Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 38:16
Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?
16. hast thou entered ] Perhaps, didst thou enter? The whole passage seems under the influence of the first question, Job 38:4, Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Did Job then explore the abysses of the deep, and enter the gates of the underworld? Did he then survey all parts of the new-born world?
walked in the search ] Rather, in the recesses.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
16 17. The deep and the underworld.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? – The word here rendered springs ( nebek), occurs nowhere else in the Scriptures. It is rendered by the Vulgate profunda, the deep parts; and by the Septuagint pegen – fountains. The reference seems to be to the deep fountains at the bottom of the sea, which were supposed to supply it with water. A large portion of the water of the ocean is indeed conveyed to it by rivers and streams that run on the surface of the earth. But it is known, also, that there are fountains at the bottom of the ocean, and in some places the amount of water that flows from them is so great, that its action is perceptible at the surface. One such fountain exists in the Atlantic ocean near the coast of Florida.
Or hast thou walked in the search of the depth? – Or, rather, in the deep places or caverns of the ocean. The word rendered search here ( cheqer), means searching, investigation, and then an object that is to be searched out, and hence, that which is obscure, remote, hidden. Then it may be applied to the deep caverns of the ocean, or the bottom of the sea. This is to man unsearchable. No line has been found long enough to fathom the ocean, and of course what is there is unknown. It is adduced, therefore, with great propriety as a proof of the wisdom of God, that he could look on the deep caverns of the ocean, and was able to search out all that was there. A sentiment similar to this occurs in Homer, when speaking of Atlas:
.
Hoate thalasses;
Pases benthea oiden.
Odyssey Job 1:5.
Who knows the depths of every sea.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 38:16
Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?
or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?
High tides
What a fascination there is about a high tide! Passing through Manchester, I noticed that the railway company were running cheap trips to Blackpool, so that the people might witness the prevailing high tides. We love to see the triumphant march, to hear the shout of many waters. That there are similar tides in the affairs of men the greatest of poets noted long ago. Occasionally, or it may be only once, men are signally favoured by happy conjunctions of circumstances which send them bounding to a coveted haven. The politician achieves an extraordinary popularity, and exults that the flowing tide is with him; commercial men fondly recall years when the ships they sent for gold steadily and swiftly returned with propitious wind and wave. Usually the currents of life are sluggish. The spirit within us also has its spring tides, privileged periods when it transcends the dull levels of ordinary experience, when the billows of God lift it on high and it knows itself caught in irresistible currents of spiritual influence and grace. Most people know that oceanic tides are regulated by the sun and moon, and they know also that when these greater and lesser lights act in conjunction, as they do at new and full moon, the ebb and flow are each considerably increased, producing what we know as spring tides. The moon in her monthly revolution is at one time thousands of miles nearer the earth than she is at another; the sun also is nearer our earth in winter than in summer; and the highest tides are produced when the sun and moon both pull together at a time when each orb is in that part of its path nearest to the earth. The attraction of these orbs and their nearness to our planet have everything to do with the glorious tides we love to witness, although the crowd of trippers may not remember the firmamental cause. And thus the celestial universe governs the tides of the soul. We do not always remember the fact, but the eternal world acts directly upon our spirit, agitating it, setting in motion its faculties and forces, directing its currents to consequences of utmost blessing. There are hours and days when God comes specially near to us, as there are seasons when sun and moon approach near the earth, creating a majestic gathering of the waters. At those wonderful periods of spiritual visitation doubts are dissolved; we see clearly what at other times we miss or see but darkly; we conceive the thoughts and form the purposes which give new nobility to life. There is to the uninstructed mind much that is mysterious and inexplicable in the influence of the stars upon the tides which flow on our coasts, in consequence of the numerous complications–astronomical, meteorological, and geographical–which obscure the laws governing the tides. The greatest philosophers find it difficult, nay, impossible, to explain to the average man the wonderful phenomenon; and the action of the eternal world upon our spirit is a still greater mystery which none may comprehend or explain; but every spiritual man is assured of the fact, and has felt the rapture of extraordinary visitations of grace, when tides of spiritual influence surge through his heart and mind, making everything to