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 Isaiah 34:4, note; Isaiah 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 Genesis 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 Chaldee 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.

He stretcheth out the north over the empty place - על תהו al tohu, to the hollow waste. The same word as is used, Genesis 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 Chaldee says: "He lays the earth upon the waters, nothing sustaining it."

He stretcheth out the (g) north over the empty place, [and] hangeth the earth upon nothing.
(g) He causes the whole earth to turn about the North pole.

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 Genesis 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 Chaldee 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 Psalm 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.

Hint of the true theory of the earth. Its suspension in empty space is stated in the second clause. The north in particular is specified in the first, being believed to be the highest part of the earth (Isaiah 14:13). The northern hemisphere or vault of heaven is included; often compared to a stretched-out canopy (Psalm 104:2). The chambers of the south are mentioned (Job 9:9), that is, the southern hemisphere, consistently with the earth's globular form.

By צפון many modern expositors understand the northern part of the earth, where the highest mountains and rocks rise aloft (accordingly, in Isaiah 14:13, ירכתי צפון are mentioned parallel with the starry heights), and consequently the earth is the heaviest (Hirz., Ew., Hlgst., Welte, Schlottm., and others). But (1) it is not probable that the poet would first have mentioned the northern part of the earth, and then in Job 26:7 the earth itself - first the part, and then the whole; (2) נטה is never said of the earth, always of the heavens, for the expansion of which it is the stereotype word (נטה, Job 9:8; Isaiah 40:22; Isaiah 44:24; Isaiah 51:13; Zac 14:1; Psalm 104:2; נוטיהם, Isaiah 42:5; נטה, Jeremiah 10:12; Jeremiah 51:15; ידי נטו, Isaiah 45:12); (3) one expects some mention of the sky in connection with the mention of the earth; and thus is צפון,
(Note: The name צפון signifies the northern sky as it appears by day, from its beclouded side in contrast with the brighter and more rainless south; comp. old Persian apâkhtara, if this name of the north really denotes the "starless" region, Greek ζόφος, the north-west, from the root skap, σκεπᾶν, σκεπανός (Curtius, Griech. Etymologie, ii. 274), aquilo, the north wind, as that which brings black clouds with it.)
with Rosenm., Ges., Umbr., Vaih., Hahn, and Olsh., to be understood of the northern sky, which is prominently mentioned, because there is the pole of the vault of heaven, which is marked by the Pole-star, there the constellation of the greater Bear (עשׁ, Job 9:9) formed by the seven bright stars, there (in the back of the bull, one of the northern constellations of the ecliptic) the group of the Pleiades (כּימה), there also, below the bull and the twins, Orion (כּסיל). On the derivation, notion, and synonyms of תּהוּ, vid., Genesis, S. 93; here (where it may be compared with the Arab. theı̂j-un, empty, and tı̂h, desert) it signifies nothing more than the unmeasurable vacuum of space, parall. בּלימה, not anything = nothing (comp. modern Arabic lâsh, or even mâsh, compounded of Arab. lâ or mâ and šâ, a thing, e.g., bilâs, for nothing, ragul mâsh, useless men). The sky which vaults the earth from the arctic pole, and the earth itself, hang free without support in space. That which is elsewhere (e.g., Job 9:6) said of the pillars and foundations of the earth, is intended of the internal support of the body of the earth, which is, as it were, fastened together by the mountains, with their roots extending into the innermost part of the earth; for the idea that the earth rests upon the bases of the mountains would be, indeed, as Lwenthal correctly observes, an absurd inversion. On the other side, we are also not justified in inferring from Job's expression the laws of the mechanism of the heavens, which were unknown to the ancients, especially the law of attraction or gravitation. The knowledge of nature on the part of the Israelitish Chokma, expressed in Job 26:7, however, remains still worthy of respect. On the ground of similar passages of the book of Job, Keppler says of the yet unsolved problems of astronomy: Haec et cetera hujusmodi latent in Pandectis aevi sequentis, non antea discenda, quam librum hunc Deus arbiter seculorum recluserit mortalibus. From the starry heavens and the earth Job turns to the celestial and sub-celestial waters.

North - The northern part of the heavens, which is put for the whole visible heaven, because Job and his friends lived in a northern climate. Nothing - Upon no props or pillars, but his own power and providence.