes the production of the sea using the comparison of the birth of a living thing, a child, because water is especially apt to be changed into living things. This is why the seed of all things is moist. The child first comes forth from the womb of its mother, and he means this when he says, "when it burst forth as though proceeding from the womb." He uses the word "to break forth" because it is a property of water to move almost continually. He says the sea proceeds, "from the womb," not because it has had its origin from other corporeal matter, but because it proceeded from the hidden origin of divine providence as from the womb.

The Lord answers Job out of a whirlwind, and challenges him to answer, Job 38:1-3. He convinces him of ignorance and weakness, by an enumeration of some of his mighty works; particularly of the creation of the earth, Job 38:4-7. The sea and the deeps, Job 38:8-18. The light, Job 38:19-21. Snow, hail, thunder, lightning, rain, dew, ice, and hoar-frost, Job 38:22-30. Different constellations, and the ordinances of heaven influencing the earth, Job 38:31-33. Shows his own power and wisdom in the atmosphere, particularly in the thunder, lightnings, and rain, Job 38:34-38. His providence in reference to the brute creation, Job 38:39-41.

Who shut up the sea with doors - Who gathered the waters together into one place, and fixed the sea its limits, so that it cannot overpass them to inundate the earth? When it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? - This is a very fine metaphor. The sea is represented as a newly born infant issuing from the womb of the void and formless chaos; and the delicate circumstance of the liquor amnii, which bursts out previously to the birth of the foetus, alluded to. The allusion to the birth of a child is carried on in the next verse.

(Job 38:1-41) Jehovah appears unexpectedly in a whirlwind (already gathering Job 37:1-2), the symbol of "judgment" (Psa 50:3-4, &c.), to which Job had challenged Him. He asks him now to get himself ready for the contest. Can he explain the phenomena of God's natural government? How can he, then, hope to understand the principles of His moral government? God thus confirms Elihu's sentiment, that submission to, not reasonings on, God's ways is man's part. This and the disciplinary design of trial to the godly is the great lesson of this book. He does not solve the difficulty by reference to future retribution: for this was not the immediate question; glimpses of that truth were already given in the fourteenth and nineteenth chapters, the full revelation of it being reserved for Gospel times. Yet even now we need to learn the lesson taught by Elihu and God in Job.

doors--floodgates; these when opened caused the flood (Gen 8:2); or else, the shores. womb--of chaos. The bowels of the earth. Image from childbirth (Job 38:8-9; Eze 32:2; Mic 4:10). Ocean at its birth was wrapped in clouds as its swaddling bands.

8 And who shut up the sea with doors, When it broke through, issued from the womb, 9 When I put clouds round it as a garment, And thick mist as its swaddling clothes, 10 And I broke for it my bound, And set bars and doors, 11 And said: Hitherto come, and no further, And here be thy proud waves stayed!? The state of תהו ובהו was the first half, and the state of תהום the second half of the primeval condition of the forming earth. The question does not, however, refer to the תהום, in which the waters of the sky and the waters of the earth were as yet not separated, but, passing over this intermediate condition of the forming earth, to the sea, the waters of which God shut up as by means of a door and bolt, when, first enshrouded in thick mist (which has remained from that time one of its natural peculiarities), and again and again manifesting its individuality, it broke forth (גּיח of the foetus, as Psa 22:10) from the bowels of the, as yet, chaotic earth. That the sea, in spite of the flatness of its banks, does not flow over the land, is a work of omnipotence which broke over it, i.e., restraining it, a fixed bound (חק as Job 26:10; Pro 8:29; Jer 5:22, = גּבוּל, Psa 104:9), viz., the steep and rugged walls of the basin of the sea, and which thereby established a firm barrier behind which it should be kept. Instead of וּפה, Jos 18:8, Job 38:11 has the Chethib וּפא. חק is to be understood with ישׁית, and "one set" is equivalent to the passive (Ges. 137*): let a bound be set (comp. שׁת, Hos 6:11, which is used directly so) against the proud rising of thy waves.