Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 38:12
Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; [and] caused the dayspring to know his place;
12. since thy days ] i. e. since thou wast born, all thy life. The question, naturally, implies the other query, whether Job be coeval with the dawn?
the dayspring ] i. e. the dawn.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
12 15. The dawn that daily overspreads the earth.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days – That is, in thy lifetime hast thou ordered the light of the morning to shine, and directed its beams over the world? God appeals to this as one of the proofs of his majesty and power – and who can look upon the spreading light of the morning and be insensible to the force and beauty of the appeal? The transition from the ocean to the morning may have been partly because the light of the morning is one of the striking exhibitions of the power of God, and partly because in the creation of the world the light of the sun was made to dawn soon after the gathering together of the waters into seas; see Gen 1:10, Gen 1:14. The phrase since thy days, implies that the laws determining the rising of the sun were fixed long before the time of Job. It is asked whether this had been done since he had an existence, and whether he had an agency in effecting it – implying that it was an ancient and established ordinance long before he was born.
Caused the day-spring to know his place – The day-spring ( shachar) means the aurora, the dawn, the morning. The mention of its place here seems to be an allusion to the fact that it does not always occupy the same position. At one season of the year it appears on the equator, at another north, and at another south of it, and is constantly varying its position. Yet it always knows its place. It never fails to appear where by the long-observed laws it ought to appear. It is regular in its motions, and is evidently under the control of an intelligent Being, who has fixed the laws of its appearing.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 12. Hast thou commanded the morning] This refers to dawn or morning twilight, occasioned by the refraction of the solar rays by means of the atmosphere; so that we receive the light by degrees, which would otherwise burst at once upon our eyes, and injure, if not destroy, our sight; and by which even the body of the sun himself becomes evident several minutes before he rises above the horizon.
Caused the dayspring to know his place] This seems to refer to the different points in which daybreak appears during the course of the earth’s revolution in its orbit; and which variety of points of appearing depends on this annual revolution. For, as the earth goes round the sun every year in the ecliptic, one half of which is on the north side of the equinoctial, and the other half on its south side, the sun appears to change his place every day. These are matters which the wisdom of God alone could plan, and which his power alone could execute.
It may be just necessary to observe that the dawn does not appear, nor the sun rise exactly in the same point of the horizon, two successive days in the whole year, as he declines forty-three degrees north, and forty-three degrees south, of east; beginning on the 21st of March, and ending on the 22d of December; which variations not only produce the places of rising and setting, but also the length of day and night. And by this declination north and south, or approach to and recession from the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, the solar light takes hold of the ends of the earth, Job 38:13, enlightens the arctic and antarctic circles in such a way as it would not do were it always on the equinoctial line; these tropics taking the sun twenty-three and a half degrees north, and as many south, of this line.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The morning, i.e. the morning light, or the sun, which is the cause of it. Didst thou create the sun, and appoint the order and succession of day and night?
Since thy days; since thou wast born. This work was not done by thee, but by me, and that long before thou wast born.
To know his place; to observe the punctual time when, and the point of the heavens where, it should arise; which varies every day. Was this thy contrivance or mine?
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
12-15. Passing from creation tophenomena in the existing inanimate world.
Hast thouas God dailydoes.
commanded the morningtorise.
since thy dayssincethou hast come into being.
his placeIt varies inits place of rising from day to day, and yet it has its place eachday according to fixed laws.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days;…. Job had lived to see many a morning, but it never was in his power to command one; he had been in such circumstances as to wish for morning light before it was, but was obliged to wait for it, could not hasten it, or cause it to spring before its time; see Job 7:3; one of the Targums is,
“wast thou in the days of the first creation, and commandedst the morning to be?”
he was not, God was; he was before the first morning, and commanded it into being, Ge 1:3;
[and] caused the dayspring to know his place; the first spring of light or dawn of day; which though it has a different place every day in the year, as the sun ascends or descends in the signs of the Zodiac, yet it knows and observes its exact place, being taught of God.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
12 Hast thou in thy life commanded a morning,
Caused the dawn to know its place,
13 That it may take hold of the ends of the earth,
So that the evil-doers are shaken under it?
14 That it changeth like the clay of a signet-ring,
And everything fashioneth itself as a garment.
15 Their light is removed from the evil-doers,
And the out-stretched arm is broken.
