Lenten Study Job Ch 26
Job still trusts God. He is in awe of God’s majesty. He is amazed at the things God can do. To Job, he may not understand why these things are happening to him, but he trusts God does.
"There was a man in the land of Uz" by andrevanb is marked with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.Caption
1 Then Job responded,
2 “What a help you are to the weak! How you have saved the arm without strength!
3 “What counsel you have given to one without wisdom! What helpful insight you have abundantly provided!
Job 26:1-3 (NASB)
Job is throwing out the sarcasm now. This goes along with Jesus’ statements that we are no help to the lost if we only tell them about the Kingdom of God and don’t take care of their earthly needs first.
14 What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?
15 If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food,
16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?
17 Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.
James 2:14-17 (NASB)
Job tells Bildad just like faith without works; he is no help to someone with just his words. Job knows as much as the three of them do, yet all they can do is tell him what he already knows. All their talk is not helping at all.
4 “To whom have you uttered words? And whose spirit was expressed through you?
Job 26:4 (NASB)
Job’s point is that they have forgotten who they are talking to. He also questions the source of their input into his situation, whether it is from themselves or God. Job concludes that they are speaking out of themselves and not the word given to them by God. He is probably right on that front.
5 “The departed spirits tremble Under the waters and their inhabitants.
Job 26:5 (NASB)
I take this to mean when we have a funeral for someone who died, we lay their body to rest in the ground or a tomb, but we see them interred. When someone dies at sea, they are lost, and we don’t see them anymore. We as humans don’t see them, but God does.
6 “Naked is Sheol before Him, And Abaddon has no covering.
Job 26:6 (NASB)
Sheol is the underworld in Job’s time, Hell to us. Abaddon is a reference to a “bottomless pit.” When in context with Sheol, it is a reference to the dead. The “He” here is God. Job’s statement means God sees to the bottom of a bottomless pit. He knows everything.
7 “He stretches out the north over empty space And hangs the earth on nothing.
Job 26:7 (NASB)
God created all things and the vastness of what lies in between. It references the creation of everything and the fact that God knows how it was all done.
8 “He wraps up the waters in His clouds, And the cloud does not burst under them.
Job 26:8 (NASB)
In Job’s time, meteorological science and the physics behind water vapor were completely unknown. How condensation works to wick moisture off a body of water into vapor, carry it aloft, and recondense it back to the ground in the form of rain was completely alien to the people of this time. It was purely in the realm of God’s sovereign power.
9 “He obscures the face of the full moon And spreads His cloud over it.
Job 26:9 (NASB)
The idea that the shadow of the earth makes the moon darken was lost on Job, and again, this was God’s purview.
10 “He has inscribed a circle on the surface of the waters At the boundary of light and darkness.
Job 26:10 (NASB)
Physics as a science wouldn’t be coming around for another five-thousand years. All the things Job and his friends marvel at were the handiwork of God.
12 “He quieted the sea with His power, And by His understanding He shattered Rahab.
Job 26:12 (NASB)
Why a storm passes is still something of magic to us. Meteorologists are still taking wild guesses sometimes and get it wrong many times. That’s not to say there isn’t some science or certainty in things now verse back in Job’s day; there is. We don’t have this one down to an exacting nature like adding two plus two. Recall Rahab is likely the name of another mighty sea serpent sailors feared because they believed it would mercilessly sink their tiny ships.
13 “By His breath the heavens are cleared; His hand has pierced the fleeing serpent.
Job 26:13 (NASB)
How the winds worked and why was magic, the ability of God to Job and his friends. Likewise, Rahab, the fleeing serpent, fled because God drove it away.
14 “Behold, these are the fringes of His ways; And how faint a word we hear of Him! But His mighty thunder, who can understand?”
Job 26:14 (NASB)
These mighty things that Job and the people of his day didn’t understand were merely “the fringes of His ways,” meaning just the smallest glimpse of God’s mighty power. Both then and now, what we see and understand about God is to us as a single grain of sand is to all of the sands on all of the beaches in all of creation; insignificant.