Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 28:5
[As for] the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned up as it were fire.
5. The same idea of the distance from the life of men and the unnaturalness of the miner’s work is pursued in the fine contrast between the peaceful, cultivated and fruitful face of the earth above and the destructive operations carried on in her bowels, which leave a confusion and devastation like that caused by fire. The second clause must be rendered,
And underneath it is overturned as if by fire.
The reference is hardly to actual blasting; rather to the overthrow and confused ruin that follows the miner’s operations.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
As for the earth, out of it cometh bread – That is, it produces food, or the materials for bread. The idea of Job seems to be, that it was proof of great wisdom and skill on the part of man that he had carried the arts of agriculture so far. The earth in producing grain, and the arts of husbandry, were illustrative of wisdom and skill, but they did not impart the wisdom about the government of God which was desired. That was reserved to be imparted more directly by God himself, Job 28:23 ff.
And under it is turned up as it were fire – That is, on being turned up it discloses precious stones that seem to glow like coals of fire. This is the obvious sense of this passage, though a different interpretation has been given by most expositors. Job is speaking of mining. He describes the search for, gold, and silver, and precious stones. He says that one of the wonders of wisdom in the earth is, that it produces nutritious grain; another, that when the same earth is turned up it seems to rest on a bed of fire. The dark ground is made to glow by the quantity of jewels that are disclosed, and its deep recesses seem to be on fire. There is no reference here, therefore, as it seems to me. to any volcanic agency, or to any belief that the earth rests on a sea of fire. The idea has been expressed in Sergeants Mine:
Wheresoeer our footsteps turn,
Rubies blush and diamonds burn.
Luther has given to the passage a different sense. Man bringet auch Feuer unten aus der Eerie, da oben Speise auf wachst – They bring fire from the earth beneath, where food grows up above. Coverdale, He bringeth food out of the earth; that which is under he consumeth with fire. Herder, And underneath it is changed as by fire. Dr. Good, Below it (the earth) windeth a fiery region.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 5. The earth, out of it cometh bread] Or the earth, mimmennah, from itself, by its own vegetative power, it sends out bread, or the corn of which bread is made.
And under it is turned up as it were fire.] It seems as if this referred to some combustible fossil, similar to our stone coal, which was dug up out of the earth in some places of Arabia. The Chaldee gives a translation, conformable to a very ancient opinion, which supposed the centre of the earth to be a vast fire, and the place called hell. “The earth from which food proceeds, and under which is gehenna, whose cold snow is converted into the likeness of fire; and the garden of Eden, which is the place whose stones are sapphires,” c. The Vulgate has, “The land from which bread has been produced has been destroyed by fire.” If this be the meaning of the original, there is probably an allusion to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the seventh and eighth verses Job 28:7-8 may be supposed to refer to that catastrophe, there being no place left tangible or visible where those cities once stood: neither fowl nor beast could discern a path there, the whole land being covered with the lake Asphaltites.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Out of it; out of the upper parts of the earth. Bread; bread-corn, or other food for mans use.
Under it; either,
1. Under the same earth, which either at the same time yields bread out of its upper, and fire out of its lower parts; or at several times; that earth which once was fruitful becoming, by the disposition of Divine Providence, barren and sulphureous, &c. Or,
2. Under other parts of the earth.
Is turned up, i.e. is digged out and fetched up.
As it were fire; either gold and precious stones, which glitter and sparkle like fire; or coals, and brimstone, and other materials of fire.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. Its fertile surface yieldsfood; and yet “beneath it is turned up as it were with fire.”So PLINY [NaturalHistory, 33] observes on the ingratitude of man who repays thedebt he owes the earth for food, by digging out its bowels. “Fire”was used in mining [UMBREIT].English Version is simpler, which means precious stones whichglow like fire; and so Job28:6 follows naturally (Eze28:14).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
[As for] the earth, out of it cometh bread,…. That is, bread corn, or corn of which bread is made particularly wheat; which falling, or being cast into the earth, rises up and brings forth fruit, and, when ground into flour, makes fine bread; and to this same original the psalmist ascribes bread, which strengthens man’s heart, Ps 104:14. The West Indians formerly made their bread of roots of the earth, particularly one called “jucca” b; so Caesar’s soldiers in distress made bread of a root called “chara”, steeped in milk c:
and under it is turned up as it were fire; coal, which is fuel for fire; for, as in the earth are mines for gold and silver, iron and brass, out of which they are dug, or the ore of them, so there is coal under the earth; which, when turned up, or dug, is taken for firing; or brimstone, or sulphureous matter, which is easily inflammable; and sometimes the same earth, the surface of which is covered with corn, out of which bread cometh, underneath are coal, or sulphur, and such like combustible matter: some think precious stones are meant, which glitter and sparkle like fire; see Eze 28:14.