The dawn of the morning, spreading out from one point, takes hold of the carpet of the earth as it were by the edges, and shakes off from it the evil-doers, who had laid themselves to rest upon it the night before. , combining in itself the significations to thrust and to shake, has the latter here, as in the Arab. naura , a water-wheel, which fills its compartments below in the river, to empty them out above. Instead of with He otians, the Keri substitutes . The earth is the subj. to Job 38:14: the dawn is like the signet-ring, which stamps a definite impress on the earth as the clay, the forms which floated in the darkness of the night become visible and distinguishable. The subj. to Job 38:14 are not morning and dawn (Schult.), still less the ends of the earth (Ew. with the conjecture: , “they become dazzlingly white”), but the single objects on the earth: the light of morning gives to everything its peculiar garb of light, so that, hitherto overlaid by a uniform darkness, they now come forth independently, they gradually appear in their variegated diversity of form and hue. In , is conceived as accusative (Arab. kema libasan , or thauban ), while in (Psa 104:6, instar vestis ) it would be genitive. To the end of the strophe everything is under the logical government of the of purpose in Job 38:13. The light of the evil-doers is, according to Job 24:17, the darkness of the night, which is for them in connection with their works what the light of day is for other men. The sunrise deprives them, the enemies of light in the true sense (Job 24:13), of this light per antiphrasin , and the carrying out of their evil work, already prepared for, is frustrated. The of , Job 38:13 and Job 38:15, is [ Ayin suspensum, ] which is explained according to the Midrash thus: the , now (rich), become at a future time (poor); or: God deprives them of the (light of the eye), by abandoning them to the darkness which they loved.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Works of God. | B. C. 1520. |
12 Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know his place; 13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it? 14 It is turned as clay to the seal; and they stand as a garment. 15 And from the wicked their light is withholden, and the high arm shall be broken. 16 Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth? 17 Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death? 18 Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest it all. 19 Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof, 20 That thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldest know the paths to the house thereof? 21 Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born? or because the number of thy days is great? 22 Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, 23 Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war? 24 By what way is the light parted, which scattereth the east wind upon the earth?
The Lord here proceeds to ask Job many puzzling questions, to convince him of his ignorance, and so to shame him for his folly in prescribing to God. If we will but try ourselves with such interrogatories as these, we shall soon be brought to own that what we know is nothing in comparison with what we know not. Job is here challenged to give an account of six things:–
I. Of the springs of the morning, the day-spring from on high, v. 12-15. As there is no visible being of which we may be more firmly assured that it is, so there is none which we are more puzzled in describing, nor more doubtful in determining what it is, than the light. We welcome the morning, and are glad of the day-spring; but, 1. It is not commanded since our days, but what it is it was long before we were born, so that it was neither made by us nor designed primarily for us, but we take it as we find it and as the many generations had it that went before us. The day-spring knew its place before we knew ours, for we are but of yesterday. 2. It was not we, it was not any man that commanded the morning-light at first, or appointed the place of its springing up and shining forth, or the time of it. The constant and regular succession of day and night was no contrivance of ours; it is the glory of God that it shows, and his handy work, not ours, Psa 19:1; Psa 19:2. 3. It is quite out of our power to alter this course: “Hast thou countermanded the morning since thy days? Hast thou at any time raised the morning light sooner than its appointed time, to serve thy purpose when thou hast waited for the morning, or ordered the day-spring for thy convenience to any other place than its own? No, never. Why then wilt thou pretend to direct the divine counsels, or expect to have the methods of Providence altered in favour of thee?” We may as soon break the covenant of the day and of the night as any part of God’s covenant with his people, and particularly this, I will chasten them with the rod of men. 4. It is God that has appointed the day-spring to visit the earth, and diffuses the morning light through the air, which receives it as readily as the clay does the seal (v. 14), immediately admitting the impressions of it, so as of a sudden to be all over enlightened by it, as the seal stamps its image on the wax; and they stand as a garment, or as if they were clothed with a garment. The earth puts on