Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 28:9
He putteth forth his hand upon the rock; he overturneth the mountains by the roots.
9. upon the rock ] Or, the flinty rock; man puts forth his hand upon the rock either to break it or pierce a way through it. His force makes the hardest obstacle give way before him.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
9 11. Some further touches regarding the irresistible force and the skilful ingenuity with which man conducts his operations, with the result at last of bringing that which is hidden forth to light.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
He putteth forth his hand – That is, the miner in securing the precious metals and gems.
Upon the rock – Margin, flint. The word used here ( challamysh) occurs also in Psa 104:8. Deu 8:15; Deu 32:13. It means flint, silex; and the idea is, that the miner approaches the hardest substances. He penetrates even the flint in searching for precious stones. Dr. Good renders it, Sparry ore. Michaelis renders the same word in Deu 7:15, porphyry, or red granite. The idea is that nothing, however difficult, not even cutting down the hardest rocks, deters the miner from pursuing his work.
He overturneth the mountains by the roots – That is, he digs under them, and they fall. The root of a mountain means its base or foundation. The following passage from Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxiii. c. iv. 21) furnishes an admirable illustration of this passage: Tamen in silice facilior existimatur labor. Est namque terra ex quodam argillae genere glarae mixta, Candidam vocant, prope inexpugnabilis. Cuneis earn ferreis aggrediuntur, et iisdem mallets; nihilque durius putant, nisi quod inter omnia auri lama durissima est. Peracto opere cervices fornicum ab ultimo caedunt, dantque signun ruinrae, eamque solus intelligit in cacumine montis pervigil. Hic voce, ictuque, repente operarios revocari jubet, pariterque ipse devolat. Mons fractus cadit in scse Iongo fragore, qui concipi humana mente non possit, et flatu incredibili. Spectant victores ruinam naturae.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 9. He putteth forth his hand upon the rock,] Still there appears to be a reference to mining. Man puts his hand upon the rock, he breaks that to pieces, in order to extract the metals which it contains.
He overturneth the mountains] He excavates, undermines, or digs them away, when in search of the metals contained in them: this is not only poetically, but literally, the case in many instances.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
This and the two next verses are meant either,
1. Of other eminent and considerable works of God, who sometimes overturneth rocks, and produceth new rivers in unlikely places. Or rather,
2. Of the same work of mining and digging for gold, or other precious things of the earth, and of other effects of mans art and wisdom in that work. The miners resolve to break through all opposition, and by iron tools, or fire, or other ways, dig through the hardest rocks. He undermineth the very mountains to find out the metals lying at the bottom of them.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
9. rockflint. He puts forthhis hand to cleave the hardest rock.
by the rootsfrom theirfoundations, by undermining them.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
He putteth forth his hand upon the rock,…. The discourse is carried on concerning the miner, and digger in the earth for metals and precious stones; who meeting with a rock or flint, and a ridge of them, is not discouraged, but goes to work therewith, and with his hammer in his hand lays upon the rock or flint, and beats it to pieces, and with proper instruments cuts through it; and using fire and vinegar, as Pliny g observes, makes his way into it, and oftentimes by splitting it discovers gold h or silver, or precious stones, in it:
he overturneth the mountains by the roots; or turns them up from the roots; he roots them up, he undermines them; he turns up the earth at the roots of them, to get what is hid at the bottom, or in the bowels of them. Some understand this, and what is said in the following verses, of God, and of wonderful things done by him; so Jarchi, Aben Ezra, and others; and to whom indeed such things are sometimes ascribed in Scripture: he touches the hills, and they smoke, Ps 104:32; lays his hand on the rock, and removes it out of its place, Job 14:18; it was he that smote and opened the rock at Horeb, and the waters gushed out, Ex 17:6; yea, turned the rock into standing water, and the flint into a fountain of water, Ps 114:8: and he, in a figurative sense, has laid his hand on the rock Christ, and smote him with the rod of justice, whereby the blessings of grace come flowing down upon his people; and he it is that puts forth his hand of powerful and efficacious grace upon the rocky hearts of men, and with the hammer of his word breaks them to pieces, Jer 23:29, and takes away the stony heart, and gives an heart of flesh, Eze 11:19: and he also, in a literal sense, overturns hills and mountains by their roots, through storms, and tempests, and earthquakes; and figuratively, kingdoms and states, that lie in the way of his interest; for what are these mountains before the great Zerubbabel? they soon and easily become a plain; and so breaks through all difficulties, which proverbially may be signified by removing mountains, that seem to obstruct and hinder the conversion and salvation of his people; he makes those mountains a way, and his highways are exalted; see So 2:8; but the former sense is best, and most agreeable to the context.
