Jó 26

Job’s Reply to Bildad

You Have Really Been Helpful

1 Job said:

2 You have really been helpful

to someone weak and weary.

3 You have given great advice

and wonderful wisdom

to someone truly in need.

4 How can anyone possibly speak

with such understanding?

5 Remember the terrible trembling

of those in the world of the dead

below the mighty ocean.

6 Nothing in that land

of death and destruction

is hidden from God,

7 who hung the northern sky

and suspended the earth

on empty space.

8 God stores water in clouds,

but they don’t burst,

9 and he wraps them around

the face of the moon.

10 On the surface of the ocean,

God has drawn a boundary line

between light and darkness.

11 And columns supporting the sky

tremble at his command.

12 By his power and wisdom,

God conquered the force

of the mighty ocean.*26.12 the force of the mighty ocean: The Hebrew text has "the ocean … Rahab." In this passage the sea monster Rahab stands for the fearsome power of the ocean (see the notes at 3.8 and 9.13).

13 The heavens became bright

when he breathed,

and the escaping sea monster*26.13 sea monster: The Hebrew text has "snake," which probably stands for some kind of fearsome sea monster, such as Leviathan (see Isaiah 27.1).

died at his hands.

14 These things are merely a whisper

of God’s power at work.

How little we would understand

if this whisper

ever turned into thunder!