a new face every morning, and dresses itself as we do, puts on light as a garment, and is then to be seen. 5. This is made a terror to evil-doers. Nothing is more comfortable to mankind than the light of the morning; it is pleasant to the eyes, it is serviceable to life and the business of it, and the favour of it is universally extended, for it takes hold of the ends of the earth (v. 13), and we should dwell, in our hymns to the light, on its advantages to the earth. But God here observes how unwelcome it is to those that do evil, and therefore hate the light. God makes the light a minister of his justice as well as of his mercy. It is designed to shake the wicked out of the earth, and for that purpose it takes hold of the ends of it, as we take hold of the ends of a garment to shake the dust and moths out of it. Job had observed what a terror the morning light is to criminals, because it discovers them (ch. xxiv. 13, c.), and God here seconds the observation, and asks him whether the world was indebted to him for that kindness? No, the great Judge of the world sends forth the beams of the morning light as his messengers to detect criminals, that they may not only be defeated in their purposes and put to shame, but that they may be brought to condign punishment (<i>v. 15), that their light may be withholden from them (that is, that they may lose their comfort, their confidence, their liberties, their lives) and that their high arm, which they have lifted up against God and man, may be broken, and they deprived of their power to do mischief. Whether what is here said of the morning light was designed to represent, as in a figure, the light of the gospel of Christ, and to give a type of it, I will not say; but I am sure it may serve to put us in mind of the encomiums given to the gospel just at the rising of its morning-star by Zecharias in his Benedictus (Luke i. 78, By the tender mercy of our God the day-spring from on high has visited us, to give light to those that sit in darkness, whose hearts are turned to it as clay to the seal, 2 Cor. iv. 6), and by the virgin Mary in her Magnificat (Luke i. 51), showing that God, in his gospel, has shown strength with his arm, scattered the proud, and put down the mighty, by that light by which he designed to shake the wicked, to shake wickedness itself out of the earth, and break its high arm.
II. Of the springs of the sea (v. 16): “Hast thou entered into them, or hast thou walked in the search of the depth? Knowest thou what lies in the bottom of the sea, the treasures there hidden in the sands? Or canst thou give an account of the rise and original of the waters of the sea? Vapours are continually exhaled out of the sea. Dost thou know how the recruits are raised by which it is continually supplied? Rivers are constantly poured into the sea. Dost thou know how they are continually discharged, so as not to overflow the earth? Art thou acquainted with the secret subterraneous passages by which the waters circulate?” God’s way in the government of the world is said to be in the sea, and in the great waters (Ps. lxxvii. 19), intimating that it is hidden from us and not to be pried into by us.
III. Of the gates of death: Have these been open to thee? v. 16. Death is a grand secret. 1. We know not beforehand when, and how, and by what means, we or others shall be brought to death, by what road we must go the way whence we shall not return, what disease or what disaster will be the door to let us into the house appointed for all living. Man knows not his time. 2. We cannot describe what death is, how the knot is untied between body and soul, nor how the spirit of a man goes upward (Eccl. iii. 21), to be we know not what and live we know not how, as Mr. Norris expresses; with what dreadful curiosity (says he) does the soul launch out into the vast ocean of eternity and resign to an untried abyss! Let us make it sure that the gates of heaven shall be opened to us on the other side death, and then we need not fear the opening of the gates of death, though it is a way we are to go but once. 3. We have no correspondence at all with separate souls, nor any acquaintance with their state. It is an unknown undiscovered region to which they are removed; we can neither hear from them nor send to them. While we are here, in a world of sense, we speak of the world of spirits as blind men do of colours, and when we remove thither we shall be amazed to find how much we are mistaken.
IV. Of the breadth of the earth (v. 18): Hast thou perceived that? The knowledge of this might seem most level to him and within his reach; yet he is challenged to declare this if he can. We have our residence on the earth, God has given it to the children of men. But who ever surveyed it, or could give an account of the number of its acres? It is but a point to the universe? yet, small as it is, we cannot be exact in declaring the dimensions of it. Job had never sailed round the world, nor any before him; so little did men know the breadth of the earth that it was but a few ages ago that the vast continent of America was discovered, which had, time out of mind, lain hidden. The divine perfection is longer than the earth and broader than the sea; it is therefore presumption for us, who perceive not the breadth of the earth, to dive into the depth of God’s counsels.