g Nat. Hist. l. 33. c. 4. “—-Montem rumpit aceto”, Juvenal. Sat. 10. v. 153. h lbid.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
9 He layeth his hand upon the pebbles;
He turneth up the mountains from the root.
10 He cutteth canals through the rocks;
And his eye seeth all kinds of precious things.
11 That they may not leak, he dammeth up rivers;
And that which is hidden he bringeth to light.
12 But wisdom, whence is it obtained?
And where is the place of understanding?
Beneath, whither no other being of the upper world penetrates, man puts his hand upon the quartz or rock. (perhaps from , to be strong, firm: Arabic, with the reduplication resolved, chalnubus , like , Arab. ancabuth , vid., Jesurun, p. 229) signifies here the quartz, and in general the hard stone; something like our “to take in hand” of an undertaking requiring strong determination and courage, which here consists in blasting and clearing away the rock that contains no ore, as Pliny, h. n. xxxiii. 4, 21, describes it: Occursant … silices; hos igne et aceto rumpunt, saepius vero, quoniam id cuniculos vapore et fumo strangulat, caedunt fractariis CL libras ferri habentibus egeruntque umeris noctibus ac diebus per tenebras proxumis tradentes; lucem novissimi cernunt . Further: he (man, devoted to mining) overturns ( subvertit according to the primary signification of , Arab. ‘fk , ‘ft , to turn, twist) mountains from the roots. The accentuation with Rebia mugrasch, with Mercha, is false; it is, according to Codd. and old editions, to be accented with Tarcha, with Munach, and to be translated accordingly: subvertit a radice montes (for Munach is the transformation of a Rebia mugrasch), not a radice montium . Blasting in mining which lays bare the roots (the lowest parts) of the mountains is intended, the conclusion of which – the signal for the flight of the workmen, and the effective crash – is so graphically described by Pliny in the passage cited above: Peracto opere cervices fornicum ab ultumo cadunt; dat signum ruina eamque solus intellegit in cacumine ejus montis vigil. Hic voce, nutu evocari jubet operas pariterque ipse devolat. Mons fractus cadit ab sese longe fragore qui concipi humana mente non possit eque efflatu incredibili spectant victores ruinam naturae . The meaning of Job 28:10 depends upon the signification of the . It is certainly the most natural that it should signify canals. The word is Egyptian; aur in the language of the hieroglyphs signifies a river, and especially the Nile; wherefore at the close of the Laterculus of Eratosthenes the name of the king, ( ), is explained by . If water-canals are intended, they may be either such as go in or come away. In the first case it may mean water let in like a cataract over the ruins of the blasted auriferous rock, the corrugi of Pliny: Alius par labor ac vel majoris impendi: flumina ad lavandam hanc ruinam jugis montium obiter duxere a centesimo plerumque lapide; corrugos vocant, a corrivatione credo; mille et hic labores . But is not a suitable word for such an extensive and powerful flooding with water for the purpose of washing the gold. It suits far better to understand the expression of galleries or ways cut horizontally in the rock to carry the water away. Thus von Veltheim explains it: “The miner makes ways through the hard rock into his section in which the perpendicular shaft terminates, guides the water which is found in abundance at that depth through it [i.e., the water as the bottom of the pit that hinders the progress of the work], and is able [thus Job 28:10 naturally is connected with what precedes] to judge of the ore and fragments that are at the bottom, and bring them to the light. This mode of mining by constantly forming one gallery under the other [so that a new gallery is made under the pit that is worked out by extending the shaft, and also freeing this from water by making another outlet below the previous one] is the oldest of all, of which anything certain is known in the history of mining, and the most natural in the days when they had no notion of hydraulics.” This explanation is far more satisfactory than that of Herm. Sam. Reimarus, of the “Wolfenbtteler Fragmente” (in his edition of the Neue Erkl. des B. Hiob, by John Ad. Hoffmann, 1734, iv. S. 772): “ He breaks open watercourses in the rocks. What the