live, move, and bloom. How precious are those days when God draws nigh to us, and our spirit is deeply moved! These rising and falling tides of emotion are in many ways most blessed. A soul like a duck pond is not the ideal state; our grandest days are those when mysterious effluences course through every artery of our being. They are days of purification. The mud and debris which would otherwise choke our rivers are cleansed by high tides. These high tides of blessing serve in another way; they free us from various injurious moods and habits which arise in ordinary life and which with ordinary grace we find almost impossible to overcome. Ways of thinking and acting, habits and associations that circumscribe us, that render us shallow, that may prove occasions of stagnation and shipwreck, are easily broken through and destroyed when a great tide of life surges through the soul. These days of spiritual effluxion are also days of power and attainment. What intellectual men strive after in vain during neap tides they reach splendidly in moments of inspiration. Pentecostal times are high-water marks, when the believer letting himself go is carried into higher, wider, and more satisfying experiences and attributes. These seasons of outpouring of love and grace, of pervading fulness, of vital influence penetrating the innermost recesses of the soul, are days of sweet and memorable delight. Andrew Bonar says, I often cannot give praise or thanks in any words but those of such songs as Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty! These are the days of high tides. Blessed days when there is no surf, no mud bank, no weeds, no noxious sights or odours, but when, filled with the Spirit, everything evil is gone from us and everything human and temporal has become beautiful in the light of the Divine, as the tide racing up the beach turns the dull sand into yellow gold and the common pebbles into glittering gems. Let us beware lest in any way we impede the glorious flow when the Spirit comes in as a flood. Scientists teach that the observed tides do not correspond with the times of the moons setting, but that they are always behindhand by a greater or less interval. There is friction, such as is caused by currents flowing past the jagged edges of continents and islands, which more or less retard tidal action; and there is also the conflicting influence of contrary currents. And just so we may retard spiritual action by unbelief, worldliness, and unfaithfulness of life. Let us be sure that we get all that the great tides bring. All the purity they bring, until our soul is like the sea of the Apocalypse, glass mingled with fire. All the power they bring. Our scientists regret the wasted power of the tides, and anticipate the day when the energy now expending itself uselessly on our coasts will be utilised as a motive power. If we trifle away the strong, gracious impulses of Gods Spirit, our life will be bound in shallows and in miseries of weakness, depression, and failure; and many souls are so poor and unhappy because they have omitted to improve those precious visitations of extraordinary grace vouchsafed to all. We cannot tell when we shall be the subjects of these blessed and memorable visitations. Long experience and observation have enabled astronomers to overcome all the difficulties implied in solving the actual problem of the tides, and they put at the service of mariners and others accurate tables of tides and tidal currents, in addition to the times of high and low water for every part of the civilised world. But we cannot thus calculate the inflowing of the Divine tides upon the souls of men. All great artists and poets testify to the apparent arbitrariness of their inspiration. The heart is strangely warmed in an unexpected hour; the air suddenly becomes clear, and things unseen display themselves, with strong, commanding evidence. We cannot command these seasons; if we fail to improve them we cannot recall them. When the set time to favour Zion is come, there are unmistakable signs of the present Lord; when the set time to favour any soul is come, there are solemn and yet delightful agitations within that soul. Let us be tremulously alive to these tides which bear us out to God. If we are busy here and there, the Spirit will be gone and the infinite blessings of the full sea lost. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 16. Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?] Of these springs, inlets, or outlets of the sea, we know just as much as Job. There was prevalent among philosophers an opinion, that through a porous bottom fresh matter was constantly oozing by which the sea was supplied with new materials. But through such pores these materials might as well ooze out as ooze in.
Walked in the search of the depth?] Hast thou walked from the shallow beach through the great ocean’s bed, till thou hast arrived at its profoundest depths? In other words, Dost thou know the depths of the sea? Job, we may presume, did not. No man since him has found them out. In multitudes of places they are unfathomed by any means hitherto used by man.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The springs, Heb. the tears, i.e. the several springs out of which the waters of the sea flow as tears do from the eyes. Hast thou found out the utmost depth and bottom of the sea, which in divers places could never be reached by the wisest mariner, or the longest cables? And how then canst thou fathom the depths of my counsels?