b P. Martyr, Decad 1. l. 1. c Caesar. Comment. Bell. Civil. l. 3. c. 48.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
5 The earth-from it cometh forth bread,
And beneath it is turned up like fire.
6 The place of the sapphire are its stones,
And it containeth gold ore.
7 The way, that no bird of prey knoweth,
And the eye of the hawk hath not gazed at,
8 Which the proud beast of prey hath not trodden,
Over which the lion hath not walked.
Job 28:5 is not to be construed as Rosenm.: ad terram quod attinet, ex qua egreditur panis, quod subtus est subvertitur quasi igne ; nor with Schlottm.: (they swing) in the earth, out of which comes bread, which beneath one turns about with fire; for Job 28:5 is not formed so that the Waw of could be Waw apod., and cannot signify ”in the interior of the earth” as locativus ; on the contrary, it stands in opposition to , that which is beneath the earth, as denoting the surface of the earth (the proper name of which is , from the root , with the primary notion of a flat covering). They are two grammatically independent predicates, the first of which is only the foil of the other: the earth, out of it cometh forth bread ( as Psa 104:14), and beneath it (the surface of the earth) = that which lies beneath it ( only virtually a subj. in the sense of , since occurs only as a preposition), is turned about (comp. the construction of the sing. of the verb with the plur. subj. Job 30:15) as (by) fire Instar ignis, scil. subvertentis ); i.e., the earth above furnishes nourishment to man, but that not satisfying him, he also digs out its inward parts (comp. Pliny, h. n. xxxiii. proaem.: in sede Manium opes quaerimus, tanquam parum benigna fertilique quaqua calcatur ), since this is turned or tossed about (comp. , the special word for the overthrow of Sodom by fire) by mining work, as when fire breaks out in a house, or even as when a volcanic fire rumbles within a mountain (Castalio: agunt per magna spatia cuniculos et terram subeunt non secus ac ignis facet ut in Aetna et Vesuvio ). The reading (Schlottm.) instead of is natural, since fire is really used to blast the rock, and to separate the ore from the stone; but, with the exception of Jerome, who has arbitrarily altered the text ( terra, de qua oriebatur panis in loco suo, igni subversa est ), all the old translations reproduce , which even Nasse, in opposition to von Veltheim, thinks suitable: Man’s restless search, which rummages everything through, is compared to the unrestrainable ravaging fire.
Job 28:6 also consists of two grammatically independent assertions: the place (bed) of the sapphire is its rock. Must we refer to , and translate: “and it contains fine dust of gold” (Hirz., Umbr., Stick., Nasse)? It is possible, for Theophrastus (p. 692, ed. Schneider) says of the sapphire it is , as it were covered with gold dust or grains of gold; and Pliny, h. n. xxxvii. 9, 38f.: Inest ei (cyano) aliquando et aureus pulvis qualis in sapphiris, in iis enim aurum punctis conlucet , which nevertheless does not hold good of the proper sapphire, but of the azure stone ( lapis lazuli ) which is confounded with it, a variegated species of which, with gold, or rather with iron pyrites glittering like gold, is specially valued.
(Note: Comp. Quenstedt, Handbuch der Mineralogie (1863), S. 355 and 302.)