V. Of the place and way of light and darkness. Of the day-spring he had spoken before (v. 12) and he returns to speak of it again (v. 19): Where is the way where light dwells? And again (v. 24): By what way is the light parted? He challenges him to describe, 1. How the light and darkness were at first made. When God, in the beginning, first spread darkness upon the face of the deep, and afterwards commanded the light to shine out of darkness, by that mighty word, Let there be light, was Job a witness to the order, to the operation? can he tell where the fountains of light and darkness are, and where those mighty princes keep their courts distance, while in one world they rule alternately? Though we long ever so much either for the shining forth of the morning or the shadows of the evening, we know not whither to send, or go, to fetch them, nor can tell the paths to the house thereof, v. 20. We were not then born, nor is the number of our days so great that we can describe the birth of that first-born of the visible creation, v. 21. Shall we then undertake to discourse of God’s counsels, which were from eternity, or to find out the paths to the house thereof, to solicit for the alteration of them? God glories in it that he forms the light and creates the darkness; and if we must take those as we find them, take those as they come, and quarrel with neither, but make the best of both, then we must, in like manner, accommodate ourselves to the peace and the evil which God likewise created. Isa. xlv. 7. 2. How they still keep their turns interchangeably. It is God that makes the outgoings of the morning and of the evening to rejoice (Ps. lxv. 8); for it is his order, and no order of ours, that is executed by the outgoings of the morning light and the darkness of the night. We cannot so much as tell whence they come nor whither they go (v. 24): By what way is the light parted in the morning, when, in an instant, it shoots itself into all the parts of the air above the horizon, as if the morning light flew upon the wings of an east wind, so swiftly, so strongly, is it carried, scattering the darkness of the night, as the east wind does the clouds? Hence we read of the wings of the morning (Ps. cxxxix. 9), on which the light is conveyed to the uttermost parts of the sea, and scattered like an east wind upon the earth. It is a marvellous change that passes over us every morning by the return of the light and every evening by the return of the darkness; but we expect them, and so they are no surprise nor uneasiness to us. If we would, in like manner, reckon upon changes in our outward condition, we should neither in the brightest noon expect perpetual day nor in the darkest midnight despair of the return of the morning. God has set the one over against the other, like the day and night; and so must we, Eccl. vii. 14.
VI. Of the treasures of the snow and hail (Job 38:22; Job 38:23): “Hast thou entered into these and taken a view of them?” In the clouds the snow and hail are generated, and thence they come in such abundance that one would think there were treasures of them laid up in store there, whereas indeed they are produced extempore—suddenly, as I may say, and pro re nata—for the occasion. Sometimes they come so opportunely, to serve the purposes of Providence, in God’s fighting for his people and against his and their enemies, that one would think they were laid up as magazines, or stores of arms, ammunition, and provisions, against the time of trouble, the day of battle and war, when God will either contend with the world in general (as in the deluge, when the windows of heaven were opened, and the waters fetched out of these treasures to drown a wicked world, that waged war with Heaven) or with some particular persons or parties, as when God out of these treasures fetched great hail-stones wherewith to fight against the Canaanites, Josh. x. 11. See what folly it is to strive against God, who is thus prepared for battle and war, and how much it is our interest to make our peace with him and to keep ourselves in his love. God can fight as effectually with snow and hail, if he please, as with thunder and lightning or the sword of an angel!
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
(12) And caused the dayspring to know his place.Changing, as it does, from day to day with the changing seasons.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
c. If so be Job was not in being when the foundations of the world were laid, perhaps he has, during his short life, shown his power and skill in carrying on the works of nature; has, at least once, spread forth upon the earth the light of the morn, causing the aurora to know its place; and thereby, to a certain extent, wielded the moral government of the world, Job 38:12-15.
12. Hast thou commanded the morning “A morning,” . Since the creation of the earth God has, uncounted times, commanded the morning to arise at its time; has Job since his birth (literally “from thy days”) commanded one morning to break ( bakar) the darkness of the night.
Dayspring This word ( ) is rendered “day,” Job 3:9, on which see note.