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
16. springsfountains beneaththe sea (Psa 95:4; Psa 95:5).
searchRather, “theinmost recesses”; literally, “that which is only found bysearching,” the deep caverns of ocean.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?…. The subterraneous passages through which the waters flow into the sea and supply it; or the springs and fountains that rise up at the bottom of it i; and some tell us of springs of sweet water that rise there, even though the water at the bottom of the sea is saltier than on the surface k: some render it “the drops of the sea” l; hast thou considered them and counted them? art thou able to do it? no: others the “perplexities” of it m, so the Targum, the word being used in this sense, Ex 14:3; the thickets of it; some speak of woods and forests in it, [See comments on Ex 10:19]; others “rocks” and shelves n, and others the “borders” of it o; and the sense then is, hast thou entered into and travelled through the main ocean, observed the forests in it, the shelving rocks and sandy mountains in it, and gone to the utmost borders of it?
or hast thou walked in the search of the depth? to find out the deepest place of it, where no sounding line can reach p; or walked in quest of the curiosities of it, animals, plants and minerals, unknown to men; or of the riches that lie at the bottom of it, for which now the diving bell is used, but not invented and known in the times of Job; and if Job had not done and could not do all this, how should he be able to enter into the secret springs of Providence, or trace the ways of God, whose way is in the sea, and whose paths are in the great waters, and his footsteps not known? Ps 77:19.
i According to Dr. Plot, the principal fountains have their origin, and are supplied with water through subterraneous passages from the sea. De Origine Fontium, c. apud Act. Erudit. Lips. A. M. 1685. p. 538. See Gen vii. 11. k Vid. Scheucbzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 4. p. 803. l “guttas maris”, Tigurine version, Grotius. m “Perplexitates maris”, Munster. n “Scopulos maris”, Michaelis “salebrosa maris”, Schultens. o So Jarchi. p For though the greatest depth of the sea is said by Fabianus (apud Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 2, c. 102.) to be fifteen furlongs, or near two miles, this must be understood of that part of it which is fathomable and nearer land. But such as those, called Bathea Ponti, the depths of the Pontus, and are almost three hundred furlongs from the continent, they are said (Plin. ib.) to be of an immense depth, and the bottom not to be found. And if the Sardinian sea, the deepest in the Mediterranean (Aristot. Meteorolog. l. 2, c. 1.) is a thousand orgies or fathoms deep, (Posidonius apud Strabo. Geograph. l. 1, p. 37.) that is, one mile and a fifth, what must the depth of the vast ocean be?
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
16 Hast thou reached the fountains of the sea,
And hast thou gone into the foundation of the deep?
17 Were the gates of death unveiled to thee,
And didst thou see the gates of the realm of shades?
18 Hast thou comprehended the breadth of the earth?
Speak, in so far as thou knowest all this!
19 Which is the way to where the light dwelleth,
And darkness, where is its place,
20 That thou mightest bring it to its bound,
And that thou mightest know the paths of its house?
21 Thou knowest it, for then wast thou born,
And the number of thy days is great! –
The root has the primary notion of obtruding itself upon the senses (vid., Genesis, S. 635), whence in Arabic of a rising country that pleases the eye ( nabaka, a hill, a hillside), and here (cognate in root and meaning , Syr. Talmud. , Arab. nbg , nbt , scatuirire ) of gushing and bubbling water. Hitzig’s conjecture, approved by Olsh., , sets aside a word that is perfectly clear so far as the language is concerned. On vid., on Job 11:7. The question put to Job in Job 38:17, he must, according to his own confession, Job 26:6, answer in the negative. In order to avoid the collision of two aspirates, the interrogative is wanting before , Ew. 324, b; signifies, according to Job 32:12, to observe anything carefully; the meaning of the question therefore is, whether Job has given special attention to the breadth of the earth, and whether he consequently has a comprehensive and thorough knowledge of it. refers not to the earth (Hahn, Olsh., and others), but, as neuter, to the preceding points of interrogation. The questions, Job 38:19, refer to the principles of light and darkness, i.e., their final causes, whence they come forth as cosmical phenomena. is a relative clause, Ges. 123, 3, c; the noun that governs (the Regens) this virtual genitive, which ought in Arabic to be without the art. as being determined by the regens, is, according to the Hebrew syntax, which is freer in this respect, (comp. Ges. 110, 2). That which is said of the bound of darkness, i.e., the furthest point at which darkness passes away, and the paths to its house, applies also to the light, which the poet perhaps has even prominently (comp. Job 24:13) before his mind: light and darkness have a first cause which is inaccessible to man, and beyond his power of searching out. The admission in Job 38:21 is ironical: Verily! thou art as old as the beginning of creation, when light and darkness, as powers of nature which are distinguished and bounded the one by the other (vid., Job 26:10), were introduced into the rising world; thou art as old as the world, so that thou hast an exact knowledge of its and thine own contemporaneous origin (vid., Job 15:7). On the fut. joined with htiw denioj . regularly in the signification of the aorist, vid., Ew. 134, b. The attraction in connection with is like Job 15:20; Job 21:21.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(16) The search of the depthi.e., the secret recesses of it. The springs of the sea are rather, perhaps, the mazes, intricacies, &c. of the trackless, pathless deep. This leads to the cognate thought of the bottomless pit of death (Job. 38:17).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Second long strophe QUESTIONS ARE PROPOUNDED CONCERNING THE PENETRALIA OF NATURE THE HIDDEN AND INACCESSIBLE DEPTHS EVEN THE PRIMORDIA OF HER COMMONEST ELEMENTS AND FORCES, Job 38:16-27.
