Reflections on Job 26

 Job 26(Contemporary English Version)

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.
13. The heavens became bright when he breathed, and the escaping sea monster died at the hands of God.
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!

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Job sarcastically admonished Bildad for his useless counsel, asking in effect, "Where did you get this stuff?" Then Job addressed the greatness of God showing the in-adequateness of Bildad's description of God. While Bildad referred to a powerful God, his was a God of terror and a God before whom one had no hope.

Job, on the other hand, described a God who has power over death and the grave and who has stretched the skies over empty space and suspended the earth within that space, held in place with nothing but His might. God also formed the clouds from the waters enfolded within them and separates light and darkness with the horizon. The heavens are made beautiful by His breath. And all this, says Job, only touches on God's greatness.