But Schultens rightly observes: vix cerdiderim, illum auratilem pulvisculum sapphiri peculiari mentione dignum ; and Schlottm.: such a collateral definition to , expressed in a special clause (not a relative one), has something awkward about it. On the other hand, is a perfectly suitable appellation of gold ore. “The earth, which is in itself black,” says Diodorus in the passage quoted before, “is interspersed with veins of marble, which is of such pre-eminent whiteness, that its brilliance surpasses everything that glitters, and from it the overseers of the mine prepare gold with a large number of workmen.” And further on, of the heating of this gold ore he says: “the hardest auriferous earth they burn thoroughly in a large fire; thus they make it soft, so that it can be worked by the hand.” is a still more suitable expression for such auriferous earth and ore than for the nuggets of (i.e., unsmelted) of the size of a chestnut, which, according to Diodorus, ii. 50, are obtained in mines in Arabia ( ). But it is inadmissible to refer to man, for the clause would then require to be translated: and gold ore is to him = he has, while it is the rather intended to be said that the interior of the earth has gold ore. is therefore, with Hahn and Schlottm., to be referred to : and this place of the sapphire, it contains gold. The poet might have written but implies that where the sapphire is found, gold is also found. The following (with Dech), together with the following relative clause, is connected with , or even with , which through Job 28:6 is become the chief subj.: the place of the sapphire and of the gold is the rock of the bowels of the earth, – a way, which, etc., i.e., such a place is the interior of the earth, accessible to no living being of the earth’s surface except to man alone. The sight of the bird of prey, the , , and of the , i.e., the hawk or kite, reaches from above far and wide beneath;
(Note: The – says the Talmud b. Chullin, 63 b – is in Babylon, and seeth a carcase in the land of Israel.)
the sons of pride, (also Talmud. arrogance, ferocia , from = Arab. sachasa , to raise one’s self, not: fatness, as Meier, after Arab. sachusa , to be fat, thick), i.e., the beasts of prey, especially the lion, (vid., on Job 4:10, from , Arab. shl , to roar, Arab. of the ass, comp. the Lat. rudere used both of the lion and of the ass), seek the most secret retreat, and shun no danger; but the way by which man presses forward to the treasures of the earth is imperceptible and inaccessible to them.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(5) As for the earth . . .While the ploughman and the reaper till and gather the fruits of the earth on its surface, the miner far below maintains perpetual fires, as also does the volcanic mountain, with its fields and vineyards luxuriant and fertile on its sides.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. Turned up as it were fire Same also in the Septuagint. Pliny has a like thought. Ungrateful man repays the debt he owes the earth for bread (Psa 104:14) by digging out her bowels. The miner probably used fire in his work of excavation, and thus produced effects like those of subterranean fires. In the days of Pliny they broke the rocks with fire and vinegar. Herodotus, (vi, 47,) in his description of “the workings in Thasos” by the Phoenicians, whose home it will be remembered was only about one hundred and eighty miles from Idumaea, states, “that a huge mountain has been turned upside down in the search for ores.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 28:5. As for the earth, out of it, &c. By means of it. Heath; who thinks that the latter part of the verse refers to the bituminous sulphureous countries in the east; the subversion of which produced the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; though it seems probable that the meaning is more general.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Job 28:5 [As for] the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned up as it were fire.
Ver. 5. As for the earth, out of it cometh bread ] That is, grain. Alma Tellus, plentifully yieldeth those precious fruits of hers, as they are called, Jas 5:11 , Fertilis et ferax (Vatab.). These fruits lie hidden in the seed for a season; and so doth likewise fire in the flint (whereof some understand the following words), yet are they brought at length into the light.
And under it is turned up as it were fire
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
out of it: Gen 1:11, Gen 1:12, Gen 1:29, Psa 104:14, Psa 104:15, Isa 28:25-29
fire: Eze 28:13, Eze 28:14
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 28:5-6. As for the earth, out of it cometh bread Out of the surface of the earth man gets herbs and corn, and other kinds of food for his sustenance: and under it is turned up, as it were, fire Lime, to manure and enrich the ground, or coals and brimstone, and other materials of fire: unless, as some suppose, this rather refers to a central fire in the bowels of the earth. The stones of it are the place of sapphires Of precious stones; the sapphire, as one of the most eminent, being put for all the rest. In some parts of the earth the sapphires are mixed with stones, and cut out of them and polished. And it hath The earth containeth; dust of gold Distinct from that gold which is found in the mass; both sorts of gold being found in the earth.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
28:5 [As for] the earth, out of it cometh {e} bread: and under it is turned up as it were fire.
(e) That is, come and underneath is brimstone or coal, which easily conceives fire.