miners call coming upon water, is when they break into a fissure from which strong streams of water gush forth. The miner not only knows how to turn such water to good account, but it is also a sign that there are rich veins of ore near at hand, as there is the most water by these courses and fissures. Hence follows: and then his eye sees all kinds of precious things. ” But there is no ground for saying that water indicates rich veins of ore, and is much more appropriate to describe the designed formation of courses to carry off the water than an accidental discovery of water in course of the work; moreover, is as appropriate to the former as it is inappropriate to the latter explanation, for it signifies elsewhere the arms of the Nile, into which the Nile is artificially divided; and therefore it may easily be transferred to the horizontal canals of the mine cut through the hard rock (or through the upper earth). Nevertheless, although the water plays an important part in mining operations, by giving rise to the greatest difficulties, as it frequently happens that a pit is deluged with water, and must be abandoned because no one can get down to it: it is improbable that Job 28:10 as well as Job 28:11 refers to this; we therefore prefer to understand as meaning the (horizontal) courses (galleries or drifts) in which the ore is dug, – a rendering which is all the more possible, since, on the one hand, in Coptic jaro (Sahidic jero ) signifies the Nile of Egypt ( phiaro ente chemi ); on the other, ior ( eioor ) signifies a ditch, (comp. Isa 33:21, , lxx ), vid., Ges. Thes. Thus also Job 28:10 is consistently connected with what precedes, since by cutting these cuniculi the courses of the ore (veins), and any precious stones that may also be embedded there, are laid bare.
Job 28:11 Contrary to the correct indication of the accentuation, Hahn translates: he stops up the droppings of the watercourses; has Dech, and is therefore not to be connected with what follows as a genitive. But Reimarus’ translation: from the drops he connects the streams, is inadmissible. “The trickling water,” he observes, “is carefully caught in channels by the miners for use, and is thus brought together from several parts of the reservoir and the water-wheel. What Pliny calls corrugus, corrivatio ,.” On the contrary, Schlottm. remarks that cannot signify such a connection, i.e., gathering together of watercourses; it occurs elsewhere only of hunting, i.e., binding up wounds. Nevertheless, although cannot directly signify “to collect,” the signification coercere (Job 34:17), which is not far from this idea, – as is evident from the Arab. hibs ( habs ), a dam or sluice for collecting water, and Arab. mahbas ‘l – ma’ , a reservoir, cistern, – is easily transferable to water, in the sense of binding = catching up and accumulating. But it is contrary to the form of the expression that , with this use of , should denote the materia ex qua , and that should be referred to the miry ditches in which “the crushed ore is washed, for the purpose of separating the good from the worthless.” On the contrary, from the form of the expression, it is to be translated: a fletu (not e fletu ) flumina obligat , whether it be that a fletu is equivalent to ne flent s. stillent (Simeon Duran: ), or obligat equivalent to cohibet (Ralbag: ). Thus von Veltheim explains the passage, since he here, as in Job 28:10, understands the channels for carrying off the water. “The miner covers the bottom with mire, and fills up the crevices so exactly i.e., he besmears it, where the channel is broken through, with some water-tight substance, e.g., clay, that it may entirely carry off the water that is caught by it out of the pit in which the shaft terminates, and not let it fall through the fissures crevices to the company of miners below to the vein that lies farther down; then the miner can descend still deeper since the water runs outwards and does not soak through, and bring forth the ore that lies below the channel.” This explanation overlooks the fact that is used in Job 28:10, whereas Job 28:11 has . It is not probable that these are only interchangeable expressions for the channels that carry off the water. is an appropriate expression for it, but not , which as appropriately describes the conflux of water in the mine itself.