To know his place “This seems to refer to the different points in which daybreak appears during the course of the earth’s revolution in its orbit; and which variety of points of appearing depends on this annual revolution. For as the earth goes round the sun every year in the ecliptic, one half of which is on the north side of the equinoctial, and the other half on its south side, the sun appears to change its place every day.” ( A. Clarke.) The aurora changes its place according to unerring law, in march and countermarch so exact, that like an intelligent being, it may be said from long association to “know its place.” See note on Job 7:10. Perhaps the so great knowledge of Job may have been by some means communicated to the fleeting, insubstantial, but beauteous, morn, ( Shahhar, to shine,) so that, like him, it deviates not from the right, though it may constantly remove its place!! As respects processes of nature, the Semitic mind, from its earliest records, manifested implicit faith in their permanence, for the obvious reason that they are but the out-goings of the Divine Being, (Psa 65:8-11😉 so much so that even the dawn stands as an abiding emblem of the divine faithfulness, for, “His rising is fixed [ nakon, ] like the morning dawn.” Hos 6:3. See note, Job 42:7. On the other hand, to the early Aryan mind everything in nature was fanciful and capricious. “The Titanic assurance with which we [Aryans, enlightened by a divine revelation] say the sun must rise, was unknown to the early worshippers of nature. It seems to us childish when we read in the Veda such expressions as ‘ Will the sun rise?’ ‘ Will our old friend, the dawn, come back again?’ ‘ Will the power of darkness be conquered by the God of light?’” MAX MULLER Chips, etc., 2:93-100.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 38:12 Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; [and] caused the dayspring to know his place;
Ver. 12. Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days ] It may be thou wilt say, These are ancient things, done long before I was born; but ask me of things within my reach and remembrance. Well, then, what sayest thou to the sunrising? Hast thou either lengthened or hastened it at any time since thou wert born, causing it to rise at such or such an hour, in such or such a point of heaven, according to the various degrees and situations of the zodiac? No; this is more than ever any man could do. “The day is thine, the night also is thine,” saith David: “thou hast prepared the light and the sun. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter,” Psa 74:16-17 . If all the emperors and potentates of the earth should conjoin their threes to hinder or hasten the rising of the sun, they could never do it. Joshua did indeed stop the course of the sun; but that was by the power of God set awork by his faithful prayer; whence one crieth out, O admirabilem piarum precum vim ac poteutiam, quibus etiam coelestia cedunt! Oh the admirable power of prayer, force of faith, which is such as the visible heavens are sensible of, and giveth way to! how then should earth or hell stand before it?
And caused the dayspring to know his place the morning. See the Alternation below, verses: Job 38:12-14.
Job 38:12-15
Job 38:12-15
WONDERS OF MORNING; THE DAYSPRING; AND ENDS OF THE EARTH
“Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days began,
And caused the dayspring to know its place;
That it might take hold of the ends of the earth,
And the wicked be shaken out of it?
It is changed as clay under the seal;
And all things stand forth as a garment:
And from the wicked their light is withholden,
And the high arm is broken.”
“That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it” (Job 38:13). These words are, in part, ambiguous. Pope’s rendition here seems to give a hint that there is a reference to the Deluge. “Did you ever … snatch off the Earth’s skirts, shaking the wicked out of it?”
E.M. Zerr:
Job 38:12. Man can time the recurrence of daylight but he is powerless to lengthen or shorten the day.
Job 38:13. It stands for the dayspring or dawn mentioned in the preceding verse. It takes hold or reaches to the ends of the earth. Wicked might be shaken means that the darkness is chased away by the daylight and that deprives the wicked of their chance to operate. (Job 24:16-17.)
Job 38:14. It undoubtedly stands for the earth in the preceding verse. The pronoun is used in that verse after the mention of the earth and again in this one. The verse means that the earth turns just as we know it to do. The statement was made to explain God’s method of alternating the day and night. They refers to the limits surrounding the earth, such as the sky that stands round the earth as a garment.
Job 38:15. This has the same thought as Job 38:13 and Job 24:16-17.
commanded: Gen 1:5, Psa 74:16, Psa 136:7, Psa 136:8, Psa 148:3-5
since: Job 38:4, Job 38:21, Job 8:9, Job 15:7
the dayspring: Luk 1:78, 2Pe 1:19
Reciprocal: Gen 1:14 – Let there Gen 1:17 – General Job 9:7 – sealeth Job 24:16 – they know Job 25:3 – upon whom Job 38:19 – the way Job 38:24 – General Job 38:33 – canst Psa 65:8 – outgoings Psa 104:19 – General Amo 5:8 – and turneth
Job 38:12-13. Hast thou commanded the morning? That is, the morning light, or the sun, which is the cause of it. Didst thou create the sun, and appoint the order and succession of day and night. Since thy days Since thou wast born: this work was done long before thou wast born. And caused the day-spring to know its place To observe the punctual time when, and the point of the heavens where it should arise; which varies every day. That it might take hold of the ends of the earth That this morning light should in a moment spread itself from one end of the hemisphere to the other. That the wicked might be shaken out of it From the face of the earth. And this effect the morning light hath upon the wicked, because it discovers them, whereas darkness hides them; and because it brings them to condign punishment, the morning being the usual time for executing judgment.
38:12 Hast thou commanded the {i} morning since thy days; [and] caused the dayspring to know his place;
(i) That is, to rise, since you were born?
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes