1 Then Job answered, 2 "How have you helped him who is without power! How have you saved the arm that has no strength! 3 How have you counseled him who has no wisdom, and plentifully declared sound knowledge! 4 To whom have you uttered words? Whose spirit came forth from you? 5 "Those who are deceased tremble, those beneath the waters and all that live in them. 6 Sheol is naked before God, and Abaddon has no covering. 7 He stretches out the north over empty space, and hangs the earth on nothing. 8 He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not burst under them. 9 He encloses the face of his throne, and spreads his cloud on it. 10 He has described a boundary on the surface of the waters, and to the confines of light and darkness. 11 The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his rebuke. 12 He stirs up the sea with his power, and by his understanding he strikes through Rahab. 13 By his Spirit the heavens are garnished. His hand has pierced the swift serpent. 14 Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways. How small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?"
Job, perceiving that his friends could no longer support their arguments on the ground they had assumed, sharply reproves them for their want both of wisdom and feeling, Job 26:1-4; shows that the power and wisdom of God are manifest in the works of creation and providence; gives several proofs; and then adds that these are a small specimen of his infinite skill and unlimited power, Job 26:5-14.
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.
1 Then Job began, and said:
2 How has thou helped him that is without power,
Raised the arm that hath no strength!
3 How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom,
And fully declared the essence of the matter!
4 To whom hast thou uttered words,
And whose breath proceeded from thee?
Bildad is the person addressed, and the exclamations in Job 26:2, Job 26:3 are ironical: how thy speech contains nothing whatever that might help me, the supposedly feeble one, in conquering my affliction and my temptation; me, the supposedly ignorant one, in comprehending man's mysterious lot, and mine! ללא־כח, according to the idea, is only equivalent to כח לו (אין) לאשׁר לא, and זרוע לא־עז equivalent to זרוע בלא־עז (לא עז לו); the former is the abstr. pro concreto, the latter the genitival connection - the arm of the no-power, i.e., powerless (Ges. 152, 1). The powerless one is Job himself, not God (Merc., Schlottm.), as even the choice of the verbs, Job 26:2, Job 26:3, shows. Respecting תּוּשׁיּה, which we have translated essentiality, duration, completion, we said, on Job 5:12, that it is formed from ישׁ (vid., Proverbs 8:21), not directly indeed, but by means of a verb ושׁי brev a fo (ושׁה), in the signification subsistere (comp. Arab. kân, and Syriac קום);
(Note: Comp. also Spiegel, Grammatik der Huzvresch-Sprache, S. 103.)
it is a Hophal-formation (like תּוּגה), and signifies, so to speak, durability, subsistentia, substantia, ὑπόστασις, so that the comparison of ושׁי with אשׁשׁ, Arab. 'ss (whence אשׁישׁ, Arab. ası̂s, asâs, etc., fundamentum) is forced upon one, and the relationship to the Sanskrit as (asmi = εἰμὶ) can remain undecided. The observation of J. D. Michaelis
(Note: Against the comparison of the Arab. wâsâ, solari, by Michaelis, Ges., and others (who assume the primary significations solatium, auxilium), Lagarde (Anmerkungen zur griech. Uebersetzung der Proverbien, 1863, S. 57f.) correctly remarks that Arab. wâsâ, is only a change of letters of the common language for Arab. âsâ; but Arab. wâšâ, to finish painting (whence Arab. twšyt, decoration), or ושׁה as a transposition from שׁוה, to be level, simple (Hitzig on Proverbs 3:21), leads to no suitable sense.)
to the contrary, Supplem. p. 1167: non placent in linguis ejusmodi etyma metaphysica nimis a vulgari sensu remota; philosophi in scholis ejusmodi vocabula condunt, non plebs, is removed by the consideration that תושׁיה, which out of Prov. and Job occurs only in Isaiah 28:29, Mich. Job 6:9, is a Chokma-word: it signifies here, as frequently, vera et realis sapientia (J. H. Michaelis). The speech of Bildad is a proof of poverty of thought, of which he himself gives the evidence. His words - such is the thought of Job 26:4 - are altogether inappropriate, inasmuch as they have no reference whatever to the chief point of Job's speech; and they are, moreover, not his own, but the suggestion of another, and that not God, but Eliphaz, from whom Bildad has borrowed the substance of his brief declamation. Since this is the meaning of Job 26:4, it might seem as though את־מי were intended to signify by whose assistance (Arnh., Hahn); but as the poet also, in Job 31:37, comp. Ezekiel 43:10, uses הגּיד seq. acc., in the sense of explaining anything to any one, to instruct him concerning anything, it is to be interpreted: to whom hast thou divulged the words (lxx, τίνι ἀνήγγειλας ῥήματα), i.e., thinking and designing thereby to affect him?
In what follows, Job now continues the description of God's exalted rule, which Bildad had attempted, by tracing it through every department of creation; and thus proves by fact, that he is wanting neither in a recognition nor reverence of God the almighty Ruler.
*More commentary available by clicking individual verses.