Bible Commentary - Job 26

In this chapter, Job describes the authority of God over all creation.

This is only the beginning of Job’s response to Bildad, and it’s a long one.  Actually Job’s response is going to stretch over the next six chapters, which makes it different from the previous section in both length and style.  Stylistically, the previous section was dominated by the tit-for-tat responses between Job and his friends, variously rebuking and criticizing each other.  Job’s response here transitions to a monologuing style, where Job (later following by Elihu and then finally God) offer lengthy, unrebutted statements.  In addition, the content of this chapter is subtly but definitely distinct from the previous half of the book.  In the past, most of Job was dedicated to arguments about good and evil, why good people suffer, how God punishes the wicked, and questions of justice and righteousness.  Beginning with Job’s response, and accelerating into Elihu’s and God’s sections, the focus will shift much more to statements about God’s glory and creative power.  There was one brief section that seems to convey a similar attitude (Job 9:5-10), but the vast majority of Job chapters 1-25 only speak about God inasmuch as it relates to human affairs like blessing the righteous and punishing the wicked (or from Job’s perspective, God’s indifference to human affairs).

Verses 2-3 share the usual sarcastic criticism of his friends for belittling and rebuking him.  It’s relatively short and perfunctory, so I won’t add anything here I haven’t said before either.

The rest of the chapter, verses 4-14, are dedicated to proclaiming the glory of God, describing his powers and wonder.  What makes this part so different from the first half of this book is how Job is emphasizing God’s manifest power and glory in creation.  In the past it seemed like Job and his friends simply took it for granted that God was glorious and powerful and his nature was not the subject of conversation.  In this chapter, while I would not say that God’s glory is the subject of debate here, it certainly becomes the central focus of the narrative.

Job looks at God’s power in several different ways.  The first is that God has power over death and “departed spirits” (v. 5-6).  Note that once again Job shows signs of a life-after-death theology, without giving away many details about what he thinks existence after death actually entails.  God has power over “Sheol” and “Abaddon”, both of which are poorly defined Hebrew words.  Indeed, the challenge of defining these two words is why so many translations don’t even try to translate them and just transliterate the Hebrew word into English.  The relevant theology here is that God is the supreme power not just over life on earth, but also supreme over the “departed spirits”, possessing full knowledge and authority over the realms of post-life existence, but without offering any additional insights into the nature or purpose of that existence.

Verses 7-10 raise much more familiar, though equally wondrous topics, such as how God traps water in the clouds and how the earth “hangs on nothing”.  This is the marvelling-at-creation section, where Job describes a series of natural wonders that are both beautiful, poorly understood or otherwise majestic, and uses them as examples to illustrate God’s power.

Verses 11-13 continue to an extent with the theme of natural wonders.  I’m not sure how verse 11 fits in, but verses 12-13 are clearly talking about God’s power to calm storms at sea.  We see a poetic parallel between the first half of each verse: “He quieted the sea with his power”, “by his breath the heavens are cleared” (i.e. clouds are dispersed).  The second of of these two verses are also parallels, when God both “shattered Rahab” and “pierced the fleeing serpent”.  Given the context of quieting sea storms, it is possible that Rahab and “the serpent” are referring to possibly-allegorical sea monsters that either inhabit or symbolize such storms.  Note that Rahab is the Hebrew word for “proud”, and Rashi suggests that it is a reference to the Egyptians (who God “smashed” when he drowned them in the Red Sea).  Rahab is also the name of the prostitute from Joshua 2, though it’s obvious from context that Job is not referring to the person Rahab.  Regardless of what Rahab is supposed to signify, it is clear that this is intended to be a measure of God’s strength and power.

Throughout this chapter, we see God’s power demonstrated through several different realms of creation.  He has authority and power over the afterlife, the clouds and the sky, the heavens and the sea.  The afterlife is usually envisioned as being “under the earth”, so I also think this chapter could be framed as a progression, from the underworld to the earth, and from there to the sky and heavens.  I don’t think the text follows this progression in a clean or precise way, but it does seem to be the overall theme.  The conclusion is that God has power over all of creation, and even this is only “the fringes of his ways” (v. 14).

In the next chapter, Job insists that he will never forsake his righteous life even until the day he dies.