Job 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

Dead things are formed from under the waters, and the inhabitants thereof.

The north, i.e. the northern pole, or part of the heavens, which he particularly mentions, and puts for the whole visible heaven, because Job and his friends lived in a northern climate, and were acquainted only with that part of the heavens, the southern pole and parts near it being wholly unknown to them. The heavens are oft and fitly said to be spread or stretched out like a curtain or tent, to which they are resembled. The empty place, to wit, the air, so called, not philosophically, as if it were wholly empty; but popularly, because it seems to be so, and is generally void of solid and visible bodies. Upon nothing; upon its own centre, which is but an imaginary thing, and in truth nothing; or upon no props or pillars, but his own power and providence; which is justly celebrated as a wonderful work of God, both in Scripture and in heathen authors.

Job 26:7 He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, [and] hangeth the earth upon nothing.Ver. 7. He stretcheth out the north over the empty place] Heb. Over Tohu. Aristotle saith, that beyond the movable heavens there is neither body, nor time, nor place, nor vacuum. But on this side of the heaven there are bodies, time, place, and, as it may seem to some, an empty place; for so the air is here called, over which, and not over any solid matter, for a foundation, God hath spread and stretched forth the heavens which are here called the north, because they are moved about the north pole; and besides, the north is held the upper part of the world, according to that of Virgil, Mundus ut ad Scythiam Riphaeasque arduus arces Cousurgit; premitur Libyae devexus ad austros. Hence it is here put for the whole heaven which, held up by the word of God’ s power, without any other props, leaneth upon the liquid air, the air upon the earth, and the earth upon nothing. And hangeth the earth upon nothing] Terra pilae similis, nullo fulcimine nixa, Aero sublato tam grave pendet onus (Ovid. 6, Fasti). The earth hangs in the midst of heaven, like Architas’ or Archimedes’ pigeon, equally poised with his own weight. Of this great wonder the philosophers, after much study, can give no good reason, because ignorant of this, that God hath appointed it so to be, even from the first creation, Psalms 104:5 Hebrews 1:2. The poets fable that Atlas beareth up heaven with his shoulders; but we confess the true Atlas, viz. the Lord our God, who by his word alone beareth up heaven and earth (This is the very finger of God, Aristotle himself admireth it, De Cael. 1. 2, c. 13); and it is here fitly alleged as an argument of his Almightiness. The greatness of this work of God appeareth hereby, saith Merlin, that men cannot spread aloft the thinnest curtain, absque fulcris, without some solid thing to uphold it.

(7) He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.—If these words mean what they seem to do—and it is hard to see how they can mean anything else—then they furnish a very remarkable instance of anticipation of the discoveries of science. Here we find Job, more than three thousand years ago, describing in language of scientific accuracy the condition of our globe, and holding it forth as a proof of Divine power. Some have attempted to explain the latter clause of the destitution caused by famine; but that is precluded by the terms of the first clause.

Verse 7. 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."

5–13. That Job has no need to be instructed regarding the greatness of God he now shews, by entering upon an exhibition of its operations in every sphere of that which exists, Hades, the Earth and Heaven, in which he far outstrips the feeble effort of Bildad.

He stretcheth out the north - This whole passage is particularly interesting as giving a view of the cosmology which prevailed in those early times.

7. The north — Delitzsch shows satisfactorily that we are not to understand by this the northern portion of the earth, as is held by Dillmann, etc., but the northern sky, which, with the ancients,