Armenia in comments -- Book: Job (tJob) Յոբ
Searched terms: chald
tJob 26::2 How hast thou helped him - This seems a species of irony. How wonderfully hast thou counselled the unskilful and strengthened the weak! Alas for you! ye could not give what ye did not possess! In this way the Chald:ee understood these verses: "Why hast thou pretended to give succor, when thou art without strength? And save, while thy arm is weak? Why hast thou given counsel, when thou art without understanding? And supposest that thou hast shown the very essence of wisdom?" Job 26:4 tJob 26::5 Dead things are formed from under the waters - This verse, as it stands in our version, seems to convey no meaning; and the Hebrew is obscure; הרפאים, harephaim, "the Rephaim," certainly means not dead things; nor can there be any propriety in saying that dead things, or things without life, are formed under the waters, for such things are formed everywhere in the earth, and under the earth, as well as under the waters.
The Vulgate translates: Ecce gigantes gemunt sub aquis, et qui habitant cum eis. "Behold the giants, and those who dwell with them, groan from under the waters."
The Septuagint: Μη γιγαντες μαιωθησονται ὑποκατωθεν ὑδατος, και των γειτονων αυτου; "Are not the giants formed from under the waters, and their neighbors?"
The Chald:ee: אפשר דגבריא דמתמזמזין יתברין ואנון מלרע למיא ומשריתהון eposhar degibraiya demithmazmezin yithbareyan veinnun millera lemaiya umashreiyatehon, "Can the trembling giants be regenerated, when they and their hosts are under the water?"
The Syriac and Arabic: "Behold, the giants are slain, and are drawn out of the water." None of these appear to give any sense by which the true meaning can be determined.
There is probably here an allusion to the destruction of the earth by the general deluge. Moses, speaking concerning the state of the earth before the flood, says, Gen 6:4, "There were giants נפלים nephilim, in the earth in those days." Now it is likely that Job means the same by רפאים rephaim as Moses does by the nephilim; and that both refer to the antediluvians, who were all, for their exceeding great iniquities, overwhelmed by the waters of the deluge. Can those mighty men and their neighbors, all the sinners who have been gathered to them since, be rejected from under the waters, by which they were judicially overwhelmed?
Mr. Good thinks the shades of the heroes of former times, the gigantic spectres, the mighty or enormous dead, are meant.
I greatly question whether sea-monsters be not intended, such as porpoises, sharks, narwals, grampuses, and whales. We know, however that an opinion anciently prevailed, that the Titans, a race of men of enormous stature, rebelled against the gods, and endeavored to scale heaven by placing one mountain on the top of another; and that they and their structure were cast down by the thunder of the deities, and buried under the earth and sea; and that their struggles to arise produce the earthquakes which occur in certain countries. Now although this opinion is supported by the most respectable antiquity among the heathens, it is not to be supposed that in the word of God there can be any countenance given to an opinion at once as absurd as it is monstrous. (But still the poet may use the language of the common people). I must therefore either refer the passage here to the antediluvians, or to the vast sea-monsters mentioned above. Job 26:6 tJob 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, Gen 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 Chald:ee says: "He lays the earth upon the waters, nothing sustaining it." Job 26:8
tJob 26::5 Dead things - Job here commences his description of God, to show that his views of his majesty and glory were in no way inferior to those which had been expressed by Bildad, and that what Bildad had said conveyed to him no real information. In this description he far surpasses Bildad in loftiness of conception, and sublimity of description. Indeed, it may be doubted whether for grandeur this passage is surpassed by any description of the majesty of God in the Bible. The passage here has given rise to much discussion, and to a great variety of opinion. Our common translation is most feeble, and by no means conveys its true force. The object of the whole passage is to assert the universal dominion of God. Bildad had said Job 25:1-6 that the dominion of God extended to the heavens, and to the armies of the skies; that God surpassed in majesty the splendor of the heavenly bodies; and that compared with him man was a worm. Job commences his description by saying that the dominion of God extended even to the nether world; and that such were his majesty and power that even the shades of the mighty dead trembled at his presence, and that hell was all naked before him. The word רפאים râphâ'ı̂ym - Rephaim - so feebly rendered "dead things," means the shades of the dead; the departed spirits that dwell in Sheol; see the word explained at length in the notes at Isa 14:9. They are those who have left this world and who have gone down to dwell in the world beneath - the great and mighty conquerors and kings; the illustrious dead of past times, who have left the world and are congregated in the land of Shades. Jerome renders it, "gigantes," and the Septuagint, γίγαντες gigantes - giants; from a common belief that those shades were larger than life. Thus, Lucretius says:
Quippe et enim jam tum divum mortalia secla
Egregias animo facies vigilante videbant;
Et magis in somnis, mirando corporis aucter
Rer. Nat. ver. 1168.