The meaning of Job 28:11 is, that he (the miner) binds or stops the watercourses which his working out of the pit has interfered with and injured, so that they may not leak, i.e., that they may not in the least ooze through, whether by building up a wall or by collecting the water that streams forth in reservoirs (Arab. mahbas ) or in the channels which carry it outwards, – all these modes of draining off the water may be included in Job 28:11, only the channel itself is not, with von Veltheim, to be understood by , but the concourse of the water which, in one way or the other, is rendered harmless to the pit-work, so that he (the miner), as Job 28:11 says, can bring to light ( = ) whatever precious things the bowels of the earth conceals ( , according to Kimchi and others, with euphonic Mappik, as according to the Masora Isa 28:4, Eze 22:24, and also Zec 4:2, only , i.e., they have Mappik only for euphony, not as the expression of the suff.).
Job 28:12 With the question in Job 28:12 the description of mining attains the end designed: man can search after and find out silver, gold, and others metals and precious stones, by making the foundations of the earth accessible to him; but wisdom, whence shall be obtain it, and which ( , according to another reading ) is the place of understanding? has the art. to give prominence to its transcendency over the other attainable things. is the principal name, and interchanges with it, as , Pro 8:1, and other synonyms in which the Chokma literature abounds elsewhere in Prov 1-9. is properly the faculty of seeing through that which is distinguishable, consisting of the possession of the right criteria; , however, is the perception, in general, of things in their true nature and their final causes.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(9) He putteth forth his hand upon the rock.The process described is that of tunnelling and excavating, and that of making canals and lining them with stone; and in the course of such works many precious things would be discovered. The canals and cisterns were made so accurately that they retained the water, and did not even weep or trickle.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
9. Upon the rock Against the flint, (the hardest rock,) as in margin. Pliny’s words furnish a fitting comment. “They attack the flint with iron wedges and hammer’s. The mountain, fractured, falls off at a great distance. The victors gaze upon nature’s downfall.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 28:9 He putteth forth his hand upon the rock; he overturneth the mountains by the roots.
Ver. 9. He putteth forth his hand upon the rock ] “He,” that is, mortal man, the miner, Job 28:4 (not God, as Mercer would have it), “putteth forth his hand”; sc. to dig down these rocks, that he may come at that treasure, and make himself master of that spoil that is hidden in their entrails.
Nil tam difficile est, quod non sollertia vincit.
Alexander the Great being asked, How he so soon overran the universe? answered, I never held anything impossible to be achieved. When he had heard of anything dangerous to be done, or unlikely, he would the rather set upon it, and say, Iam periculum par animo Alexandri, This is an enterprise fit for an Alexander. So of Julius Caesar (who had in his time taken a thousand towns, conquered three hundred nations, taken prisoners a million of men, and slain as many) sings the poet (Lucan),
– Caesar in omnia praeceps,
Nil actum credens, dum quid superesset agendum,
Fertur atrox. –
Difficulty doth but whet on heroic spirits; it wakeneth, but not any way weakeneth, the courageous and industrious. Hannibal made his way through the Alps by breaking down a huge rock putrefied with fire, and vinegar poured thereon. Hence Juvenal,
Opposuit natura Alpemque nivemque
Deduxit scopulos, et montem rupit aceto.
He overturneth the mountains by the roots
– Labor improbus omnia vincit.
D , saith Isidore, the love of money is daring and desperate.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
rock = flint.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
rock: or, flint
he overturneth: Nah 1:4-6
Reciprocal: Job 9:5 – removeth
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 28:9-11. He putteth forth his hand upon the rock, &c. He digs through the hardest rocks by his obstinate labour; and undermines mountains, that he may find the treasures hid in their bowels. He cutteth out rivers among the rocks If he meets with waters in his mining, which hinder his work, he cuts a channel through the rocks to convey them away; or, if he wants water, to wash the ore, he, with incredible industry, cuts channels to bring it into the mines. And his eye seeth every precious thing Having with great art, and indefatigable industry, broke through all difficulties, he at last arrives at the wished-for object, and finds those precious treasures which he sought for. He bindeth the floods from overflowing He restraineth them, and, as it were, bindeth them to their good behaviour, that they may not overflow the mine. Or, by his industry and skill he confineth the rivers, so that they cannot overflow. And the thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light Those metals, or precious stones, which lie hid in the secret parts of the earth, he discovers to himself and others.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
28:9 He putteth forth his hand upon the {g} rock; he overturneth the mountains by the roots.
(g) After he has declared the wisdom of God in the secrets of nature he describes his power.