This second long strophe descants upon the attribute of wisdom, with the closely allied attribute of omniscience.
. The knower of all things must have explored the fountains of the sea; have seen the gates of death unveiled; and com-passed the breadths of the earth, Job 38:16-18.
16. The search : the recesses. Same as in Job 11:7, which see. Compare 2Es 4:7-8; 2Es 8:8.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
God’s Majesty in the Forces of NatuRev. 16. Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea, the great fountains of the deep, Genesis 7, 11? Or hast thou walked in the search of the depth, to examine the ocean’s bottom and discover its secrets?
v. 17. Have the gates of death been opened unto thee, v. 18. Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth, v. 19. Where is the way where light dwelleth? v. 20. that thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof, v. 21. Knowest thou it because thou wast then born? v. 22. Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? v. 23. which I have reserved against the time of trouble, v. 24. By what way is the light parted, v. 25. Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, v. 26. to cause it to rain on the earth where no man is, v. 27. to satisfy the desolate and waste ground,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Job 38:16. Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? Hast thou been at the sources of the sea? Hast thou traversed the depths of the abyss? Heath.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Job 38:16 Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?
Ver. 16. Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? ] Heb. into the tears of the sea, Usque ad plorata maris, Job 28:11 ; for springs pour out water as eyes do tears; and the same Hebrew word signifieth an eye and a spring; because, saith one, the eye is of a watery constitution; or to show that from it, as from a spring or fountain, did flow both sin itself, the cause of sin, and misery, the punishment of both: and because by it came the greatest hurt, therefore God hath placed in it the greatest tokens of sorrow: iisdem quibus videmus oculis flemus. Now, if Job cannot fathom the sea, much less can he the deep counsels of God.
Or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
search = secret.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Job 38:16-18
Job 38:16-18
REGARDING DEATH; SHEOL; AND THE SIZE OF THE EARTH
“Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?
Or hast thou walked in the recesses of the deep?
Have the gates of death been revealed unto thee?
Or hast thou seen the gates of the shadow of death?
Hast thou comprehended the earth in its breadth?
Declare if thou knowest it all.”
Yes, indeed, today, men have measured the breadth of theJob 38:22 iscovered its distance from the sun, weighed it, mapped it, explored most of it, etc.; but what about Job 38:17? Today, men are just as ignorant as was Job regarding what it is like one minute after death. In all of the really important things men are today just as hopelessly surroRev 16:21 darkness as was Job. Are we conscious after death? Isaiah 45 there be a resurrection? How did our human race begin? In all of such questions, the only answer must be sought within the pages of the Holy Bible, and nowhere else.
E.M. Zerr:
Job 38:16. Someone might answer that man has walked on the bottom of the sea. Yes, but it had not been done in the time of Job, yet the things that are found now were there when man first reached the depths.
Job 38:17. Man knows that he must die yet has no explanation for it. If there is no higher power than man he should know as much about death as he does of life.
Job 38:18-20. This takes the same comments as Job 38:12-13.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
the springs: Psa 77:19, Pro 8:24, Jer 51:36
walked: Job 26:5, Job 26:6
Reciprocal: 2Sa 14:20 – to know Job 28:3 – the stones Job 41:32 – deep
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 38:16. Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea Hebrew, , nibchee jam, Fletus, qui, ex maris profunditatibus currunt, ut lacrym ex occulis. Schindler: the springs which flow from the depths of the sea, as tears from mens eyes: the several sources from which the waters of the sea proceed. Heath renders it, Hast thou been at the sources of the sea? and the next clause he translates, Hast thou traversed the depth of the abyss? Hast thou found out the utmost depth of the sea; which, in divers places, could never be reached by the wisest mariner? And how then canst thou fathom the depths of my counsels?
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
38:16 Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the {m} depth?
(m) If you are not able to seek out the depth of the sea, how much less are you able to comprehend the counsel of God?