The word "shades" here will express the sense, meaning the departed spirits that are assembled in Sheol. The Chald:ee renders it, גבריא - mighty ones, or giants; the Syriac, in like manner, giants.
Are formed - The Syriac renders this, are killed. Jerome, gemunt - groan; Septuagint, "Are giants born from beneath the water, and the neighboring places?" What idea the authors of that version attached to the passage it is difficult to say. The Hebrew word used here (יחוּללו yechôlālû, from חוּל chûl), means to twist, to turn, to be in anguish - as in child birth; and then it may mean to tremble, quake, be in terror; and the idea here seems to be, that the shades of the dead were in anguish, or trembled at the awful presence, and under the dominion of God. So Luther renders it - understanding it of giants - Die Riesen angsten sich unter den Wassern. The sense would be well expressed, "The shades of the dead tremble, or are in anguish before him. They fear his power. They acknowledge his empire."
Under the waters - The abode of departed spirits is always in this book placed beneath the ground. But why this abode is placed beneath the waters, is not apparent. It is usually under the ground, and the entrance to it is by the grave, or by some dark cavern; compare Virgil's Aeniad, Lib. vi. A different interpretation has been proposed of this verse, which seems better to suit the connection. It is to understand the phrase (תחת tachath) "under," as meaning simply beneath - "the shades beneath;" and to regard the word (מים mayı̂m) waters as connected with the following member:
"The shades beneath tremble;
The waters and the inhabitants thereof."
Thus explained, the passage means that the whole universe is under the control of God, and trembles before him. Sheol and its Shades; the oceans and their inhabitants stand in awe before him.
And the inhabitants thereof - Of the waters - the oceans. The idea is, that the vast inhabitants of the deep all recognize the power of God and tremble before him. This description accords with that given by the ancient poets of the power and majesty of the gods, and is not less sublime than any given by them. Job 26:6 tJob 26::7 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 Isa 34:4, note; Isa 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 Gen 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 Chald:ee 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. Job 26:8 tJob 26::13 By his spirit - The word spirit here is either synonymous with wisdom, referring to the wisdom by which God made the heavens; or with breath - meaning, that he did it by his own command. There is no evidence that Job refers to the Third Person of the Trinity - the Holy Spirit - as being especially engaged in the work of creation. The word spirit is often used to denote one's self; and the meaning here is, that God had done it. This was one of the exhibitions of his power and skill.
He hath garnished the heavens - He has formed the stars which constitute so beautiful an ornament of the heavens.
His hand hath formed the crooked serpent - Or, rather, the fleeing serpent - ברח נחשׁ nāchâsh bârı̂ach; see the notes at Isa 27:1. There can be no doubt that Job refers here to one of the constellations, which it seems was then known as the serpent or dragon. The practice of forming pictures of the heavens, with a somewhat fanciful resemblance to animals, was one of the most early devices of astronomy, and was evidently known in the time of Job; compare the notes at Job 9:9. The object was, probably, to aid the memory; and though the arrangement is entirely arbitrary, and the resemblance wholly fanciful, yet it is still continued in the works of astronomy, as a convenient help to the memory, and as aiding in the description of the heavenly bodies. This is probably the same constellation which is described by Virgil, in language that strikingly resembles that here uscd by Job:
Maximus hic flexu sinuoso elabitur anguis
Circum, perque duas in morem fluminis Arctos,
Arctos oceani metuentes sequore tingi.
Geor. i. 244.
Around our pole the spiry Dragon glides,
And, like a winding stream, the Bears divides;
The less and greater, who by Fate's decree
Abhor to die beneath the Southern sea.
Dryden
The figure of the Serpent, or "the Dragon," is still one of the constellations of the heavens, and there can be little doubt that it is the same that is referred to in this ancient book. On the celestial globes it is drawn between the Ursa Major and Cepheus, and is made to embrace the pole of the ecliptic in its convolutions. The head of the monster is under the foot of Hercules; then there is a coil tending eastwardly about 17 degrees north of Lyra; then he winds northwardly about 14 degrees to the second coil, where he reaches almost to the girdle of Cepheus; then he loops down and makes a third coil somewhat in the shape of the letter "U," about 15 degrees below the first; and then he holds a westerly course for about 13 degrees, and passes between the head of the Greater and the tail of the Lesser Bear. The constellation has 80 stars; including four of the second magnitude, seven of the third, and twelve of the fourth.
The origin of the name given to this constellation, and the reason why it was given, are unknown. It has been supposed that the Dragon in his tortuous windings is symbolic of the oblique course of the stars, and particularly that it was designed to designate the motion of the pole of the equator around the pole of the ecliptic, produced by the precession of the equinoxes. It may be doubted, however, whether this is not a refinement; for the giving of a name for such a cause must have been based on knowledge much in advance of that which was possessed when this name was given. Mythologists say, that Draco was the watchful dragon which guarded the golden apples in the garden of the Hesperides, near Mount Atlas, in Africa, and which was slain by Hercules. Juno is said to have taken the Dragon up to heaven, and to have made a constellation of him, as a reward for his faithful services. The origin of the division of the stars into constellations is now unknown.
It has been known from the earliest times, and is found in all nations; and it is remarkable that about the same mode of division is observed, and about the same names are given to the constellations. This would seem to indicate that they had a common origin; and probably that is to be found in Chald:ea, Arabia, or Egypt. Sir Isaac Newton regards Egypt as the parental point; Sir William Jones, Chald:ea; Mr. Montucla, Arabia. There is probably no book earlier than this of Job, and the mention here of the names of the constellations is probably the first on record. If so, then the first intimation that we have of them was from Arabia; but still it may have been that Job derived his views from Egypt or Chald:ea. The sense in the passage before us is, that the greatness and glory of God are seen by forming the beautiful and the glorious constellations that adorn the sky. Job 26:14
tJob 26::8 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 Chald:aism 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. Job 26:11
tJob 26::7
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 Gen 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 Chald:ee languages signifies to "bind and restrain"; and may design the expanse or atmosphere, so called from its binding and compressing nature, "in" or "within" which the earth is hung; see Psa 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. Job 26:8
tJob 26::5
As before in the ninth and twelfth chapters, Job had shown himself not inferior to the friends' inability to describe God's greatness, so now he describes it as manifested in hell (the world of the dead), Job 26:5-6; on earth, Job 26:7; in the sky, Job 26:8-11; the sea, Job 26:12; the heavens, Job 26:13. Dead things are formed--Rather, "The souls of the dead (Rephaim) tremble." Not only does God's power exist, as Bildad says (Job 25:2), "in high places" (heaven), but reaches to the region of the dead. Rephaim here, and in Pro 21:16 and Isa 14:9, is from a Hebrew root, meaning "to be weak," hence "deceased"; in Gen 14:5 it is applied to the Canaanite giants; perhaps in derision, to express their weakness, in spite of their gigantic size, as compared with Jehovah [UMBREIT]; or, as the imagination of the living magnifies apparitions, the term originally was applied to ghosts, and then to giants in general [MAGEE]. from under--UMBREIT joins this with the previous word "tremble from beneath" (so Isa 14:9). But the Masoretic text joins it to "under the waters." Thus the place of the dead will be represented as "under the waters" (Psa 18:4-5); and the waters as under the earth (Psa 24:2). MAGEE well translates thus: "The souls of the dead tremble; (the places) under the waters, and their inhabitants." Thus the Masoretic connection is retained; and at the same time the parallel clauses are evenly balanced. "The inhabitants of the places under the waters" are those in Gehenna, the lower of the two parts into which Sheol, according to the Jews, is divided; they answer to "destruction," that is, the place of the wicked in Job 26:6, as "Rephaim" (Job 26:5) to "Hell" (Sheol) (Job 26:6). "Sheol" comes from a Hebrew root--"ask," because it is insatiable (Pro 27:20); or "ask as a loan to be returned," implying Sheol is but a temporary abode, previous to the resurrection; so for English Version "formed," the Septuagint and Chald:ee translate; shall be born, or born again, implying the dead are to be given back from Sheol and born again into a new state [MAGEE].
Job 26:6